The Details
Want to learn more about Ascent Exits? Check out additional details about our services, pricing, processes and more.
Of course, we’re always here to answer your questions, so feel free to schedule a free consultation with us anytime that works for you.
Our Process
Our process is key to your success. We want to make your sale as smooth as possible. We also want to be 100% aligned in our delivery to your expectations. That’s why we share our entire process prior to you signing any contracts. You can see more our services page, but below you’ll see the high level overview of our process so you know exactly what your sale looks like.
We focus on the delivery of our Elite Package below, which is what most of our customers request. Our Standard Package, which provide similar delivery is geared toward businesses that have revenue of less than $500K.
Our Elite Package delivery process is separated into Initialization and Activation. We’ve outlined a high level overview of the deliverables and processes that are delivered for each of these phases. And though our Basic Package is intended to be more limited, many of the deliverables are still provided, but with a reduced scope.
Initialization
1.
Onboarding
After starting our engagement, we will ask you to complete an extensive onboarding survey. The onboarding survey covers a long list of topics, including:
- Company Structure
- Products and Services
- Employees and Labor Pool
- Financial Impacts
- Sales and Marketing Tactics
- Operations Execution
- And more…
In addition to the onboarding survey, we will ask that you provide financial and tax documents. These documents in conjunction with your onboarding survey will be reviewed accuracy and completeness in our next phase.
This is an important part of your engagement and will also drive the remainder of Initialization. During this phase, we will provide you access to a secure document room that is restricted to our team and you. All of your financial documents will remain in our protected document room.
2.
Business Analysis
Now that we’ve collected all of the relevant details of your business and the financial details, we will start the Accounting Review, Valuation and creation of your CIM. These are key deliverables in ensuring your business analysis is complete and well understood.
- Accounting Review | Our Certified Accountants will review your key financial documents including your P&Ls, balance sheets, and tax documents to ensure there are no discrepancies that may impact your valuation or a potential buyer. Each of your documents will be reviewed for completeness and discrepancies. You will be notified of any concerns that could impact your valuation.
- Valuation | Our extended team of Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) will create a formal valuation of your business. This will provide you with a formal asking price will flow into your go-to-market plan.
- Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) | Our marketing team will start to assemble your CIM which will act as the first introduction of your business to potential buyers.
3.
Go-to-Market Strategy
After completing the Business Analysis, we will assemble the Go-to-Market Strategy. Our marketing team will create a formal plan that clearly outlines how to bring your business to market, while retaining confidentiality. During your go-to-market phase, we focus on the following.
- Marketing Approach | The team creates a custom marketing approach recommending exactly how to market your business and more importantly what content to place within the marketing listings. We’ll also include your one pager summary with this deliverable.
- Pre-Qualification Lender List | We will provide you with at least three lenders that have pre-qualified your business for lending. This gets your buyer one step closer to closing the deal.
- Target Buyer Profile | You’ll know exactly what your target buyer profile looks like, their required cash influx, experience requirements for SBA lending, and other key characteristics to ensure you engage with the most qualified buyers.
Activation
Activation is only available if purchased together with Initialization or as an add-on to an existing purchase of an Initialization. Activation cannot be purchased alone.
Our activation enablement is focused on bringing your sale to market and ensuring your transaction is completed. Activation is broken into Marketing Activation, LOI and Due Diligence, and Closing and Transition. We allocate six months of budgeted funds to complete this process.
4.
Marketing Activation
Its time to take your business to market. We will start by assigning a Transaction Manager to your sale. During this phase of the transaction, we are proactively marketing your site to potential buyers through multiple channels, following the go-to-market strategy that our marketing team created. Your assigned Transaction Manager will ensure all of the following activities are complete.
- Listing your Transaction on our site to support Buyer NDA Submissions and CIM share
- Listing your transaction on major listing sites
- Sharing your listing, confidentially on Social Media
- Directing potential buyers to complete the NDA and Review the CIM
- Sharing qualified buyer information with you, so you don’t need to filter through the buyer submissions.
