One team, from the first cleanup to closing day.
The people who clean up your books are the people who sell the business. We work the two or three years before a sale, when most of the value is decided, and then we run the sale itself through closing. In person, in plain English, with the fee in writing before any work starts.
The gap nobody minds.
When an owner decides to sell, a whole industry shows up at once, brokers and bankers and lawyers and buyers. Almost nobody works the years before that decision, and those years are where most of the value is won or lost. A customer that grew to 30 percent of revenue. Books that never got a monthly close. A sales relationship that lives only in the owner's head. None of that gets fixed in the ninety days a business is on the market, and every piece of it shows up in the buyer's price.
We work both sides of that line. The preparation years and the sale itself, one firm, from the first cleanup to closing day. If you're two years out, we tell you what to fix and in what order. If you're ready now, we price the business, take it to market, and manage diligence. If a buyer is already at the door, we check their math before you sign anything.
Sometimes the honest answer is wait. You'll hear that in the first month, along with what to do while you wait.
One team, start to finish.
On most deals the CPA who prepared the numbers and the dealmaker who negotiates the price work at different firms, and they meet for the first time when something goes wrong in diligence. Here they're the same people. The advisor in your first consult runs the engagement, and the person who documented your add-backs in month one is the one defending them to the buyer's accountant in month eight.
A managing advisor who spent fifteen years as an IRS auditor examining businesses leads every engagement and reads yours the way a buyer's accountant will. Jim Calloway coordinates the deal team and has been through more than sixty closings. Genevieve Andres, a former COO, turns the way the business actually runs into SOPs and manuals a buyer can read. Alex Nejad, CPA, handles tax, reporting and working capital, from entity questions early on to the allocation at close.
There is no handoff to a junior team and no account manager between you and the people doing the work. Meet the team.
Six things you can hold us to.
- In person, at your business
- Shop floor, warehouse, back office. We work in Chicago and the six counties on purpose, because the things that move a price are visible on site and invisible in a spreadsheet. Expect us at your place, not the other way around.
- Plain English fix lists
- You get a short list, ordered by what each item is worth, with who does what and how long it takes. Most of it your own team can do. If an item isn't worth fixing before a sale, we say so.
- Your CPA and attorney stay yours
- We coordinate with the advisors you already trust and never replace them. Tax, legal and lending questions that come up go to your people first, and they're copied on every milestone you permit.
- Confidential by default
- An exit explored is not an exit announced. Most teams never learn a sale is being prepared. Nothing goes out with your name on it until a buyer has signed an NDA and been vetted.
- Every path on the table
- List with us, take a buyer we bring, sell to Lakeshore, or wait. If we want to buy the business ourselves, we say so in writing up front, and you stay free to go to market instead.
- Fees in writing before work starts
- The Review is $4,500 flat. The Sale-Ready Program is from $2,500 a month. The sale is a 10% success fee, agreed in the listing agreement before we go to market. Nothing is added later. All services and fees.
What that looks like in practice.
It usually starts with the free value range. You send revenue, industry and an email address, and within two business days you have a CPA-prepared range and the two or three items a buyer's accountant would raise first. Some owners stop there for a year or two. That's fine, and it's often the right call.
If you want the gaps priced, the next step is the two-week Exit-Readiness Review. We come to the business, read the books the way a buyer will, and score it across the five things buyers test first. You get a scorecard, a defended value range and a 90-day fix list, presented in person. The $4,500 is credited against our fee if we later sell the business.
From there, most owners take one of two roads. Owners a year or more out work the fix list with us in the Sale-Ready Program, month by month, with their own team doing most of the work. Owners who are ready now go to market. We write the pricing memo, build the blind profile and the buyer list, put an NDA in front of every buyer before they see a financial statement, sit in on management meetings, and negotiate the LOI. Diligence runs from a data room we built before anyone asked, which is why it tends to take weeks rather than months. Then closing: the purchase agreement, your attorney's review, the lender's sign-off, and the handover plan. How the sale runs, step by step.
Sometimes the buyer is us. If Lakeshore wants to acquire the business, you get a written indication with price, structure and timing before any listing work begins. No commission, and no obligation to take it. Selling to Lakeshore.
A buyer's accountant reads a business from the bank statements up and trusts the paper over the story. That's how we read yours first, while there's still time to fix what they'll find.
Lakeshore Exit Partners · Chicago
Thirty minutes with a CPA. Your numbers, straight answers.
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