Strategic Exit Planning | Dan Pascone with James Gorzynski | Ep #32

James Gorzynski is CEO and Managing Partner of Certified Exit Planners, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. He started in data analytics with an accounting degree, then moved into fractional CFO work for small, often family-run businesses. He later set out to buy or start a business of his own, evaluated several hundred, made a few offers that fell through over red flags in due diligence, and ended up starting a company.

He sold it a few years ago. After his own exit, he saw how many owners weren’t getting the support they needed. Small business runs on both sides of his family, so it clicked.

His team works alongside financial advisors, CPAs, M&A attorneys, and business coaches, helping owners build the plan, carry it out, and, when the time comes, broker the deal. James uses the 3-legged stool framework taught through the Exit Planning Institute’s Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) credential.

James is quick to say exit planning is business strategy first. Many owners hear the word “exit” and assume they’re being pushed toward the door. In practice, his clients are often 2–10 years from a transition, though he says the concepts help at any stage. Selling is an event. Exit planning is the work that shapes how you run the business in the years before it.

His framework has 3 legs, and the stool falls over if you remove any 1:

• Financial: how the company’s financial performance and your personal financial plan look.
• Business: how the business performs and what it’s worth.
• Personal: your goals, your family, and what you want your time to look like.

James’s answer was a single word: “yesterday.” Dan gives the same answer when someone asks when they need a financial plan. The logic is simple. You can’t get time back, and a real plan needs time to build and carry out. James suggests starting with your exit timeline, then getting educated. That can mean a conversation with an exit planner to learn what’s involved, with no formal engagement required.

• 2–5 years out: James says “soon.” This is the window to engage more deeply.
• 5–20 years out: start with education and how the process works, then pick up the pace as your date gets closer.

Starting early also changes how you operate. Once you run the business with the end in mind, your decisions start to reflect it. Time is a theme we cover from the personal side in our video on when high earners can actually make work optional.

Every business differs, but James described the arc at a high level:

• Step 1, value range: a range of value, benchmarked against similarly sized businesses and similar industries, using prior sales much like comping a house. At this level, he says, business valuation is more art than science.
• Step 2, discovery: the culture, the people, and the nuts and bolts of the business, plus a SWOT analysis.
• Step 3, low-hanging fruit: the changes that add the most value for the least cost, aimed at the 2 things that matter most to an owner: the value of the business and the income it pays you.
• Step 4, execution: working toward KPIs, metrics, and SOPs, with specialists brought in where needed and an eye on the highest return for each dollar spent.
• Step 5, pre-exit research: about 12 months before a sale, lining up pre-vetted buyers on the brokerage side.
• Step 6, going to market: at 12 months or less from the target exit, marketing to well-qualified buyers, collecting letters of intent, and reviewing multiple offers.
• Step 7, after the sale: check-ins on the transition, plus coaches who help with life after the business, retirement included.

Throughout, James comes back to what he calls the wealth gap: do you know your number, meaning what you need to retire and to do what you’re passionate about? That number is the target the rest of the work aims at. For a general overview of selling or closing a business, the SBA’s guide to closing or selling your business is a useful starting point.

James says the 2 biggest factors in valuation come back to cash flow. If you aren’t investing your money in ways that improve future cash flow and value, he sees that as a signal to rethink the strategy. For most businesses under $50M, he says buyers focus on a multiple of free cash flow, whether you call it adjusted EBITDA or seller’s discretionary earnings (SDE). Most small businesses trade at roughly 2x–4x of cash flow, with better-run businesses toward the top of that range.

Structure moves the multiple. If the owner is the chief rainmaker and runs operations (a “hub and spoke” setup), buyers see risk, and the multiple tends to sit near 2x or even lower. Delegating, building systems, and developing a leadership team can move it up.

Industry matters too. James sees buyers shifting toward recurring revenue, such as contract-based or recurring residential landscaping over project-based commercial work, because predictable revenue earns a higher multiple. He also points to lower-labor businesses like self-serve laundromats, which are more capital-intensive but take accelerated depreciation on the front end and depend less on staffing.

Dan compared 2 ends of the spectrum: a SaaS company with revenue booked on 2–3 year contracts versus a landscaper who has to win customers every season. James said the variance is massive. He has seen roofing and landscaping companies trade at 1x, 1.2x, 1.5x, or 2x of cash flow, and recurring-revenue businesses trade at 10x, 15x, and even 20x, depending on how strong and predictable the contracts are.

The point is that an owner can influence this over time. If you’re 3, 5, or 10 years out, you have time to build predictability, which can matter for the price and for the tax planning around it. James adds that it helps employees too: when you delegate to a few key people, they feel a sense of ownership.

