Joel Adam SmithFor firm owners looking to sell
You built the trust. Now make it transferable.
I broker sales of accounting, bookkeeping and advisory firms in South East Queensland. The aim is a better-fit transaction that protects your value and gives clients, staff and the new owner the best chance of continuity.
Private, no obligation, nothing goes to market until you say so.
What a good sale looks like from the inside
By the time you shake hands, four things are already true, and none of them depend on you being in the room.
- Your top customers already deal with someone other than you
- Your two key staff hear it from you, in a room, before anyone else does
- Your revenue story survives a buyer's accountant reading it line by line
- Your handover is weeks of introductions, not two years of earn out
Where dependence usually hides
- Half the revenue sits with four customers who call your mobile.
- The ops person who holds delivery together could leave mid deal.
- The numbers are fine, but nothing about how you work is written down.
- Every one of those is dependence, and a buyer prices dependence low.
A buyer will test all four in due diligence. Anything that only works because of you is not transferable yet, and it comes back as a lower number or a longer earn out. A bad transition does not just hurt the buyer. It can reduce what you actually get paid.
Map, reduce, transfer
Three parts that move the business from depending on you to running without you, run in that order, whether you sell next year or in five.
Step 01
Find what depends on you
We list your top customers by who they actually call, name the two or three people the delivery depends on, and mark the revenue that only repeats because you are still in the room.
Step 02
Turn dependence into something transferable
Introduce a second face to the accounts that matter, write down how you price and deliver, and get the revenue split into something an accountant can read in ten minutes.
Step 03
Hand the trust over, not just the keys
Key staff hear it from you first, then customers, in a set order with words you have already agreed. No one finds out from a rumour or an invoice with a new name on it.
Joel Adam Smith
Licensed Queensland business broker
I start by caring whether your business ends up in the right hands. That means being upfront about what could hurt the sale before a buyer finds it, where value is concentrated in one client or one person, and what could put retention at risk after settlement. I'd rather name that in month one than have you find out the hard way in due diligence.
More about how I workStart with a quiet conversation
No listing pressure and nothing public. We look at what would need to hold together for a buyer to believe the business keeps working after you leave.
- Where the business still depends on you or one key person
- Which customers a buyer would worry about
- What your team would need to hear, and when
- What is worth sorting in the next six to twelve months
I reply personally. Nothing is said to staff, customers, or the market until you decide it is time.