One buyer controls the terms. More than one, and you do.
Most owners find out what their business is really worth on the day a buyer tells them. We tell you first — and build the plan to fix what they’d find.
Someone is going to find the problems. The only question is who.
You can have us find them, while there’s still time to fix them and get paid for the fix.
Or you can have the buyer find them — in diligence, with a signed letter of intent and all the leverage on his side of the table.
One of those grows what your business is worth. The other one takes it apart.
The Buyer’s View
What the next owner will see, while you can still do something about it.
We go through your business the way an acquirer would: how it makes money, whether that survives your leaving, whether it can be proved, whether there’s room left to grow, and what would slow down a closing.
You get a written assessment of what a buyer finds and what each finding costs you — and then the part that matters: a priority plan. What to fix first, what to fix later, and what to leave alone.
Four to six weeks. You’ll know within the first two whether it’s worth anything.
Who we work with
The owner with an exit in view
You’ll sell at some point — maybe soon, maybe not for years — and you’d rather know now what that’s going to look like than find out in diligence.
The owner outgrowing the systems
Revenue is up and everything runs through you and a spreadsheet. We build the systems that let it scale — and those same systems are what a buyer pays for later.
The owner doing six jobs
You started this to build something, not to fight fires. Fractional COO work: we take the operating load off your desk and put structure under it.
I’ve been the buyer.
I’m Bobby Lake. For ten years I was COO of a capital markets division that grew from $14 million to $87 million in revenue, across a dozen U.S. offices and London. We acquired a number of firms along the way — five to twenty people each — and I was the one responsible for making them work after the closing.
That’s the whole credential: I’ve been on the other side of the table, and I’ve seen what gets discounted, what dies in diligence, and what an owner never knew was a problem until someone from outside went looking.
Today I run operating businesses of my own, and I still buy.
What we don’t do
We don’t sell your business. We don’t list it, broker it, or introduce you to buyers, and we are never paid out of the transaction.
That isn’t modesty — it’s the point. Nobody here has a reason to tell you the business is ready when it isn’t, or that now is the time when it isn’t. Our read is worth something precisely because we don’t get paid when you sell.
When you’re ready for that part, you’ll want a broker or an investment banker. We’ll tell you what to look for in one.
If you’re thinking about it, this is the right time.
Or you’re not sure — which is the honest answer for most owners, and it’s still the right time. The work that widens your buyer pool takes time to do. It can’t be done in the ninety days before you go to market.
bobby@c323inc.com | 205-243-4056
22 Inverness Center Parkway, Suite 157 | Birmingham, AL 35242
