Many owners tell me: “I don’t go to the office anymore, the business runs itself.” From a buyer’s perspective, that’s only the beginning of real succession, not the end. For a company to live beyond its founder, it has to become a transferable, stand-alone asset — not a story that exists only in one person’s head.
For many SME owners, the first milestone is to “get out of the day-to-day”:
They don’t sign every invoice.
They visit the office less often.
The team “knows what to do”.
This feels like freedom — and it is deserved. But for a buyer, it is not enough.
From the buyer side, we often see a different picture: key suppliers still call the owner directly for exceptions, several major clients say, “We work with Mr Kowalski, not with the company,” and the sales pipeline sits in the owner’s phone and email, not in a CRM.
On the surface, the owner is “out of operations”. In reality, the control centre is still in their head. For an investor-operator who will finance the deal with bank debt and then live with the company for years, this is a clear risk, not a sign of readiness.
When I look at a potential acquisition, I use three simple lenses:
Financial lens – is there stable EBITDA and cash flow?
Operational lens – are there processes, a team and a basic management system?
Succession lens – can we change the owner without shocking the company?
All three matter, but the third one is often underestimated.
Financially, a buyer looks for several years of stable or gently growing revenue, a healthy EBITDA margin (profit from operations before interest, tax and depreciation) and cash flow that can realistically support loan repayments.
If the company earns around €250–300k EBITDA every year, that’s a good starting point. But if this EBITDA is based on personal discounts or informal side deals tied to the owner, it becomes fragile the moment the owner steps away.
Here the questions are basic but critical:
Who decides on pricing, discounts and major customer terms?
Where do we see the pipeline, backlog and capacity — in a system, or in someone’s memory?
Are there 1–2 key people who can run the business day-to-day, or only the owner?
A buyer who plans to manage through a professional manager needs to see a machine that can be explained and handed over, not a black box.
This lens is specific:
Can we introduce a new owner to clients and suppliers without them panicking?
Will key staff stay, or are they loyal only to you as a person?
Are contracts written in a way that survives a change of control?
Is there a “second line” of managers who already make decisions today?
The critical question for any investor-operator is simple:
What will this business look like 3–6 months after the current owner is truly gone?
If revenue, team and key contracts survive that period intact, the business is transferable. If everything depends on you “just staying a bit longer”, it is not.
From a buyer’s perspective, the most sensitive phase is the first half-year after your real exit. That is when we see whether clients stay, the team holds together and informal rules survive without you. If your personal presence is still the glue, we have to price in a big risk discount, ask for heavy earn-outs, or simply walk away. If the company already works without your daily involvement, the discussion about price and structure becomes much easier.
Real preparation for handover is rarely dramatic. It is a series of deliberate, practical steps that turn a founder-centric company into a company-centric one.
A buyer does not expect a perfect corporate structure. But they do look for:
1–3 people who can take decisions in sales, operations and finance/admin.
Clear areas of responsibility that the team understands.
Evidence that these people already run the day-to-day when you are away.
If everything from pricing to hiring to supplier changes goes through you, it’s a sign that the company is not yet ready for succession — even if you visit the office only twice a week.
Over the years, many owners build the business on personal trust:
“We’ve known each other for 20 years; no need for a contract.”
“They pay when they can; I know they’re good for it.”
This works until you sell.
For a buyer and their bank, what matters is:
Are key clients tied by clear contracts with defined terms, volumes and prices?
Are supplier agreements written down, including notice periods and credit terms?
Are there long-term service agreements or framework contracts, not just one-off orders?
The more of your handshake deals become documented agreements with the company, the safer the transition looks.
Every SME has a “secret operating manual” that lives in the owner’s mind: which clients can be flexible on price, what to do when a critical machine breaks, which supplier will save you in a crisis.
A transferable business does not rely on this. It has:
Basic process descriptions for sales, production/service, purchasing and complaints.
Simple checklists for recurring tasks.
A minimal CRM or ERP where client history, pipeline and orders are visible to more than one person.
No buyer expects a perfect ISO library. But they do expect that the core of the business can be learned and managed without you sitting next to the new team for years.
Imagine two owners, both around 63, both running B2B service companies in Poland with about €2m annual revenue, about €300k EBITDA, 15+ years in business and 25 employees. On paper, they look almost identical. In reality, their exit paths are very different.
The owner visits the office once a week. The team handles daily work. But:
Three biggest clients deal only with him on pricing and contract renewals.
Key suppliers call his mobile whenever there’s a problem.
Sales pipeline is in his email and head; no one can show next quarter’s forecast.
From a buyer’s side, this looks like a personal franchise of the owner’s relationships. To make the deal work, we would likely need a lower price, a long earn-out and the owner staying on for years.
This owner also stepped back from daily operations. But over the last years he:
Named and trained two managers as his second line (operations and sales).
Moved major clients to multi-year contracts with the company, not with him personally.
Implemented a basic CRM and regular pipeline reviews.
Here, the buyer sees a transferable asset. The numbers are similar, but the risk of revenue collapse after succession is much lower. That changes everything: the price discussion focuses on the quality of the business, the deal structure can be simpler and banks are more comfortable financing a transaction.
If you are 60+ and thinking about selling or passing the business in the next 1–5 years, you don’t need to transform everything at once. You do need to start.
Three practical steps for the next 12–24 months:
Map what depends only on you.
Choose 5–10 critical relationships to “move to the company”.
Start building and naming your second line.
Take one quiet hour this week and honestly list where your business still depends only on you. From that list, choose just 2–3 concrete steps you can take in the next year to make the company more transferable.
If you want a neutral view of how a buyer would look at your numbers today, imagine that we valued your company only on current EBITDA: would the result match how transferable your business really is? If you’d like an indicative view, fill in the short seller form on my website — it takes a few minutes and gives you a first, non-binding feel for value and readiness for succession.
👉Seller Form Step-1 link here>>