James offers a rule of thumb: roughly 80% of an owner’s wealth is in the business, and roughly 80% of the business’s value is tied to its people. Dan has seen figures as high as 90% in some studies. If that’s close to right, people and structure are where the effort pays off. Every starting point is different, but James’s examples were practical:

• A CRM: to track prospects, follow-ups, and scheduling. He calls it low-hanging fruit and says it’s missing more often than you’d expect.
• SOPs and a sales playbook: starting with a clear ideal customer profile, since many owners can describe the value they provide but not who their ideal customer is.
• Technology help: automation and AI tools, plus someone to build procedures, for owners who see the value but don’t know where to start.
• Staffing support: specialized agencies for trade, service, and restaurant roles.

On delegation, James suggests a simple quadrant and starting with the lowest-risk items. Don’t hand off the things you do really well and really enjoy, at least at first. The best early candidates are tasks you don’t do well, don’t like, and that carry little risk. Dan’s version: spend as much time as you can on what you love and do well, and treat the people who handle the rest as an investment, not a price tag.

Sometimes the business starts running so well that the owner no longer wants to sell. James counts that as a success. A few years in, an owner may earn a little less personally because of the investment in structure, while the business is worth more and the owner spends more time with family and friends.

Dan tied this to Hybrid Retirement, our term for designing your work on purpose so it becomes optional, flexible, and meaningful while your portfolio covers the gap. It can look like running your own business, consulting, or volunteering at a nonprofit. The idea is that with enough years behind you, you can set your own hours and make room for travel, family, or golf in your prime working years, not at 80 on a beach.

James agreed that this isn’t only about the later stages of life. He sees it with owners in their 30s through 60s, and it comes back to what drives them. We lay out how to model the transition in our guide to building a hybrid retirement plan that makes work optional.

James says it’s hard to show exactly what the work will be at the start. It’s a concept, so he uses visuals, graphics, and frameworks, and the light bulb goes on once discovery and assessments begin. The second challenge is clarity. Owners carry a swirl of personal and business thoughts, and getting it all onto 1 piece of paper is the biggest struggle at first.

There’s a lot of movement in the first 30–60–90 days, with checkpoints along the way, and usually real momentum after 90 days. Owners are often unsure of all their exit options, so James’s team acts as a resource first and a consultant on specific scenarios second.

Owners tend to watch income. Buyers pay for value. James says owners focus on the income side, but the value side can do more for the overall plan and for closing the wealth gap. Two businesses with the same $500K of profit can be worth very different amounts, because buyers pay for how predictable and transferable that profit is.

The second thing people miss is that the same work raises value and lowers dependence on you. Recurring revenue, systems, and a leadership team make a business easier to sell, and they also make it easier to step back from. Some owners find they’d rather keep it. That isn’t a failed exit plan. It’s a plan that created choices, including a Hybrid Retirement on your own terms.

A third catch: the sale price isn’t what you keep. What lands in your account depends on deal structure, taxes, and what the money needs to do for your life, which is why James works alongside financial advisors, CPAs, and M&A attorneys. Bring that team in years before a sale, not weeks.

This illustration uses the ranges James shared. It isn’t a client and it isn’t a valuation. Say 3 owners each run a business that produces $500K of adjusted cash flow (EBITDA or SDE). What buyers pay depends mostly on the multiple, and the multiple depends on structure:

• Owner-dependent, project-based: the owner sells and runs operations. At 1x–2x, the business is worth roughly $500K–$1M.
• Well-run, with systems: stronger systems and less owner dependence. At 3x, roughly $1.5M. At 4x, roughly $2M.
• Strong recurring contracts: high-quality contracts, good structure, low owner dependence. At 10x, roughly $5M.

Same $500K of profit, and up to a 10-to-1 difference in value between the first owner and the third. That gap comes from structure, not from working harder. These figures are illustrations of gross business value before debt, fees, taxes, and deal terms, and real multiples vary by industry, size, and market conditions. A formal valuation is the only way to know what a specific business is worth.

We’re a fee-only fiduciary planning firm, not an exit planner or a business broker. Our part is the personal and financial legs of James’s stool. We start with the life you want, then work backward. That’s Life Driven Investing, our approach to building a portfolio backward from your life, not forward from a product. When business proceeds are in play, we sort the money into our Four Liquidity Bands by when you’ll need it: 0–2 years, 3–5 years, 6–10 years, and 10+ years. And we revisit the plan in our Quarterly Strategy Rhythm, a set quarterly review of your whole financial picture, so it keeps pace with your business, your taxes, and your goals.

This conversation is for business owners and executives in their 40s and 50s with household income of $500,000 or more who own, or hold meaningful equity in, a privately held business and want to understand how a sale or transition would fit the rest of their financial life. It also helps if you’re weighing whether to keep the business, step back into a Hybrid Retirement, or buy into one. If your wealth is concentrated in 1 company and you haven’t mapped the exit, this is the kind of situation we help with.

If you own a business, or hold meaningful equity in one, it helps to have a second set of eyes on how a sale or transition would fit your taxes, your timeline, and the life you want. Book a free Wealth Strategy Call and we'll talk through your situation. It's a conversation, not a sales pitch.