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Positioning Business Owners to Exit Wealthier
for Privately Held Companies
M&A Advisory
Buyers might dangle a theoretical price for your firm, but they'll only pay that minus whatever they can find wrong with your business, and there's always something to find.
Narrowing the gap depends on how exit-ready your firm is. Our exit readiness work spans 8 dimensions: 6 of them customer-facing and 2 internal.
How We Help You...
Most clients opt for both phases: get your firm exit-ready, then take it to market. This enables us to find and close the gaps a buyer will find during diligence and leverage against you at the deal table.
Mark Herndon
CFO, Horizon Kinetics
"Michael took the business from unsellable to sellable, enabling us to close the M&A deal. He knew exactly what a buyer would scrutinize and fixed it before we went to market."
David Arndt
President, Kids 'N' Pets
"Before we retained Michael, business revenue was down 6%. In eight months, it was up 13%. He analyzed the whole business and helped us pull the most impactful exit readiness levers: positioning, promotion, price."
Drew Panayioutou
CEO, BBDO ATL
"There are few people as exceptionally smart and deeply skilled in both strategy and execution as Michael. He is the rare executive with a mastery of his craft and a high EQ. Together with our team we grew the agency 25%."
Allen Adamson
Managing Director, Landor
"We hired Michael to strengthen our pitch for a new package goods account. His client-side knowledge rounded out the team, and his ideas and passion for brands helped him fit in nicely to agency life."
What Clients Are Saying...
Trusted by
Clients
20+ engagements across consumer brands, marketing agencies, private equity
Consumer
Brands
Marketing Agencies
Private Equity,
Financial
Work
Click on any of our clients' logos to learn more (double-click on mobile).
Our Capabilities
We work across all 8 dimensions of exit readiness; the same ones a sophisticated buyer will stress-test during diligence. Here's what that looks like in practice:
Commercial Readiness
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Positioning — Niche clarity, differentiation, messaging.
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We make sure buyers see a defensible business, not a commodity.
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Promotion — Marketing effectiveness (quality x quantity), brand equity, lead generation.
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Commercial momentum that holds up to scrutiny.
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Pursuit — Pipeline, win rates, client concentration, renewal rates.
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The metrics that tell a buyer how durable your revenue is.
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Price — Pricing architecture, revenue mix, recurring vs. project work.
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Higher multiples follow better revenue quality.
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Product / Service — Delivery systems, quality, scalability.
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Can the business grow without breaking?
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People — Team depth, bench strength, founder independence.
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Buyers discount heavily for key-person risk.
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Financial & Operational Readiness
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Financials — Revenue quality, EBITDA, add-backs.
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The cleanest, most defensible financial picture possible.
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Operations & Back Office — Systems, contracts, data room readiness.
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The details that slow deals down, addressed early.
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We start by understanding how your business makes money. Then we make sure buyers see it the same way.
Who We Are
Meet Michael.
Unparalleled 360º view of the marketplace stemming from operating roles with #1-in-their-field companies, with a track record of helping business owners build and sell their companies... from every side of the table:
Michael is a citizen of the U.S., Canada, and United Kingdom.
His passions outside of work are music and sports. He performs acoustic guitar solo and as part of indie/folk-rock cover band The Queen's English, landing ~100 gigs through marketing outreach. He's also a hockey fanatic trapped in a basketball player’s body.