We plan to exit in three years, and our current structure is highly decentralized with everyone wearing multiple hats. What is the single most important change we need to make to our Accountability Chart today to make the business look institutionalized to a buyer?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To make your business attractive to an acquirer, you must decouple your company structure from the individuals currently working in it. Buyers are looking for an institutionalized business. This means the systems, roles, and accountability must remain intact even if key people, including the owners, leave after the sale.

The single most important change you can make today is to rebuild your Accountability Chart based on the needs of the business, not the people you currently have.

Start by blanking out all the names on your current chart. Look at your three-year strategic goals on your V/TO and design the ideal structure required to hit those numbers. Define the five major roles for every single seat, ensuring that no seats are shared and that every critical function has a clear reporting line.

Once the clean structure is defined, you can begin placing names back into the seats. This exercise will expose your gaps. You will likely find that some key leaders are sitting in multiple seats, or that you have loyal employees who do not GWC the newly defined seats.

Your goal over the next three years is to systematically fill those empty seats with the right people. When a buyer looks at your company, they should see a clean, logical Accountability Chart where every function has a single owner. This proves that your operations are structured to run independently, which significantly increases your valuation and ensures a cleaner exit.