- Start sending twice monthly status reports and setting up monthly status meetings.
5.
LOI and Due Diligence
By this phase of the sale, our marketing activation will have reached many potential buyers. These buyers will have reviewed your CIM and if your business is positioned well, they will draft and extend to you a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI). The LOI is a preliminary agreement that outlines the expected terms of a future purchasing agreement . In most cases, the LOI does not bind you or the buyer to a contractual agreement, but does set the stage of expectations between you and the seller. Our experts will review your LOI to ensure it aligns with general expectations of an LOI. This is not a replacement of a legal review, if you choose to have one, but should give you a good understanding if additional legal review is required.
After signing a non-binding LOI, you will enter into Due Diligence. By this time your Transaction Manager would have already set up a due diligence data room and shared with you our general recommendations for due diligence preparation. Your Transaction Manager will help ensure documents are posted in your diligence room, but you or trusted team members (under NDA) will need to collect this data from internal sources. You may also choose to have an onsite meeting with your potential buyer. All of this is leading up to creation of a purchasing agreement.
6.
Closing and Transition
Finally after months of hard work, you’ve arrived at the point of creating a Purchasing Agreement, Closing and Transition your business. Our team will conduct consultative review of your Purchasing Agreement. This is not a substitution for your own legal review from your legal team, but should reduce the burden on your legal team.
Your Purchasing Agreement will have a target close date, which may shift based on many factors, but gives both you, your buyer, your legal team, the buyer’s lender and others a target closing date.
At closing (or just after), you’ll finally hand over the keys to your business. This is likely the start of a short transition period where you train the new buyer for a pre-determined period of time and ensure the staff are fully supportive of the new owner. You’ll continue to have a connection with the buyer until the full funding of your transaction is received, but usually this is minimal after the initial transition period.
Our Package Pricing
Our pricing is upfront and we don’t come back to the well for more. Our profit model is also different than a traditional broker. We do not collect success fees. We’ve built our profit model based on collecting payment upfront and then delivering unquestionable value. All for about the same price that most brokers charge as a deposit.
We don’t collect success fees for two simple reasons. 1. We believe that you should walk away with as much of your business value as you can. That is our value proposition to you. 2. Brokers will tell you that the 10% success fee can be baked into your price and the buyer will happily foot the bill, making you whole. This is not and will not be the case. Buyers are savvy and they will almost immediately ask you to remove the broker success fee from your asking price. This is likely why you see only 25% businesses offered by business brokers sell.
Elite Package
For Businesses with Over $500K in Annual Revenue
Our Elite Package provides you with a complete end-to-end sales package that will ensure your business is in the best possible position to be sold. The package is broken into two delivery phases, Initialization and Activation. While this provides you with a level overview, we highly recommend that you look at our complete services page or that you book a call with us directly to discuss more.
Elite Package - $19,500 (When Initialization and Activation Purchased Together).
Initialization
During initialization, we provide you with an extensive business survey that well tell us everything about your business. The results of this survey will be used as a baseline information package for our Valuation Team and our Marketing team to ensure that we know exactly how best to take your business to market confidentiality.
- Business Questionnaire
- Accounting Evaluation
- CIM Creation
- Go-to-Market Strategy
- Target Buyer Profile
- Valuation Report
- Pre Qual Lenders
- One Page Marketing Brochure
$9,500 (When purchased Individually).
Activation
After we’ve created your CIM, Go-To-Market Strategy, Valuation and other key deliverables, we will activate your Go-To-Market strategy and start finding potential buyers for you. Your sale will be placed on major platforms and after an Letter of Intent is signed, you and your potential buyer will be given access to a secure data room.
- Transaction Coordinator
- Marketing Activation
- NDA Management
- Buyer Submission Analysis
- Document Management Room
- Contract Consultant Review
- Monthly Status Meetings
- Twice Monthly Status Reports
$12,500 (When purchased Individually).
