Business exit planning: lessons from my agency and M&A work.

In 2020, I moved into mergers and acquisitions without selling the lead-generation, recruitment, and automation company I'd built. I explained that missed opportunity to Mark Michael Lewis on the Profitability Leadership Podcast in 2025. I had customers and a business I could have prepared for a sale, but I hadn't planned for the moment when I'd want to move on.

That experience shapes how I think about business exit planning. As Managing Partner of Prime Acquisitions Group, I work with buyers and sellers, but I've also been the owner who put his attention into the next opportunity before deciding what to do with the company behind him. My starting point is to define the outcome, then build the business and the transition around it.

The agency I didn't prepare to sell

My agency handled lead generation, recruitment, and automation. As my interest in acquisitions grew, I stopped wanting to run the agency in the same way. I kept serving established clients and moved deeper into development and technology work, but I didn't package the agency for a sale.

“I could have packaged it to sell”

Billy Batt, agency experience at 05:24

By the time of the interview, some of those client relationships stretched back to 2018. That's the detail I don't want owners to miss. I wasn't describing an idea that never found a customer. I had relationships that continued for years, yet I hadn't made a deliberate plan for transferring the business.

I can't put a sale price on an exit that never happened. What I can say is that I would have started the planning earlier. Serving customers and preparing to leave a company require different decisions. My experience gave me a reason to pay attention to both.

I discuss the transaction side in how agencies actually get sold. This conversation starts further back, with the owner's decision about what the business should become.

Define the kind of exit you actually want

Mark asked how I introduce acquisitions and exits to someone who's busy running a company. I start with the owner's end goal. An owner who wants to keep the company and spend less time operating it has a different destination from someone who wants to sell and retire.

In the interview, I described several possibilities: a lifestyle business with people in place to run it, a company built for an eventual sale, or a business whose sale helps the owner buy into the next venture. I also raised the possibility of leaving a company to the next generation. Each choice changes the plan.

A very large growth ambition brings its own demands on time, partnerships, and the team. An owner who wants more freedom may make different tradeoffs. Putting the goal on paper makes those choices explicit before the daily work takes over again.

I hadn't done that clearly enough with my agency. I understood the services and the customers. I hadn't given the eventual handoff the same attention. That's why I bring the exit conversation forward, even when someone isn't ready to sell.

Put research underneath the business plan

At 07:49 in the interview, Mark asked about building a plan around that destination. I talked about AI because I use it in planning and business systems. The part that matters most comes before the generated document: the research you put into it.

“you don't want to just fully rely on AI”

Billy Batt, 08:24

I described gathering information about competitors, the market, pricing, and the business's own numbers. Then I'd use that foundation to develop a plan around the outcome I'd written down. The five-year exit in the conversation was an example of a planning horizon, not a promised timetable.

A useful plan connects the goal to milestones, marketing, sales, and the people who can help carry it out. I talked about revising the output more than once until it reflected the goal and the research. Generating a document quickly doesn't remove that work.

The next step is execution. Early in a business, the owner often has to work out how to do more of the tasks personally. As the plan develops, finding the right people becomes a larger part of the job. The research helps identify what those people need to accomplish.

Plan your role in the transition

Mark then moved from the end goal to the different ways an owner can leave or change roles. I described a complete exit, a partial ownership sale, and bringing in a partner who contributes operating or marketing capability. Those are different conversations, even when each begins with an owner wanting change.

In my acquisition work, the transition and funding arrangements have varied from deal to deal. In the interview, I explained that I hadn't encountered two transactions that followed exactly the same structure. That's why I don't start by treating another owner's deal as a template for everyone.

A complete sale still involves a conversation about the handoff. A partial sale brings a conversation about the responsibilities the owner keeps. Bringing in an operator adds another question to resolve: how the two people will actually work together.

For potential partners, I described testing the working relationship and setting milestones before committing to the whole arrangement. I pay attention to how people collaborate when something goes wrong. A difficult moment can reveal more about that relationship than an easy introduction.

Those were examples from the discussion, not proposed terms for a particular company. The useful planning exercise is to describe the role you want after the change, then make that role part of the conversation from the beginning.

The HVAC conversation: buying complementary capabilities

One of the most concrete examples starts at 15:25 in the conversation. I told Mark about a construction-business owner who wanted to buy HVAC companies. He already had an operating business and people available to run additional assets.

I suggested that he also consider a marketing agency serving HVAC and plumbing companies. My reasoning had three parts: the agency's service capability, its recurring client relationships, and its connection to owners in the industry he wanted to enter.

That agency could support marketing for his existing company. Its work with HVAC and plumbing clients could also give him a way to build relationships with owners over time. I was looking at how the additional business might fit the company he already had, rather than limiting the search to another contractor.

I presented this as an acquisition idea during a conversation. I didn't describe a completed purchase or claim that the agency's clients had agreed to sell. The distinction matters: the example explains my thinking about fit, not the result of a closed deal.

It also connects to my off-market sourcing approach. Relationships and familiarity with an industry can shape the opportunities someone considers. Before pursuing an acquisition, I want to explain what it adds to the business and how that fits the owner's plan.

Build systems around work your team already does

The conversation eventually returned to technology. My background includes building marketing and automation systems, so I brought examples from that work. You can read more about my operating and technology background, but the principle I used with Mark was practical: start with a task the business already has.

I described a deal-analyzer tool and a larger intake system I was building at the time. The intended sequence connected a submitted deal, an initial review, and a one-page summary for the team to use in buyer conversations. Mark emphasized verifying the details when those conversations began.

That example concerned a defined part of the process. It wasn't proof that software could replace every step of evaluating or buying a company. It showed why I look for repeated work with a clear input and an output someone can use.

I also talked about documenting the tasks that consume time and money, giving team members training, and removing work that no longer helps. In the team review I described, the business had added activity over the summer. My focus was on deciding what to keep, what to improve, and what to take away before the next quarter.

For an owner planning a different role, that operating work belongs in the same conversation as growth. The plan should describe how the team will carry out the work, not just what the owner hopes the business will achieve.

Start with a written destination

The lesson I took from my agency is specific: I should have considered the handoff while I still wanted to build the business, before my attention moved elsewhere. The conversation with Mark connected that experience to the choices owners make about growth, partners, acquisitions, and systems.

Put the intended outcome in writing. Support it with market research and the company's own numbers. Describe the role you want to keep, the capabilities the business needs, and the people who can help execute the plan. Those are the starting points I laid out in the interview.

If you're considering an acquisition or thinking about your next chapter as an owner, discuss your business goals with me. Bring the outcome you're working toward, even if you haven't settled on a sale or a timetable yet.

This first-person article adapts Billy's business discussion in the source interview. Examples reflect that conversation; the HVAC acquisition idea is not a completed transaction. Short quotations link to the original recording for context.