Ready for a buyer's questions before they ask.
It all still runs through you. That's the first thing a buyer will notice. Exit Value Enhancement closes the gap between where your business is and where it needs to be, whether you sell, hand it down or stay. Fortress is your quarterback for the whole process: we do the operational work and bring in the right specialists as you move through it. Your attorney and CPA own the legal and tax work.
Clarity Session: free, 20 minutes, no obligation. We only take an engagement when the business case supports it. Built on 25+ years of Lean, Shingo and Baldrige work.
Value moves three ways. Risk moves it most.
Illustrative weighting of what moves enterprise value, not a measurement of your business. This reflects Fortress's view.
About 80%
The Exit Planning Institute's 2023 National State of Owner Readiness Report found the business is, on average, 80% of an owner's net worth.
About half
The Exit Planning Institute also estimates that about half of U.S. business exits are forced by unplanned events: divorce, distress, death, disability and disagreement.
More. Better. Less.
We start from where you are and build toward the ideal state, with operational excellence as the engine. The same work serves a sale, a family succession, a management buyout or staying in the chair. Whichever you choose, it builds a moat that stays after you leave: a business built to outlast you.
More
- Growth
- Gross margin and EBITDA
- Cash flow and return on assets
Better
- Strategy and planning
- Processes
- Sales and marketing
- People and leadership
Less
- Owner dependence
- Financial risk, personal and business
- Volatility and turnover
- Stress
Runs without you
Fewer reasons for a buyer to discount
Evidence in one place
Your advisors lead the conversation
What drives value and what takes it away.
Multiples of EBITDA are one data point, not the whole story. An investor looks behind the number.
| What an investor looks for | What we build |
|---|---|
| Recurring revenue. Quality and durability that hold up under volatility and uncertainty. | Documented, repeatable ways of winning, delivering and keeping customers, with measures that show the revenue is dependable. |
| A commanding position in a growing niche. | A strategy built on what target customers value, and the priorities and cadence to execute it. |
| Owner independence. | Named owners, backups and decision rights, so the next person is ready and the business runs without any one person. |
| Customer concentration is a killer. Large customers hold pricing power. | A broader, healthier customer portfolio and less dependence on a few accounts. |
| No succession plan is a killer. Good is intentional, written and agreed. | Successor depth in key roles and written contingencies your leaders own. |
| Weak financial systems and reporting is a killer, and often points to deeper problems. | A reliable monthly close, numbers that tie out, and a scorecard a buyer can read. |
Value comes from seven domains that pull on each other. We group them by the four intangible capitals in our own way, so a gap points to what to fix first.
Plans that actually get done
Most value plans stall in execution, not strategy. The vision is yours. Fortress executes the priorities you and your advisor set, and documents every step so the record becomes proof a buyer can read.
Plan
Specific, dated, measurable targets your leaders and advisors agree, run in 90-day sprints.
Align
The plan carried down through the leadership team to every crew, so everyone knows their part.
Own
A named owner and a milestone for every action, so nothing sits with no one.
Repeat
Every 90 days we review results and reset priorities, so you and your advisors can decide whether the goal is still to grow, hand off or sell.
A steady rhythm turns the plan into progress.
Your prioritized action plan comes out of the discovery work. A fixed cadence carries it out, with Fortress in the room every month and every quarter, and every step builds something a buyer or successor pays for.
Monthly 1:1s
With each action item champion, to clear obstacles and keep the work moving.
Monthly accountability workshop
The leadership team reviews progress, owns results and resolves what is stuck.
Quarterly Priority Renewal
A workshop to reset the top five business priorities and five personal priorities, with your advisors on the personal side.
90-day sprints
Focused implementation of each quarter's priorities, with owners and milestones, documented as evidence.
The early quarters focus on de-risking the business. Strategy and growth work comes after.
Six things a buyer's team will look for.
Buyers watch the game film, not the highlights. Closing the gap is one half. Proving it is the other, with one evidence set your advisors can hand to a buyer.
Documents under control
Every key document registered with an owner, a current version, a location and a review date, and indexed for a data room.
Contracts tracked and owned
A register of customer and supplier agreements with key terms, renewal and notice dates and an owner.
Compliance built in, with evidence
Requirements in standard work, scheduled internal audits and corrective action closed out.