Standard Package
For Businesses with Under $500K in Annual Revenue
Our Standard Package provides you with the many of the same deliverables that you get in the Elite package, but the scope of these deliverables is reduced with the assumption that your business may not have some of the same complexities that a larger business has. Our philosophy is to ensure you keep as much of your hard earned money as you can. So we’ve created this package because we know that your sale is likely be less complex and therefore the cost of your transaction is going to be less.
Base Package - $9,500
With our standard package, we reduce the total services that are offered to you. You still receive key deliverables, but your CIM length will be shorter, your valuation will be a desktop valuation based on market factors and instead of a Transaction Manager, you will only receive twice monthly updates regarding your sell.
Check out the full services offered with this package on our Services Page or book a call. Please note that our Standard Package is only available in certain scenarios.
- Basics Valuation Report
- Accounting Evaluation
- Abbreviated CIM
- Standard Go-to-Market Approach (general guide)
- Marketing Activation
- Buyer Submission Analysis
- Limited Transactoin Coordinator
- Monthly Status Reports
Accounting Evaluation
Certified Accountants will validate your books and financial documents are in order, prior to going to market.
$1,500
Professional CIM
A Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) is the central point to your successful marketing.
$3,800
Business Valuation
Certified Valuation Analyst will create a Valuation for you based on all three pricing strategies.
$3,900
Certified Business Valuation
Certified Valuation created by a CVA to support legal filings or court review. Averaging 65+ pages and signed by a certified appraiser.
$6,900
Basic Valuation
Created by a CVA for businesses expected to sell under $500K based on Asset and Market valuations. Average 18+ Pages
$1,900
Comprehensive Appraisal
Created by a ECA Certified Appraiser, this Report is designed to adhere to USPAP, ECA, IRS, and SBA Standards, this 30+ page report delivers a comprehensive and defensible valuation
$4,900
Compare
So how do we stack up against the other guys. Take a look at the examples below, so you know exactly what to expect when working with us vs. working with the other guys.
And please know that we encourage you to reach out to at least several other brokers. There are a lot of great brokers on the market and while we feel that our services are far superior to a majority of them, we understand that our approach may not be right for you.
Elite Package
For Businesses with Over $500K in Annual Revenue
Us compared to a Traditional Broker
Take a look at Ascent Exit costs when compared to the other Traditional Brokers on the market. Let’s assume your business has an annual gross sales of $850,000 and provides annual cash flow of $250,000. Let’s also assume your asking price is $750,000 (just to keep it simple). How do we compare with the competition? Check out the comparison below:
Pricing
* We want you to keep more of your earnings. However, there are some third party services that we recommend you obtain regardless of your sales service selection. For example, legal, a financial advisor, and depending on your situation a title company (or possible real estate agent). We’ve not factored those cost into this example.
Deliverables and Services
Ascent Exits
- Business Questionnaire
- Accounting Evaluation
- CIM Creation
- Go-to-Market Strategy
- Target Buyer Profile
- Valuation Report
- Pre Qual Lenders
- One Page Marketing Brochure
- Transaction Coordinator
- Marketing Activation
- NDA Management
- Buyer Submission Analysis
- Document Management Room
- Contract Consultant Review
- Monthly Status Meetings
- Twice Monthly Status Reports
The Other Guys
- Business Questionnaire
- Accounting Evaluation
- CIM Creation
- Go-to-Market Strategy
- Target Buyer Profile
- Valuation Report
- Pre Qual Lenders
- One Page Marketing Brochure
- Transaction Coordinator
- Marketing Activation
- NDA Management
- Buyer Submission Analysis
- Document Management Room
- Contract Review
- Monthly Status Meetings
- Twice Monthly Status Reports
While the other guys may provide some deliverables, it is extremely unlikely you will get all of them. And if you do it is unlikely that they will be delivered to the same professional standards that we strive for. Additionally, their deliverables will nearly always be created by your contracted broker, including your valuation report. Our deliverables are created by specialized experts that have years and decades of experience in their fields.
