Exit-readiness advisory
Most owners start preparing to sell about two years too late.
Appleton Strategic works with owner-managed businesses over the three-to-five years before an exit — building a company worth buying, then running the sale through to completion.
Value asks what the business is worth today. Saleability asks whether a buyer can step into it without you. Those are different questions, and the gap between them is where the work is.
How it works
One continuum, not a last-minute scramble
Selling a business well isn't a single event. It's the outcome of years of decisions taken with an eventual buyer in mind.
Prepare
Three to five years out. We look at the business the way a buyer's diligence team will, and fix what they'd find — management depth, clean numbers, documented contracts, key-person risk.
Position
Twelve months out. Package the story and the data room, understand your value drivers, and identify who would realistically buy the business and why.
Sell
Going to market. Buyer approach, negotiation and deal management through to completion — run as a process, from strength, with nobody chipping at the price while you catch up.
What moves the number
Six things a buyer weighs before they name a price
A business can throw off healthy profit and still be a hard sell. These are the levers that decide the multiple.
Growth trend
Where revenue has gone over three years, and where it's heading.
Gross margin
Whether margins hold as the business grows, or leak as it scales.
Recurring revenue
How much repeats each month versus getting won fresh.
Client retention
How many clients leave each year — and why.
Client concentration
Whether any single client could sink the business.
Owner dependency
Whether it runs without you in the room on a Friday at 5pm.
Services
Where an adviser earns their keep
Exit Readiness Review
A structured look at your business the way a buyer's diligence team would — what's ready, what isn't, and what it's costing you.
Preparing to Sell
The work between now and going to market: clean financials, documented contracts, management depth, and a data room that holds up.
Business Sales
Taking the business to market and running the process to completion — buyer approach, negotiation, and deal management.
Valuation & the Multiple
What your business is worth today, what moves the number, and the gap between an owner's price and a buyer's.
Buyer Identification
Who would realistically buy your business, why, and how to shape it towards what those buyers actually pay for.
Free tool
How exit-ready is your business?
Five questions across the areas a buyer's diligence team tests. Get a score and a short written read on where the gaps are.
Engagement example
Project Anvil
An anonymised look at a precision-engineering business taken from first review to a confidential go-to-market — what was ready, what wasn't, and how the gaps were closed before a buyer ever saw them.
Read the example- £3.1m
- Turnover
- 17.4%
- Adj. EBITDA margin
- 85%+
- Revenue from 5-year clients
It pays to have someone in your corner who's done it before.
A first conversation is free and confidential. No pitch — just an honest read on where the business stands.
Book a discovery call