How to Make Your Business Transferable Before You Sell

What if the very thing that made your business successful is the thing that keeps it from selling?

Most owners never ask that question, and it’s the reason many fail to sell. If you want to make your business transferable, you have to start with how it was built in the first place.

William recently pointed to a statistic that gets quoted a lot: 80% of businesses that go to market fail to sell. He admits he doesn’t know how much to trust it. There’s an old line about lies, damn lies, and statistics. But he thinks it’s directionally accurate, and he knows why it’s a known problem.

Why So Many Owners Struggle to Sell

A lot of owners are great at building a business that cash flows to them. William has talked about this before. Owners are often craftsmen, people who are really good at their craft, whether that’s construction, landscaping, or electrical work.

So they start a business around what they do well. Customers come, because they’re good. They hire people so they can do more. They do more, create more cash, and build a structure around themselves that lets them do even more.

That’s a real success. But there’s a catch. Even if you’ve lifted yourself out of a lot of the doing, you’re often still the restrictor plate on the business. The governor. Everything flows through you.

Cash Flow for You Isn’t Cash Flow for the Next Owner

Here’s the issue. The business cash flows really well for you, and that’s fantastic. It may have given you a lifestyle you never imagined when you started.

But that doesn’t mean it will cash flow for the next owner.

A buyer wants the same things you’ve gotten out of the business, now and going forward. They want it to cash flow and they want it to grow. What they’re trying to figure out is how much of that cash flow will come to them. If it all runs through you, that’s a hard question to answer.

That question is the heart of due diligence. What will this business do for me? What are the risks that it can’t? The transferability of that awesomeness is what the next buyer is trying to measure.

How to Make Your Business Transferable

So the work is to turn the question around. You built the business around you. Now how do you build it so you’re no longer needed?

That’s the next stage in getting the business ready for wherever it ends up. And there’s a bonus. You might decide to keep the business forever. If it no longer needs you, it still cash flows for you.

William left owners with one simple test:

If you walked away from your business today, would it continue to operate in the same form and fashion that it operated yesterday?

Be truthful with yourself. If the answer is no, it’s not just an operations problem. It’s a future wealth problem.

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[00:00:00] So 80% of businesses that go to market fail to sell

I think I’ve spoken on here before about statistics, right? There’s the quote out there that says, “There’s lies, there’s damn lies, and then there’s statistics.” So I don’t know how much I trust the 80% fail to sell, but I think it’s directionally accurate, and it’s a known problem too. So why is it a known problem?[00:00:30] 

It’s a known problem because a lot of business owners are really good at building a business that cash flows to them, right? So you’ve, you’ve heard me talk about this before that oftentimes business owners are great craftsmen, right? They’re really good at their craft, and so what do they do? They, they go out and they start a business that, that starts around their craft.

And, and, you know, whether it’s construction, whether it’s landscape, whether it’s electrical, whatever it ends up being, that’s, that’s what they do. And then they g- [00:01:00] they get a lot of customers as a result because they’re really good at their craft. And so the thing for them to do is to hire people to allow them to do more.

And so they do more, and then as a result of doing more, they create cash, and they, they create this structure around them that allows them to do more. And that’s great. We’ve talked about it in the past too, like that’s your own cap too, right? Like you are the own cap in that instance [00:01:30] because you are the doer.

You are the one that’s making this thing go. Even if you’ve ed- elevated yourself to a certain extent out of all the doing, right? You’re still oftentimes that restrictor, the restrictor plate, the governor on the business, if you will. But as a result of being good and as a result at the business that you’ve built, it cash flows really well for you, or cash flows really well for the business owner [00:02:00] But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gonna cash flow really well for the next owner, and that’s what they’re trying to decide, right?

Like, how much of the cash flow is gonna flow to me? Because that’s what they want too, right? Like, they’re buying a business that they want to move. You know, they want it to cash flow. They want it to grow. They want all the things that you’ve experienc- experienced out of it from today going forward. And, and if the business owner [00:02:30] is that, that governor, that restrictor plate on that business because everything flows through them, then yeah, fine, it built awesome cash flow for you, right?

Like, that’s fantastic. It’s afforded you a lifestyle that you didn’t really even imagine when you started the business. But how’s that gonna do for the next owner, right? So that’s, that’s the issue, right? Like, what’s that transferability of that business, and that’s, that’s what that due diligence process is, right?

Like, what’s it… What’s this gonna do? Like, what are the risks [00:03:00] that it can’t do that? And so anyway, so that’s, that’s transferability, right? So again, you build a business that cash flows awesome for you. The transferability of that awesomeness is what the next buyer is trying to figure out. And so that’s what you need to work on, right, is figuring out, okay, I built this business around me.

Now how do we build this business so I’m no longer needed? And, and that’s your goal. That’s your next stage [00:03:30] in, in getting ready to take this thing to wherever it ends up being, right? You might keep the business forever, but the great thing is, is if you built the business so that it doesn’t really need you, then it doesn’t need you, and it’s still gonna cash flow for you, right?

And so that’s, that’s it. So that’s your, that’s your next goal. And so I’ll leave you with, you know, the simple thought process of if you walked away from your business today, would it continue to operate in the same form and fashion [00:04:00] that it operated yesterday? And be truthful with yourself. And if it doesn’t, then it’s not just an operations problem, it’s also a future wealth problem 

[00:04:17] William Bissett: If you liked today’s video, hit the subscribe button down below, or better yet, just leave us a comment

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ORIGINAL MEDIA SOURCE(S):

William Bissett: Why 80% of Businesses That Go to Market Fail to Sell | Portus Perspectives

Originally Recorded on October 3, 2026

Portus Perspectives: Episode 55

By /Published On: November 12, 2026/