You can sense the email arriving any moment from your finance director. The subject line will read: “Discuss Next Year’s Budget”. You think, “Is there anything more corporate than a budget?!” Budgeting makes you anxious and has for years.

You wouldn’t even do it if it weren’t a requirement from the bank. This is the moment in every year where you are forced to make definitive statements about the future and put yourself in a box. You do not like being put into a box. You are an outside of the box kind of person.

You’ve got your anxiety about the inevitable: your exit from your company. You’ve heard a few stories and you know that selling your company is just as competitive as making a buck in your industry.

In your day-to-day business, you know the market and you’ve played the game for decades. But in the market for the buying and selling of businesses, you know it’s an unfair fight. You know that someday soon you’re going to need to step into the ring.

As an entrepreneur, you can see the future. Where others see an open field, you see a beautiful state-of-the-art facility churning out new products. Where others see an empty shell building, you envision an automated line that will cut operating costs in half. Where others see an abandoned storefront, you see a new retail concept.

You speak the language of a business operator.

But as you know, sometimes you need a financial partner in order to bring your future vision into reality.

When it comes to the sale of your business, the most prized assets are the ones that have the highest potential to generate recurring future cash flow for the new owners. So the key to a successful business sale is not historical or present cash flow, but transferable future cash flow.