How does the Exit Readiness Assessment work?
The Exit Readiness Assessment is a free, indicative self-assessment. An owner rates 24 statements about their business, grouped into five dimensions: Financial Readiness, Management Readiness, Owner Independence, Commercial Resilience and Transaction Readiness. Each dimension and the overall result are scored out of 100. The assessment highlights likely readiness issues; it is not a valuation and does not predict a sale.
Written by Tony Vaughan
Last reviewed: · Editorial policy
Key points
- 24 statements, five dimensions, scores out of 100.
- Answers are self-reported and stay in your browser unless you request a report.
- A higher score means fewer obvious issues were identified — not that a sale will succeed.
- Not a valuation, and not legal, tax or financial advice.
What is the assessment for?
It helps owners of established UK businesses see, in a few minutes, which areas are most likely to concern a buyer, funder or successor — so they can prioritise preparation well before a sale or succession.
What does each dimension measure?
1
Financial Readiness
How consistent, reliable and well reported the company's profits are.
Financial preparation2
Management Readiness
Whether a capable team can lead the business and make decisions without the owner.
The management team3
Owner Independence
How far the business relies on the owner for relationships, knowledge and day-to-day decisions.
Owner dependency4
Commercial Resilience
Exposure to customer, supplier and key-person concentration, and the quality of revenue.
Customer concentration5
Transaction Readiness
Whether contracts, premises, records and shareholder alignment would support a transfer.
Due diligence preparation
Used by our Exit Readiness Assessment. How the assessment works.
How are scores calculated?
Each statement is answered on a five-point scale from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". Answers within a dimension are combined into a score out of 100, and the overall score is the average of the five dimensions, which are weighted equally. Priority actions are drawn from the lowest-scoring dimensions.
How should the score be interpreted?
A higher score indicates that fewer obvious readiness issues were identified by the assessment. It does not predict buyer appetite, price or transaction success. Lower scores identify areas that may benefit from preparation; they do not mean a business cannot be sold or passed on.
| Score | Indicative reading |
|---|---|
| Below 50 | Material readiness issues are likely in this area. |
| 50–74 | Reasonable foundations, with some issues worth addressing. |
| 75 and above | Relatively few obvious issues were identified. |
What are the limitations?
- It relies on the owner's own view, which may be more or less critical than a buyer's.
- It is general: it does not reflect sector-specific factors, market conditions or deal structure.
- It is not a formal valuation and says nothing about what the business is worth.
- It is not legal, tax or financial advice.
- It does not guarantee saleability or transaction success.
Who designed it?
The statements reflect the issues that, in the professional experience of Tony Vaughan, most commonly affect UK SME sales and successions. See our editorial policy.
Can a strong overall readiness score hide something we still need to fix?
Yes. The overall result is the average of five equally weighted dimensions, so it should be read alongside the individual dimension scores. Priority actions come from the lowest-scoring dimensions, not simply the headline result. The assessment combines self-reported answers to 24 statements; it does not test sector conditions, buyer appetite or deal structure. A high overall score therefore identifies fewer obvious issues in the answers, not a conclusion that every important sale obstacle has been resolved.
When we repeat the readiness assessment, what should we compare rather than just the headline score?
Compare the five dimension scores and the answers behind them, especially the areas previously identified as priorities. Owners rate statements from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and each dimension contributes equally to the overall average. Using the same basis for those judgements makes a repeat discussion more useful. A changed result still reflects self-reporting rather than independent verification, and neither an improvement nor a high score establishes business value or predicts a successful transaction.