READY TO SELL
Ready to sell means ready to hand over. Whether you ever sell is up to you.
A company that is ready to sell is the same company that can be handed to your son, your service manager, or a stranger, and keep running. We get it there years before anyone looks, because that is when it is cheap to fix.
The buyer’s first question
A buyer’s first question is not your revenue. It is what runs without you. We know what a buyer asks about an HVAC company because we deal with that world. Here are the eight things they ask, turned into questions you can answer in the truck:
- 01If you took two weeks off with the phone off, would the jobs still get quoted, sold and done?
- 02Could you hand a stranger last year’s numbers and have them add up without you explaining them?
- 03How much of next year’s work is already booked before the phone rings? Maintenance agreements. Service plans.
- 04Is there someone who could run a Tuesday without you?
- 05If a tech quit tomorrow, is how the work gets done written down anywhere but in your head?
- 06If you stopped answering the phone, where would the work come from?
- 07Are the licence, the lease and the insurance in the company’s name, or yours?
- 08Who else is buying HVAC companies in your town?
If the answer to most of those is no, that is not a verdict on twenty years of work. It is the list.
The numbers
Books a buyer’s accountant would trust. What the company really makes once you pay yourself properly. Margin by job type: service, changeouts, installs, agreements. Nothing in a shoebox.
The company on paper
The licence, the lease, the insurance and the trucks in the company’s name, not yours. The service agreements written so they transfer. The things that kill a sale late and cost almost nothing to fix early.
The five things tracked
Every month, on one page: calls in, jobs booked, the average ticket, agreements on the books, and what you keep. A buyer pays for what repeats, and so do you.
Three doors
How we are different, by structure
There are groups buying HVAC companies right now, and every one of them says they care about the owner. We do not ask you to take our word for it. Here is the structure:
- We come in and do the work with you first. Nothing changes hands until it runs without you.
- No debt on the company. Ever.
- An outside appraiser sets any number. Not us.
- You set the date. One year or twenty.
- The name on the trucks stays.
You set the date
Some owners want out in two years. Some want to be on the tools at seventy. The work is the same either way: make it run without you, then decide. We never push the exit, and we never raise it before you do.
The one thing we will not do
We are never your broker. We do not list the company, we do not take a percentage of a sale, and there is no commission, no success fee and no interest on anything, in either direction.
Questions
Do I have to sell?
No. Most of what we do is making the company run without you. Whether you ever sell is your call, and so is when. Some owners keep it and take August off.
What if I am not ready to leave for years?
Good. The best time to build a company that runs without you is years before you need it to. You get the time off now and the choice later.
Do you buy my business?
That is not the promise. First we come in and make it run without you. When you want out, there are three ways: we get it ready, we find the right buyer, or we partner on it, with a share of the company or a share of the profit. You pick, and you pick the date.
How are you paid?
A set fee for the audit, agreed before you pay. A scoped fee for the fix, and the audit fee comes off it. If we partner, a share of the profit or a share of the company. Never a percentage of a sale, never a commission, never interest on anything.