You’ve built your business like a master craftsman—now it’s time to plan your handoff. Doescher Group CFO, Kevin Rogner shares how business owners, specifially those in construction and trades, can create a step-by-step exit strategy that protects value, rewards key people, and ensures a smooth transition into the next chapter.

From a one-man band to a full team, Doescher Group continues to grow. With Doescher Advisors joining us, we now offer executive coaching alongside our Evolve and Exit services to better serve self-made business owners.

Selling your business is one of the most important negotiations of your life—and it’s easy to lose control if you’re not careful. In this post, we unpack the mental traps sellers fall into, the pressure to become passive, and the single mindset shift that can keep you in the driver’s seat. You only get one shot—don’t give the buyer the upper hand.

Is your business growing fast—but your finances feel chaotic? If you’re constantly troubleshooting cash flow, buried in spreadsheets, or planning a major move like a sale or acquisition, it might be time to bring in expert help. Discover 5 key signs it’s time to hire a Fractional CFO—and how the right financial partner can elevate your business without the full-time cost.

International trade might seem like a distant concept, but its effects are closer to home than you think. In the US or North America, there are simply many items that cannot be acquired locally. Our interdependence is here to stay. Even if you yourself don’t import or export something, your suppliers or clients probably do, and this can have a big impact on your bottom line.

With tax law changes looming in 2025, business owners need to plan ahead. Discover six proactive tax strategies to maximize savings, reduce uncertainty, and keep more cash in your pocket.

Imagine you wake up and realize you’ve outgrown your house. It was great, but now it’s too small, or too big, or requires too much maintenance. You’re ready for broader vistas and new adventures. It’s time! Today is the day! 

Do you call the first realtor whose number you see on a park bench, sign a contract immediately, and hope for the best? 

Of course not! You do your research.

As an entrepreneur, you probably got where you are based on a combination of hard work, passion, and trusting yourself. You had to rely on your gut and your instincts to make brilliant choices. 

But there are two moments in your entrepreneurial journey where those very things can be your downfall, and they both have to do with keeping the right key performers on your team.

Naturally, you want to sell your business for as much as possible. Of Course! You’ve put enormous work into your business over the years, it’s only fair to want to get as much as you can out of your exit, but the groundwork for a successful exit needs to be laid along the way. One of the most powerful key factors in maximizing your business’s value often gets overlooked: the importance of solid financial reporting, planning, and accounting processes.

At Doescher Group, we have two main client paths: Exit and Evolve.

As a business owner, you will one day exit your business. We are ready to walk you through this process every step of the way.

On the other hand, along the road to the eventual exit of your business, it will inevitably evolve as you work to meet customer needs and build value for yourself and your employees.

Regardless of which path of our Provey Process you start down, everything begins with building a relationship through Discovery.

How prepared are you for the future state of your business? How ready is your business to transfer to a new owner? Regardless of the option that best suits you and your business, you’ll likely need to spend a lot of time seeking out information and guidance on the process. When the initial study was done in 2013, less than 40% of all owners surveyed said that they had an understanding of their exit options. In 2023, that number rose to 70%.

Many of the brightest visionaries and business owners I know have gotten to where they are on pure grit, intuition, and hard work. However, the time comes when they are ready to reach even higher heights, and leveraging data into information can supercharge the journey. 

Shifting from collecting under explored data to arming you and your business with this predictive information empowers you to tweak your business operations in real-time rather than waiting for next month to see your financial results or worse yet never doing this analysis in the first place.

Lately though, you’ve been turning your attention to some bigger questions. The status quo isn’t working for you anymore and you’d like to shake things up. You keep posing a question to yourself, “Should I grow this thing? Or should I sell the company and move on?” You’re just not sure, but you know it requires some exploration. Putting your head in the sand will only hold off the inevitable for so long.

When it comes to these questions, you need a different skill set from your current internal capabilities. Navigating through these waters is much different from your day-to-day accounting and finance processes. It might be time to think about a Transactional CTO.

After reviewing your exit options, you also decided to sell to the highest bidder. You feel the release of this decision to sell. Now what do you do?

Do you put up a for sale sign on the front lawn? Do you put an ad in the newspaper? Do you create a website? Of course not. In order to get the best offer, you’re going to need to engage an investment banker who specializes in the sale of businesses like yours.

Chances are you’ve never engaged an investment banker before now. Most people haven’t. Here’s what you need to know.

It’s your business and you’ve always managed it this way. You’ve gotten a certain glee out of minimizing your income taxes. Over the years you’ve employed two common “strategies'' of closely held business owners: under-reporting cash sales and classifying personal expenses as business expenses.

While these actions are illegal under US law, you’ve dealt with that moral conflict long ago in your head. Either way, this piece is not about the legal, ethical, or moral questions of such strategies. Let’s instead discuss how these strategies may impact your exit plan.

Most of your advisers are the original gang despite the changed scope, scale, and complexity of your personal and business needs. Whenever your controller and others have expressed concerns in the past, you have played the loyalty card and said, “These are the advisers who got me here.” While this is somewhat true, you know they may not be the right group to take you where you are headed.

You’ve heard it said that “words matter”. As a business owner you might be surprised about how words can attract or repel potential buyers for your business. Let’s take a look at a few real world examples to get a sense of what we mean.

While purchase price is an important factor, and often the most important, it is not the only factor to consider. An offer is only just that, an offer. It is not a closed deal. To get to a closed deal, you should also consider offer terms and certainty to close, in addition to price.

Do you continue to feel aligned in your mission? Or has life intervened and little-by-little (or all at once), as it inevitably does, have you become increasingly aware that your shared vision diverged somewhere along the way?

This common occurrence, which can be painfully obvious to observers, often goes unaddressed for months or even years amongst business partners. While ignorance may seem like bliss, it can often do real damage to your bottom line, limiting your exit options, one avoided conversation at a time.

There are other options. Let’s discuss some healthier ways to handle such a situation.