The questions owners ask first, answered plainly.

A 10% success fee on the sale price, paid at closing out of the proceeds. It goes in the listing agreement before we go to market, so nothing gets renegotiated at the LOI. There is no retainer and no monthly fee while the business is listed. If you did the Exit-Readiness Review first, the $4,500 is credited against the fee at closing. Your attorney's fees are separate, as they would be with any broker.

The confidential value range is free. The 30-minute Owner Consult is free. The Exit-Readiness Review is $4,500 flat and takes two weeks. The Sale-Ready Program, for owners a year or more out, runs from $2,500 a month for six to twelve months. Each fee is stated in writing before the work starts, and none of them changes later. All services and fees.

Yes. If we later list and sell the business, the $4,500 comes off the 10% fee at closing. If you never list, or you sell to Lakeshore directly, you paid $4,500 for a readiness scorecard across the five areas buyers examine, a defended value range and a 90-day fix list, all of which are yours to keep and use with anyone.

Most main-street brokers charge a success fee of roughly 8 to 12 percent, often with a minimum fee between $10,000 and $25,000. Deals above about $2 million tend to price on sliding scales such as Double Lehman. Many firms add upfront valuation or marketing fees and a tail clause that runs 12 to 24 months past the agreement. We wrote it all down in Business broker fees in Chicago; the fee at each sale price, from $250,000 to $5 million, is tabled in the Chicago broker fee guide.

No success fee. Because there is no retainer and no monthly marketing charge, there is nothing to lose while the business is on the market. If you did the Review, you paid for the Review and you keep the work product. Some listing agreements elsewhere charge withdrawal or early-termination fees, so read that clause carefully wherever you sign.

Not from us. The business is marketed through a blind profile with no name, address or detail that would identify you. Every buyer signs an NDA before seeing a financial statement and is vetted before learning who you are. You decide when your team is told, and most owners wait until the purchase agreement is signed. Most teams never learn a sale was being prepared.

Yes. It needs three things, your revenue, your industry and an email address, and nothing is published, listed or shared. There is no listing agreement and no obligation. We don't sell or rent inquiry data, and we don't tell anyone that you asked. The range arrives by email within two business days and the decision about what to do next is yours.

They live in a data room we build for your engagement and go only to buyers who have signed an NDA and been vetted, and to the advisors you permit. Before an engagement letter is signed, please don't send confidential documents; the value range and the consult don't need them. Our managing advisor handled other people's financial records for fifteen years at the IRS, and the habit stuck.

Six to nine months from first conversation to closing is typical for a business with clean books, and 90 to 120 days once it is on the market. Diligence usually runs 60 to 90 days, shorter when the data room was built before anyone asked. Cash-basis books, a customer over 20 percent of revenue, or an owner who holds every relationship each add time. The month-by-month calendar is in how to sell a business in Chicago.

Two to five years out is the best window. It's long enough to fix the things buyers discount and short enough that the work pays off at closing. Owners who start when the first buyer calls have already lost most of their bargaining position. Start with the free value range; if the gaps are worth pricing, the Review does that in two weeks, and the Sale-Ready Program closes them with your team.

A buyer can trust your numbers, the business runs without you for a month, no single customer can sink it, the key people are staying, and every document diligence will ask for already sits in one folder. Those are the five things buyers examine, and the Review scores your business on each of them.

It starts with the value range and a readiness check. We then write a pricing memo with the evidence behind it, build a blind profile and a buyer list you approve, and put an NDA in front of every buyer before they see the confidential information memorandum. Serious buyers meet you, usually at the business. Then the LOI, diligence from a data room built in advance, and closing. The eight steps, in order, with timing.

Don't sign their LOI yet. The first offer is rarely the best one, because the buyer priced it before anyone on your side checked the math. Send us what they sent you and book a consult. We can represent you in that one negotiation without listing the business: rebuild the earnings, review the LOI, negotiate structure and working capital, and manage diligence. The fee is agreed in writing first.

Yes. Lakeshore invests in and acquires Chicagoland businesses. A direct sale means no listing period, no marketing exposure, no commission, and one prepared buyer instead of a process. If we want to buy, we say so in writing before any listing work starts, with price, structure and timing, and you stay free to take the business to market instead. Selling to Lakeshore.

You get the value range with the evidence behind it before you see our offer, and you get our interest in writing up front rather than after a listing has stalled. We charge no fee on our own purchase. You keep your own attorney and CPA, and we encourage you to have them read everything. If our number is below what the market would pay, you take it to market, and we'll help you do that.

The same businesses we serve: family- and founder-owned companies doing roughly $1 million to $15 million in revenue in Chicago and Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. Manufacturing and machine shops, distribution, the trades, logistics, professional practices and business services are the usual fits. If the fit isn't there, we'll say so and help you find the right buyer instead.

Keep your CPA. Your taxes, filings and day-to-day accounting stay with the person who knows them. Our work is different: recasting the financials the way a buyer reads them, documenting add-backs, setting a working-capital target, and getting the company through a buyer's diligence intact. We coordinate with your CPA, copy them on the milestones you permit, and send tax questions to them first.

Yes. The purchase agreement is yours to sign, and it should be reviewed by a lawyer who represents you. We don't give legal advice. What we do is keep your attorney on schedule and informed, so the LOI, the purchase agreement and the closing documents don't arrive as surprises. Jim Calloway, who coordinates the deal team, has been through more than sixty closings and knows what your attorney will need and when.

Most owners split the exit between two firms. A broker markets the business and takes a commission at closing. A CPA keeps the books and taxes clean. Neither owns the years of buyer-side preparation that decide the multiple, and the two rarely talk. Here the accountant's cleanup, the fix list, the pricing and the sale itself are one engagement with the same people, from the first month through closing.

Most businesses this size sell on a multiple of earnings, SDE for owner-operated companies and EBITDA for larger ones. Owner-operated businesses under about $2 million in value trade at roughly 1.6 to 3.6 times SDE depending on industry, and larger companies at about 3.7 to 4.5 times EBITDA. Two businesses with the same revenue can sell for very different prices. How the math works, and the multiples by industry, with sources.

In it: a CPA-prepared range for your business based on revenue, industry and the multiples buyers actually pay, plus the two or three items a buyer's accountant would raise first. Not in it: a formal appraisal, a listing price, or a look at your books. The two-week Exit-Readiness Review is where we read the real numbers and defend a range you could put in front of a buyer.

Your approximate annual revenue, your industry, and where to send the result. That's all. No financial statements, no tax returns, nothing to sign. The range arrives by email within two business days. If the honest answer is that now is the wrong time to sell, you'll hear that too, along with what to work on in the meantime.