An exit is somewhere on the horizon — a sale in a few years, a recapitalization, a transfer to the next generation, or a buyer who may come knocking sooner than planned. You have built the business but have never sold one, and the decisions that set the price are being made right now, often without anyone weighing them against the eventual exit. The years before the term sheet matter.
At Arrowroot Business Advisors, the same senior advisor who readies the business for exit is the one who will run the transaction when it comes. The preparation, the clean financials, the margin work, and the reporting a buyer will underwrite get built years before the sale. The advice on when and whether to sell is based on the operator's best interest because our fee does not depend on a deal happening.
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The engagement starts with a direct conversation about the exit the operator is heading toward, even if it is years off. The operator describes the goal and the timeline, and the senior advisor asks the questions that shape the preparation. By the end, the operator knows what the years ahead need to do and what working together would look like.
The senior advisor learns the business the way a future buyer will. The financials, the customer concentration, the contracts, the margins, and the reporting get reviewed for what will lift or drag the eventual price. The operator comes out knowing where the business already shows well and where the work is.
The preparation gets written as a plan the operator can act on over time. It names the value drivers to build, the risks to clean up, and the reporting to put in place well before a buyer looks. With the plan, the operator knows what to do in the years before the sale and why each piece matters to the price.
This is the preparation being built, year after year, alongside the operator. The senior advisor stays in the finance function and the value work, coordinating with the existing team, so the business gets ready for exit while it keeps running. When a buyer does come, the same advisor moves into running the deal.
The relationship carries from preparation into the transaction and past the close. The same advisor who spent the years getting the business ready is the one at the table when it sells, and the one handling what comes after. That way the operator only has to work with one person from the first plan to the last decision.
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The senior advisor who prepares the business for exit is the one who runs the transaction when it comes. There is no handoff from a preparation team to a deal team at the moment the stakes peak. The operator works with one person from the first plan through the close.
That continuity is what matters most for building value, which is where Exit Planning meets Outsourced CFO and M&A Advisory. The principals of each department carry a concentrated client load and do the work themselves, with depth across operating and transaction finance.
Rob works with founders, executives, and families navigating concentrated wealth, business exits, and generational planning. He founded Arrowroot in 2013 and leads the firm from Southern California.
David leads the firm's corporate advisory and outsourced CFO practice for privately held businesses, working with founders and management teams on financial planning, cash flow and liquidity management, strategy, and transaction support. He is a CFA charterholder with nearly two decades of corporate finance, investment, and advisory experience across the United States, London, and Stockholm.
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Sits beside the operating finance work rather than off on its own track. The senior advisor running the business through the deal is the one who has been in the numbers alongside the operator all along. That advisor already knows the business well enough to know what is worth holding the line on at the term sheet.
Sits in the space between the numbers and the key decisions that will direct the future of the business. Because the same advisor oversees the finance function and the deals, their advice accounts for where the business is heading as much as where it stands today.
Sits at the far end of the operating relationship, where the years of finance work either pay off or come up short. It’s founded in the strategy, execution, reporting, margins, and clean financials a buyer will underwrite. The same advisor who built the finance function is the one who readies it for the day a buyer looks closely.
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Tell us what the business is facing — a growth decision, a transaction on the horizon, or a finance function that needs a senior hand.
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