Bill Canady explains that buyers value companies on next year's earnings, not past performance, and owner dependency acts as a powerful discount on that value. List what breaks if the owner disappears for 30 days. Anything on that list is a red flag for buyers and needs fixing before you sell.
Because the buyer isn't paying for last year's earnings. He's paying for next year's, and next year's depend on somebody who may or may not still be in that chair. That discount is the most expensive item on the whole list, and here's why. It isn't a subtraction. It's a multiplier working against you. Every point of margin you fought for in phase 2 gets marked down by it. Now, back in phase 1, I gave you a question and I asked you to write the actual list. Here it is again, and this time it isn't a diagnostic. It's evaluation. If you were unreachable for 30 days, what breaks? Whatever's on that list is what a buyer's gonna find. The only question is whether they find it after you fix it or before, which is why this work lives here, days 366 to day 500, the first half of phase 3.