Standard Package
For Businesses with Under $500K in Annual Revenue
Us compared to a Traditional Broker
Pricing
Our Standard Package provides you with the many of the same deliverables that you get in the Elite package, but the scope of these deliverables is reduced with the assumption that your business may not have some of the same complexities that a larger business has. Our philosophy is to ensure you keep as much of your hard earned money as you can. So we’ve created this package because we know that your sale is likely be less complex and therefore the cost of your transaction is going to be less.
Base Package - $9,500
With our standard package, we reduce the total services that are offered to you. You still receive key deliverables, but your CIM length will be shorter, your valuation will be a desktop valuation based on market factors and instead of a Transaction Manager, you will only receive twice monthly updates regarding your sell.
Check out the full services offered with this package on our Services Page or book a call. Please note that our Standard Package is only available in certain scenarios.
Us compared to a Traditional Broker
Our base package is geared toward smaller businesses with less complex transactions. The complexities of your specific business sale may not allow you to qualify for this package. For example, if your transaction includes real estate or if you have pending legal issues. However, we thought it was still important to outline the total cost of your sale.
Assume your business makes $350,000 in annual gross sales and that your annual cash flow is around $200,000. Let’s also assume you work from home (no real estate) and that your labor cost is outsourced. Again, to keep things simple, let’s assume your business sales for $325,000. Your transaction will likely look something like this:
* We want you to keep more of your earnings. However, there are some services that we recommend you obtain regardless of your sales service selection. For example, legal, a financial advisor, and depending on your situation a title company (or possible real estate agent). We’ve not factored those cost into this example.
Deliverables and Services
Ascent Exits
- Basics Valuation Report
- Accounting Evaluation
- Abbreviated CIM
- Standard Go-to-Market Approach (general guide)
- Marketing Activation
- Buyer Submission Analysis
- Limited Transactoin Coordinator
- Monthly Status Reports
The Other Guys
- Basics Valuation Report
- Accounting Evaluation
- Abbreviated CIM
- Standard Go-to-Market Approach (general guide)
- Marketing Activation
- Buyer Submission Analysis
- Limited Transaction Coordinator
- Monthly Status Reports
While the other guys may provide some deliverables, it is extremely unlikely you will get all of them. And if you do it is unlikely that they will be delivered to the same professional standards that we strive for. Additionally, their deliverables will nearly always be created by your contracted broker, including your valuation report. Our deliverables are created by specialized experts that have years and decades of experience in their fields.
Service and Deliverable Details
We’ve outlined the details of our services and deliverables below. Expand each section to find a detailed description of the deliverable or service. We segregate our deliverables and services as follows:
Deliverables Defined
Assets that we create and provide you to keep as part of your transaction. Our deliverables are provided as PDF, Microsoft Office, or Google Docs. Deliverables can be purchased al la carte in some cases.
Services Defined
These are tasks that we complete as part of your engagement. Our services are not available to purchase al la carte.
We also have identified if the service or deliverable is included our Elite or Standard package. And if the service or deliverable is available in our al la cart solution. Of course, we can walk you through this offering and help understand how our services fit your specific needs.
Business Questionnaire
The Business Questionnaire is an extremely detailed survey used as the basis of your business discovery and onboarding. The questionnaire covers all aspects of your business including:
- Sales and Operations
- Physical Property
- Key Employees
- Market Availability
- Customer and Vendor
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Accounting Evaluation
A certified accountant (CPA or Chartered Accountant) will conduct an assessment of your accounting documents and tax returns to ensure there are no major misses or concerns with your documentation. This is equivalent to a pre-sale audit ensuring your documents are all in order and that you are completely ready for submitting your financial documents.
