5 Exit Planning Mistakes You Can Still Fix 12 Months Before Selling
Most business owners wait too long to start preparing for an exit — or they assume it’s too late to make a difference once they’ve decided to sell. The good news? Even if you’re just 12 months out, there’s still time to fix high-impact issues that directly affect your valuation and how smooth your deal will go.
In this post, we’ll walk through five common mistakes we see — and the smart moves you can still make to avoid them.
Mistake #1: Waiting to Fix Financial Clarity
Buyers don’t expect perfection, but they do expect clarity. If your financials are messy, inconsistent, or heavily commingled with personal expenses, it creates friction — and friction reduces offers.
What you can still do now:
- Work with your accountant to clean up your books.
- Separate business and personal expenses clearly.
- Normalize your financials to reflect true seller’s discretionary earnings or EBITDA.
- Generate clean, accrual-based P&Ls and balance sheets for the past 2–3 years.
Buyers will use these numbers to benchmark your value. Making them easy to trust makes your business easier to buy.
Mistake #2: Ignoring Customer Concentration
If one or two customers account for 30%+ of your revenue, that’s a red flag for most buyers. Even if those relationships are solid, the perceived risk can shrink your multiple or lead to lower cash at close.
What you can still do now:
- Identify concentration issues by running a customer revenue analysis.
- Focus sales or marketing efforts on broadening your base, even slightly.
- Prepare a narrative that explains retention strength and expansion opportunities beyond those accounts.
Even small steps toward diversification — or showing you’ve recognized the issue — improves buyer confidence.
Mistake #3: Not Documenting Key Processes
The more your business runs out of your head, the less transferable it is — and buyers know it. If you disappear post-close, does the operation keep running?
What you can still do now:
- Start documenting Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for sales, fulfillment, operations, and finance.
- Record screen shares or training videos as you complete tasks.
- Begin developing a second layer of management, even if informally.
Process documentation adds value, reduces buyer friction, and builds buyer trust in the business beyond the founder.
Mistake #4: Underestimating Due Diligence
Many sellers think once an offer is accepted, the deal is done. In reality, the diligence phase is where deals either come together — or fall apart. Buyers will go deep, and any gaps can cause re-trades, slowdowns, or collapse.
What you can still do now:
- Begin assembling your data room: tax returns, contracts, leases, employee agreements, supplier/vendor info, and IP documents.
- Organize financial and legal documents into clean folders with naming conventions.
- Conduct your own light due diligence review — or better yet, get an advisor to walk you through one.
Preparation during diligence keeps your deal momentum strong and your leverage intact.
Mistake #5: Over-Focusing on Valuation Headlines
Everyone wants the biggest number — but chasing a headline valuation often leads to poor structure, painful earnouts, or disappointing net proceeds.
What you can still do now:
- Get educated on deal structures: cash at close, seller notes, earnouts, rollovers.
- Understand what “net proceeds” really means after taxes and adjustments.
- Work with an advisor to model 2–3 deal scenarios — not just a single target price.
A flexible mindset paired with solid preparation helps you negotiate stronger and avoid post-deal regret.
Conclusion
You don’t need to be perfect — but you do need to be proactive. Even 12 months out, these five areas can dramatically impact your exit value and outcome.
Great exits aren’t just about finding the right buyer — they’re about preparing the right business for that buyer to confidently say yes.
If you’re considering a sale in the next year, now’s the time to move.