We are trying to restructure our sales division to prepare for a clean exit, but our top-performing salesperson is also our co-founder's spouse. How do we design an unbiased, structure-first Accountability Chart without destroying family harmony?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Preparing your business for a clean exit demands a structure that maximizes enterprise value, independent of personal relationships. A potential buyer seeks a self-sustaining business, not a family operation with ambiguous reporting lines.

When a top-performing salesperson is also the spouse of a co-founder, personal dynamics can easily cloud structural decisions. The solution is to strictly apply the rule of structure before people.

Designing the Ideal Sales Division

To achieve a clean exit and maximize your business's appeal to buyers, follow these steps to design an unbiased, structure-first Accountability Chart for your sales division:

1. Define the ideal structure: First, design the Accountability Chart specifically for your sales division. This involves identifying the essential seats needed to achieve your target valuation.
2. Identify key seats: Pinpoint the exact roles required, such as a Sales Leader and several Account Managers. These seats should be defined by their responsibilities and expected contributions to the business's goals, not by who currently fills them.
3. Establish clear roles: For each seat, delineate clear roles, responsibilities, and measurables. This clarity is crucial for a buyer looking for a well-oiled machine, not a business reliant on individual personalities. Documenting these roles also helps demonstrate your business is turn-key, which can lead to a [strategic premium multiple](/qa/operational-playbooks-for-strategic-premium-multiples) rather than just a financial buyer multiple.

Evaluating People Against the Structure

Only after the ideal structure is fully designed do you evaluate the people.

• GWC™ Evaluation: Evaluate the co-founder's spouse against the new Sales Leader seat using the GWC™ (Gets it, Wants it, Capacity to do it) framework.
• Do they truly get it - understand the responsibilities, complexities, and impact of the seat?
• Do they truly want it - are they passionate about leading the sales division and driving the required growth for an exit?
• Do they have the capacity to manage the seat at the scale required for a successful exit, including leadership, strategic planning, and team development? This is critical for roles where a leader needs to [build the next layer of management](/qa/loyalty-versus-capability-leadership-team).

• Placement Decision:
• If they pass the GWC™ check for the leadership seat, they are a strong candidate to fill it.
• If they do not pass the GWC™ check for the leadership seat, they cannot sit there. You must place them in an individual contributor seat, such as Senior Account Manager, where their selling talents can be utilized without compromising the leadership structure. This might involve [restructuring a seat](/qa/restructuring-seat-for-legacy-leader-hitting-ceiling) for a highly valued individual who has hit their management ceiling.

• Addressing Resistance: If the co-founder's spouse refuses to accept this change, it is a leadership issue that must be addressed directly. Keeping the wrong person in a leadership seat to maintain family peace will actively destroy your business valuation and attractiveness to buyers. This can be a challenging conversation, similar to handling [family performance issues](/qa/family-members-on-leadership-team-performance) on the leadership team.

Remember, the goal is to create a business that can run smoothly and effectively without any single individual, especially when preparing for an exit. This unbiased approach strengthens your organization and significantly enhances its value.

Related questions

• [How should an owner use Thinking Time to design the next iteration of the Accountability Chart for an exit?](/qa/thinking-time-accountability-chart-exit-prep)
• [I am currently stuck in the Sales and Marketing seat, and I cannot afford a high-priced replacement yet. How do I transition out?](/qa/stuck-in-sales-seat-before-exit)
• [We need to restructure our operations and sales seats to prepare for an exit, but we are terrified that moving boxes on the Accountability Chart will make our loyal employees think a mass layoff is coming. How do we roll out a major structural redesign without triggering widespread panic?](/qa/restructuring-without-layoff-panic)
• [Our long-tenured VP of Finance is a perfect core values fit and gets and wants their seat, but they lack the capacity to build the complex forward-looking financial forecasting models that prospective buyers are demanding for our exit. How do we handle this GWC issue without firing a loyal leader?](/qa/gwc-vp-finance-exit-capacity-issue)