CHAPTER 26

No one is buying your job.

What you're really selling, eventually, is a business that runs without you. The work to get there is mostly subtraction.

PROMPT ONE

If a serious investor sat across from you tomorrow and asked what does this business look like without you, what would you actually have to say in response — and how comfortable would you be saying it?

PROMPT TWO

Of your top ten clients, how many have a relationship that runs primarily through you — and how many would survive your departure unchanged?

PROMPT THREE

Of your last few significant deals or renewals, how many were closed by you versus how many were closed by someone else in your business with you nowhere near the room?

PROMPT FOUR

What's the gap between the business's growth rate over the last year and your growth rate as the operator inside it — and which one are you currently selling?

PROMPT FIVE

If you genuinely removed yourself from the business for the next two years, what would you start working on this month to make that possible — and what would you have to stop doing?

PROMPT SIX

If you imagined a future buyer reading the diligence report on your business eighteen months from now, what would you want them to find that they currently wouldn't — and what's stopping you from building it?