Know-how captured
Methods, procedures, data and software inventoried so your attorney can protect what is proprietary.
Numbers that tie out
A reliable monthly close and operating measures that reconcile to the books, with documented assumptions.
A management system with a track record
Scorecard history, plan versus actual and quarterly priorities completed, packaged to show the system runs without the owner.
Fortress is your quarterback. The right specialists, at the right time.
Fortress program-manages the whole process: the plan, the sequence, the meeting rhythm and the evidence. We bring in specialists as each need comes up, and the team changes as you move from building value to getting ready to transition.
Financial advisor
Your personal financial plan and goals.
CPA
Financial statements, tax filings and quality of earnings work.
Estate, tax and charitable planning
How wealth passes on and what you intend to leave.
Business valuation
What the business is worth today and what moves it.
Insurance
Protection for you, key people and the business.
Legal
Corporate documents, contracts, agreements and protection of what is proprietary.
Functional specialists
Finance, sales, operations, people or technology help where a gap sits.
Exit options specialist
ESOP, M&A, family transfer or management buyout, as the path narrows.
Early on, the core is you, your financial advisor, your CPA and Fortress, with functional specialists where gaps sit. As your goal sharpens, valuation, legal, estate and insurance planning join. As options narrow, an exit options specialist joins. Fortress keeps the plan, the calendar and the evidence in one place throughout. Each professional stays independent and owns their own advice: your attorney drafts and reviews documents, your CPA prepares financials and tax filings, your valuation and exit options specialists value the business and lead any sale or transition, and your financial, estate and insurance advisors own your personal plan and protection. We work alongside them. Fortress does not provide valuation, legal, tax, compliance or transaction advice, and does not run a sale.
Two horizons, in 90-day sprints.
We start with Protect. The first sprints take risk out of the business: key people, key customers, owner dependence and the numbers. Strategy and growth come after. See Workflow Performance and Enterprise Performance.
3 to 5 years out: build value
The time to change how the business runs. Improvements need time to season, and they need buy-in well beyond the management team. We design the work to keep any early dip shallow and short.
12 to 18 months out: get ready
Time is short, so we focus on what adds the most in the least time and work beside your advisor team to get the evidence in order. If the core is not protected, we start there.
- Start from your advisor's findings. Review the gap against more, better and less, and the evidence a buyer's team asks for, ranked by value and effort.
- Put an execution system in place. The agreed plan broken into 90-day projects, owners and decision rights, measures and a meeting rhythm, all documented.
- Build in 90-day sprints. Three to five owned priorities per quarter: processes, controls, registers, audits and the routines that keep them current.
- Assemble, index and hand off. One current evidence set, behind the company book or data room your exit planning advisor assembles in the Prepare gate (the Exit Planning Institute calls this Assemble Proof).
Common questions
Is this a valuation or due diligence?
No to both. Your valuation specialist values the business, and a buyer's team runs diligence. We improve the drivers an investor weighs and get the business ready, and never state a value or a multiple.
Will this increase what my business is worth?
No one can promise a multiple. We strengthen the drivers buyers use to set the multiple and reduce the surprises that slow a process down.
What return should I expect?
We don't promise a result, and no one can promise a multiple. What we do is test the business case first. We only take on an engagement when the case shows a path to at least 10 times our fee in earnings, cash or risk reduction that we can measure in your own numbers, over a window we agree up front. If the case doesn't support it, we'll tell you, even if that means we aren't the right fit.
Do I have to be selling?
No. The same work makes a business more profitable, easier to run and ready for a family succession or a management buyout.
Do I have to tell my team I might sell?
That's your call. We frame the work as building a stronger, better-run company, which it is. It needs people beyond the leadership team, and it pays off for them whether you sell, hand it down or stay. What to share about a transition, and when, is your decision, made with your advisors.
Value Acceleration Methodology™, value domains, the four intangible capitals, Prepare gate and Assemble Proof are terms from the Exit Planning Institute. Statistics cited are from the Exit Planning Institute, including its 2023 National State of Owner Readiness Report. Fortress Performance Partners is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Exit Planning Institute. Fortress does not provide valuation, legal, tax or transaction advice.
Close the gap before a buyer finds it.
Take the Evidence Gap Checklist. Then schedule a Clarity Session to walk through what you found and what to fix first.
Advisor or CPA? Refer a client or book a 20-minute advisor call.