How do we use Keith Cunningham's Thinking Time to evaluate our business model vulnerabilities before an investment banker puts our company on the market?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Before you let an investment banker present your business to potential buyers, you must find and fix your own operational flaws. If you do not find them, the buyer's due diligence team will, and they will use them to chip away at your valuation.

To prevent this, dedicate forty-five minutes of quiet, uninterrupted time twice a week for Thinking Time. Sit down with a blank pad of paper and a high-value question. Do not allow any digital distractions or interruptions during this period.

Start with this high-value question: If I were a competitor buying this company to shut it down or absorb it, where would I find the weakest point in our operations? Focus your mind on identifying the single points of failure, such as key-person dependency, customer concentration, or undocumented proprietary processes.

Convert these identified vulnerabilities from statements of worry into solvable questions. For instance, if you identify that your marketing relies entirely on one channel, ask: How might we diversify our lead generation over the next twelve months so that no single channel represents more than thirty percent of our new business?

Once you have formulated the answers, translate them into actionable quarterly Rocks for your leadership team. Using this disciplined approach on your exit runway ensures you enter negotiations with a clean, de-risked company that commands a premium multiple.