Documents included in review:
- 3 Years of Annual P&L
- 3 Years of Balance Sheets
- 3 Years of Tax Returns
- Previous 12 Months of Monthly P&L
At the conclusion of the Accounting Evaluation, we will provide you actionable items that will help you, your accountant, or your team sure up financial documents or at minimal provide you with clear insight to areas that may present risk to you.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Available
Professional CIM
Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) is a key deliverable in the marketing and advertising of your business. Your CIM will give the buyer all of the information required to understand the basics of your business and enough content to extend you an LOI (letter of intent), a non-binding agreement that outlines the intentions of a future agreement.
The Professional CIM is included in the Elite Package or can be purchased as a stand alone deliverable.
Your CIM will provide a comprehensive outline of your business and will be somewhere between 20-25 pages (with formatting). Financials and add backs will be included.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Excluded
Al La Carte
Available
Abbreviated CIM
The Abbreviated Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM) is a key deliverable in the marketing and advertising of your business. This is similar to our standard CIM, but this CIM excludes specific details on sales and marketing tactics, operations details or growth opportunities. Your Abbreviated CIM will give the buyer important information required to understand the basics of your business and enough content to extend you an LOI (letter of intent), a non-binding agreement that outlines the intentions of a future agreement. Your CIM will vary slightly based on the package you buy.
Your CIM will act as an extension of your 1 Page Advertising package and will provide potential buyers with a good sense of your business. Expect your Abbreviated CIM to be 5-10 pages long (with formatting).
Elite Package
Excluded
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Valuation
Best for a business that has earnings over $500K / year. The Valuation Report is prepared by a Certified Appraiser and consists of a 35+ page report that provides a detailed analysis of working capital, an estimated selling price, and a loan affordability assessment based on available cash flow.
The estimated selling price is based on all three valuation methods, including asset, market, and income pricing methods. It also includes valuation based on sales, SDE, and EBITDA multiples. It also covers industry benchmarking, hand-picked financial adjustments, owner’s compensation and debt coverage estimates.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Excluded
Al La Carte
Available
Basic Valuation
Best for selling a small business with under $500k in revenue and no real estate ownership, the Basic Valuation is an 18+ page entry-level valuation prepared by a certified appraiser. Using asset and market-based methods, it includes sales & SDE multiples, hand-picked comparables, and financial adjustments.
The basic valuation assumes all working capital remains with the seller and excludes businesses with real estate ownership or related-party leases.
Elite Package
Excluded
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Available
Target Buyer Profile
You need to know exactly who your potential buyers are. Knowing what your profile is, will allow you to narrow your search to specific potential buyers, so you don’t waste time on “tire kickers.”
Lenders will qualify buyers to ensure they meet specific minimum expectations, including their ability to finance the buy and their work history.
This analysis is relatively short, but will greatly reduce wasted time engaging buyers that don’t meet the minimum standards to purchase.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Lender Pre Qual
The Lender Pre Qual includes conditional approval from up to three lenders, a loan eligibility range to guide financing options, and a lender approval decision . This ensures you engage with qualified buyers, speed up negotiations, and reduce the risk of deals falling through due to financing issues.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Excluded
Al La Carte
Available
Go to Market Strategy
Your go to market strategy will outline exactly how to take your sale public, while maintaining confidentiality. The go to market strategy will include recommendations on what listing services or marketplaces to list. It will also include recommendations on key words to improve SEO on social sites and specific guidelines on how best to position your business.
* Note: Standard Package includes a go to market strategy, but this strategy is not customized to your business.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Excluded
Al La Carte
Available
Transaction Coordinator
We will assign a Transaction Coordinator to your account for a duration of six months. Your Transaction Coordinator will take care of all the details. They will manage your listings, direct buyers to the buyer profile survey, coordinate your access to the document management room and many other tasks.
Our Transaction Coordinators are there to help you with the leg work and to ensure your transaction goes to market smoothly, but remains confidential.
* Standard Package Transaction Coordinator is available only through email and digital communication.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Marketing Activation
When its time to bring your transaction to market, your assigned Transaction Coordinator will post your sale on several identified listings and post it to social media. Depending on the type of transaction and size, your sale will be posted on varying marketplaces.
