Your exit is a multi-year project. The LOI is the last chapter.

Buyers pay for a company that can run without you. That work does not start in the year you decide you are tired. It starts when owner pay, key-person risk, and the household’s dependence on the business are still easy to ignore.

An exit can mean a sale to an outsider, a sale to an employee or management team, a gift, a partner buyout, or a slower role. The paperwork changes. The planning sequence does not: the company has to be transferable, and your personal finances have to survive the transfer. Business transition is the Vital engagement that holds that sequence. This article is a short map, not a transaction plan.

If the likely buyer already works for you, read the educational note on selling your business to an employee before anyone names a price.

Two related notes: buying out a business partner, and pre-sale tax and charitable planning for the months before a letter of intent.

What “ready” actually looks like

Someone besides you can hire, sign, and make payroll for ninety days. Customers are not buying only your personal reputation. The numbers an outsider would ask for already exist. Your household is not using the company as its only reserve. None of that requires a buyer to have called this week.

Owners sometimes wait for a letter of intent to begin this work. That reverses the order. The LOI is a late document. The early documents are cleaner books, a real management bench, and a personal plan that does not assume a perfect sale price on a perfect day.

Investment accounts sit in that early work. If the only path to the life you want is a single sale at a single number, you are still concentrated. Investment management and wealth outside the company are how the household becomes less dependent on that one event.

You do not need a buyer to start. Northern Colorado owners who plan to keep running still benefit from a company that can survive a ninety-day absence and a household that is not funded only by the next deposit. That is operations and personal planning, not a listing appointment.

We will not tell you to sell. We will not guarantee a valuation. The valuation estimator is illustrative only. The downloadable transition and succession guide is the longer checklist. A discovery call can be the first honest hour on timing. Meet Dillon or use contact.

If the sale will be taxed in Colorado, the planning side of that math is in Colorado taxes when selling a business. Fort Collins owners can read business exit planning in Fort Collins.