Founder-side readiness and deal preparation that complements your corporate finance, tax, and legal services
Discuss PartnershipMost owner-managed businesses aren't ready when they decide to sell. They lack clarity on value, haven't reduced founder dependency, and face avoidable diligence surprises. By the time they bring an offer to a corporate finance boutique, broker, solicitor, or accountancy firm, months have been lost and value has leaked.
We sit before and alongside your CF team to fill the gaps you see over and over again.
This means your clients arrive at the table stronger, faster, and with fewer complications.
Professional advisers often find that even successful businesses aren't always "deal-ready." We address the operational and emotional hurdles that can otherwise slow down or derail your process.
We help owners identify and mitigate risks - such as customer concentration or founder dependency - long before they reach your data room
We provide a calm, independent view on readiness and value, ensuring clients enter your process with a pragmatic mindset
By helping owners organise their narrative and data early, we reduce the friction and stress of the due diligence phase
We handle the high-touch, strategic "hand-holding" that founders often need, allowing you to focus on the technical execution of the deal
Mark brings the perspective of a founder who has launched, scaled, and exited an 8-figure business. He's sat on both sides of the table in more than 10 M&A transactions, and has the scar tissue to prove it! He's navigated multiple high-level strategic negotiations with private equity, trade buyers and publicly listed multi-nationals, as well as SMEs of varying size and complexity.
We are a small, senior practice - no juniors, no hand-offs. Mark leads our strategic advisory at Exit Strategy & Solutions, providing the primary point of contact and direction for every client. He is supported by a specialist layer of expertise: Tom specialises in operational scalability and process improvement, and where appropriate we draw on a trusted network of tax, legal, corporate finance and wealth advisers. Together, we bring decades of deal experience to provide founders with independent thinking and hands-on implementation support.
We work with a select number of clients each year so we can stay closely involved and deliver real results.
We provide founder-side exit readiness and deal support. Mark is the consistent point of contact and provides upstream strategic clarity and guidance along the exit journey. If your clients need regulated investment or specialist tax advice or operational input, we can provide that through our network.
We don't compete for your core compliance, tax, or corporate finance work. We sit upstream, preparing the client before you take the lead.
We prepare and advise; you execute and regulate. By preparing the founder and the business before the formal process begins, we make your work more efficient. Clients arrive ready, realistic, and prepared for scrutiny. We don't negotiate deals or provide regulated advice; we ensure they're emotionally and strategically ready.
We operate under strict confidentiality and respect your client relationships. Your clients know they're working with two professionals, not a competing firm.
Whether your client engages us directly or you refer them, we adapt to your workflow. We can work upstream (before you're involved) or alongside you (during the process).
Where your client wants you close to their sale, we work inside a process you and they lead — founder-side advice within your process, your client relationship untouched. Where they appoint a corporate finance firm instead, we work alongside it the same way. Either way we hold no mandate, and our advice on whether your client should sell, and whether to accept an offer, is never paid on the sale happening; we hand your client back to you at completion with the relationship stronger than we found it.
Your clients can access the diagnostic, ongoing exit partnership, and founder-side support through the sale itself, depending on where they are in the journey.
“Your client should get exit-ready.” The existing route: the Exit Readiness Assessment, then preparation through the Exit Partner Programme where the position warrants it.
“Your client has been approached.” The Offer Review evaluates the offer from their side, without taking a mandate from anyone, inside the buyer’s timetable. If the honest answer is “decline” or “prepare first”, the module says so and closes.
“Your client has decided to sell.” Launch Preparation readies them before the market hears: the honest sell-now position, the data room built in the order diligence will ask, and preparation of the marketing and management presentation materials.
“Your client is mid-deal.” The stage picks the module: Diligence Defence before the buyer’s advisers arrive; Terms to Completion from agreed terms through to close, alongside the advisers already in place.
And where your client doesn’t yet know what they want to do, The Sale Decision puts every route on the table — including the ones that lead away from a sale.
One line for a client conversation: “They evaluate the deal from your side and take no mandate — your process, your advisers, their read.”
We diagnose the business across 6 critical dimensions (Financial, Operational, Legal, Market, Team, Documentation) and create a prioritised remediation roadmap. Your clients gain a clear understanding of exactly what needs to improve, why it matters, and what it's worth; and have the opportunity to implement changes before a deal materialises. This eliminates "surprise" findings during your diligence process and gives you a head start.
For owners who want a senior, independent adviser alongside them over 6–24 months as they get exit-ready, build value and prepare for a transaction — with Business Sale Support services available at deal tempo when a sale is in play.
When a sale is in play — a decision to make, an offer on the table, a launch to prepare, or a deal running to completion — we advise your client from their side of it, module by module. The Sale Decision and The Offer Review give a referred client a clear, evidenced read without anyone taking a mandate; the later modules cover launch preparation, the buyer landscape, diligence and the run from agreed terms to close, inside your process or their corporate finance adviser’s. Your client arrives at each stage prepared, and the process stays where it belongs — with you and their appointed advisers.
We do not offer legal, tax or regulated investment advice. We stay strictly within our remit of strategic, commercial, and operational readiness
We respect your client relationships and work as an extension of your trusted network
Our advice on whether your client should sell, and whether to accept an offer, is never paid on the sale happening. That judgement stays theirs; ours stays independent of the deal completing.
If you work with owner-managed businesses and see the same readiness and preparation gaps we do, let's have a quiet conversation about how we can support your clients - and strengthen your practice.
No pressure, no sales funnel. Just a pragmatic discussion about where we can add value.
Email Us to Discuss Partnership