Marketing Activation is already included in your fees. Some brokers may charge you a separate fee to post your listing.
* Standard Package activation includes 1 major listing site and social media.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
NDA Management
Now that your listing is posted, you’ll need to way to manage and filter through buyers. We provide you with the tools and capabilities to handle Buyer NDAs.
Each Buyer will be required to sign a NDA prior to receiving a copy of your CIM. This protects your sell from disclosure and ensures your business is not impacted prior to sale.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Buyer Submission Analysis
We capture all buyer information and then analyze buyer submissions against the target buyer profile. So you know that when you talk to a potential buyer, they’ve already been vetted and are financially capable of buying your business.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Document Management Room
We provide you and your selected buyer with access to a third party tool to manage all documents. Your document management room is a secure location that only you, your team and assigned buyers can access confidential information.
If a deal does fall through, we can immediately remove buyer access and restrict them from accessing your information again.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Contract Review
We work with an external legal reviewer to review your two most important documents. Your Letter of Intent (LOI), which is non-binding but still important and your Purchasing Agreement.
Both will be provided to a external legal reviewer for validation of completeness and to ensure you are protected to a better extent. This contract review does not take the place of your lawyer or legal team, but should help better guide your engagement with outside council and expedite your transaction.
* Note. This service is only provided through our Elite Package and is not available in the Standard Package.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Excluded
Al La Carte
Not Available
Status Updates and Meetings
Our Transaction Coordinator will ensure you stay in the loop and that you know exactly where your transaction is.
As part of our Elite Package, your Transaction Coordinator will send status updates every two weeks updating you on progress. They will let you know what actions we are taking, where we are in the timeline and confirm your sale is staying on track. They will also meet with your monthly to present you the latest and ensure you’re in the loop on each step along the way.
As part of our Standard Package, the Transaction Coordinator will only send status updates every two weeks. We don’t hold monthly meetings, but will meet with you in extreme situations.
Elite Package
Included
Standard Package
Included
Al La Carte
Not Available
Are you Ready?
Selling your business is not an easy decision. You’ve probably thought about this moment for a long time and we’re not hear to rush you into it. Remember our goal is to provide unapparelled service. And we wouldn’t be providing that level of service without asking you to really consider your next steps.
Of course, we want your business but not at the cost of you regretting your sell or worse selling prematurely. We’ve outline some considerations for you below.
3 Years and Prior to Sale
This is your time to grow your business and to stabilize it. This is the best time to make sure your business is “saleable”. Use the following recommendations to ensure your business is ready.
- Clean up your financials and do NOT put personal expenses through your business.
- Build practices that support inventory cycle counts, accounts collections, and clear role delineation. (Establish SOPs).
- Build a team, so you’re not selling a job.
- Review your long term contracts and start to consider how they would transfer to a new owner.
- Work with your landlord to ensure your lease is transferrable to a new owner. The best time to negotiate this is when first sign or during renewal.
Within 3 Years of Sale
Time to lock-in on two critical activities. There are many other things you can do, but these two will make a substantial difference in your sale.
- Clean up your financials. Your financials will be audited by the buyer and their lender. So even if a buyer accepts your add-backs, a lender may not. Removing personal expenses and unnecessary expenses from your books will ensure your tax returns reflect an accurate picture of your business. This is one of the most important actions you can take.
- Minimize your role, but maintain your business growth. Ensuring your role is minimized as much as possible increases the value of your business. It ensures that your selling a business and not a job.
Within 90 Days
90 days prior to engaging Ascent Exits or another more traditional broker, start to collect your financial documents and other key documents to support the creation of your valuation and CIM. Here is a starter list, but expect that you may need much more.
- Tax Returns for the last 3 Years
- Yearly P&L for the last 3 Years
- Monthly P&L for the last 12 months.
- Current balance sheet.
- List of all of the business assets and relevant details about them (i.e. truck model, year, mileage)
- Lease agreement
Of course, there are other documents that will help frame the sell of your business, but this should get you started.