We plan to exit our business in three to five years. How do we design our Accountability Chart™ today to ensure we are building enterprise value for a buyer rather than just organizing around our current staff?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If you plan to exit your business in the next few years, your Accountability Chart™ must be designed for the future state of the business, not your current reality. A common mistake owners make is building the chart around their existing employees and their unique skill sets, which often leaves the owner trapped in multiple critical seats.

To build real enterprise value, you must design an Accountability Chart™ that can run successfully without you. Start by projecting the organization's needs twelve months into the future. Define the seats and the five core responsibilities for each seat needed to hit your growth targets, completely ignoring the names of your current staff.

Once the future-state chart is designed, look at where your name appears. If you are the owner and your name is in the Integrator seat, the sales seat, or the operations seat, you have a business that is highly dependent on you. A potential buyer will see this as a high-risk investment.

Your goal over the next several quarters must be to delegate those responsibilities to capable leaders who GWC™ those seats. By systematically removing yourself from the daily operations and elevating your team, you prove to buyers that the business possesses institutional traction, which dramatically increases your valuation.