As we prepare for an exit, potential buyers want to sit in on our weekly Level 10 Meeting to evaluate our leadership team. My leaders are terrified and want to run a rehearsed, sanitized meeting. How do we keep our weekly pulse genuine while being observed?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Rehearsing or sanitizing your Level 10 Meeting is the worst thing you can do when a buyer is observing. Savvy buyers are not looking for a perfect, conflict-free show. They want to see a functional, disciplined leadership team that can solve real operational problems without the owner leading the charge.

A rehearsed meeting looks fake and signals that you are hiding issues, which immediately raises red flags during due diligence. Instead, prepare your team by reframing the buyer's presence. The buyer is there to validate the business's self-sufficiency.

Run the meeting exactly as you do every other week. Start on time, follow the same agenda, and review the scorecard objectively. When you get to IDS, jump straight into your real, messy issues.

Show the buyer how you debate passionately, solve root causes, and assign clear To-Dos. This demonstrates that your business has a highly repeatable, operating system that does not rely on tribal knowledge locked in the owner's head.

If the team freezes up, the facilitator must step in and call it out. Keep the energy high and push the team to focus on the numbers and the issues, not the observer in the corner. A buyer will be far more impressed by a team that tackles a difficult, red scorecard metric with brutal honesty than a team that pretends everything is perfect.