Exit planner, business broker, investment banker, or CPA. Who do you call first?

A CPA handles the accounting and tax filings you already have. An investment banker or business broker markets the business and runs the sale process once you're ready to go to market. Neither one is set up to think about the years of preparation before that point.

An exit planner's job is different. It's to look at the whole picture, the business, the tax exposure, the owner's personal readiness, and build a sequence that gets all three aligned before a buyer ever enters the picture.

Bringing in the broker or banker too early, before the business or the owner is actually ready, often means running a sale process that undersells what the business could have been worth with another year or two of preparation.