Coaching services
Exit, Valuation And Legacy Coaching
This track is for digital marketing and software development agencies. Most owners do not know what their agency is worth, and many find out at the worst moment. The number is usually lower than they expect, for reasons that can be fixed, and the fixing takes about a year. This track starts that work before anybody is asking.
- From the ten year plan to the handover
- In the fourth quarter
- Capped at twenty agencies
The road to an exit, stage by stage
- PlanBefore you think about sellingPlanning The Next Ten Years
- ValueWhat it is worth, and how you would knowAgency Valuation, Agency Benchmarking, Exit Readiness Assessment
- ImproveWhat moves the numberReducing Owner Dependency, Client Concentration Risk, Legal Protection For Agency Owners
- Hand overWhat happens when you sell or hand overHow An Agency Exit Works, Due Diligence Preparation, Succession And Leadership Handover
Where it landsQuarter 4of 4
The mastermind year ends with this track, which asks what everything you built is worth.
How it reaches youA live session every Friday, 3:30 to 5:00 PM Pakistan time, and one to one coaching with a subject matter expert, booked when you need it.
- The quarter of the year the agency gets valued in
- Q4The quarter of the year the agency gets valued in
- Live session, 3:30 to 5:00 PM Pakistan time
- FridayLive session, 3:30 to 5:00 PM Pakistan time
- Agencies in a cohort, at most
- 20Agencies in a cohort, at most
- A month, on a yearly commitment
- $750A month, on a yearly commitment
Overview
What Agency Exit, Valuation And Legacy Coaching Covers
Exit coaching is not a sales process, and it is not a promise that you should sell. It helps you find out what your agency is worth today. You learn which problems hold that number down and which of them you can change. Then you fix them early enough that a buyer never sees them. The areas under this track run from a ten year plan to valuation, owner dependency, client concentration, legal protection, due diligence and succession. Most of them are worth fixing whether you ever sell or not.
This overlap is deliberate. An agency that runs without its owner, has no client at a dangerous share of revenue, keeps clean financials and owns its contracts is worth more to a buyer. It is also a better business to keep. The work you do to prepare for a sale is work you should have done anyway. That is why we coach it as part of running the agency, not as a one off deal.
This track is also the last topic in the programme. The fourth quarter reviews lead generation, project management, automation and the full agency system in turn, and then asks what the result is worth. The book finishes in the same place. Its final chapter, Planning The Next 10 Years Beforehand, sits in that same quarter.
The work you do to prepare for a sale is work you should have done anyway.
The problems
The Problems It Solves In A Digital Agency
A buyer values an agency by looking for reasons to pay less. These are the ones they find most often, and every one of them is fixable with enough notice.
The owner
Every significant relationship, decision and piece of judgement runs through one person, and that person is selling.
This is the single biggest valuation lever there is, and it takes the longest to move.
The client list
One client at forty percent of revenue, on a rolling contract, with a relationship held by the founder.
It costs you a multiple. A buyer is not buying your revenue. They are buying the chance that it continues.
The numbers
Financials put together for the due diligence request, not produced every month, with the explanations in somebody’s head.
They need to have been clean for twelve months before anybody asks. You cannot fix that after the request arrives.
The paperwork
Contracts, IP ownership and entity structure treated as an afterthought until somebody reads them properly.
It becomes an emergency during due diligence, at the point where you have the least room to fix anything.
The plan
An agency built quarter by quarter, with no stated outcome it is being built toward.
You end up taking whatever offer arrives in a year when you are tired, not the offer you built the agency for.
Here are the areas we coach to remove those discounts.
The full index
Sub Areas We Coach (Full Index)
Every area, stage by stage. Read the first stage even if you never plan to sell, because everything after it depends on it.
Every area below is coached live inside the mastermind.
01Plan
Before you think about selling
Everything below assumes you know what you are building toward. Most owners have never written it down, so they end up taking whatever offer turns up.
Planning The Next Ten Years
Working backwards from the life you want to this year plan.
02Value
What it is worth, and how you would know
Your agency has a value today, whether or not you have asked what it is. These areas show you how to find that number and compare it with agencies like yours, not with a guess.
Agency Valuation
What agencies actually sell for, which multiples apply, and what moves yours up.
Agency Benchmarking
Comparing your margins, utilization and growth against agencies in your bracket.
Exit Readiness Assessment
The audit of systems, contracts, concentration and financials that buyers run on you.
03Improve
What moves the number
These are the things a buyer discounts for hardest, and they are worth fixing even if you never sell. This part takes years, not months.
Reducing Owner Dependency
Making the agency work without you, which is the single biggest valuation lever.
Client Concentration Risk
Why one client at 40 percent of revenue costs you a multiple, and how to fix it.
Legal Protection For Agency Owners
IP, contracts, entity structure and insurance, put in place before you need them.
04Hand over
What happens when you sell or hand over
This stage covers how a sale or handover works, for the year it actually happens. Each step is named from start to finish, so you know what is coming.
How An Agency Exit Works
The process end to end: preparation, buyers, LOI, diligence, earn out and handover.
Due Diligence Preparation
The data room, the contracts and the numbers that need to be clean 12 months early.
Succession And Leadership Handover
Handing an agency to a partner, a leadership team or family.
Here is how the coaching reaches you.
Delivery
How Coaching Is Delivered: Mastermind vs Bootcamp
On this track, the other owners in the group are worth more to you than any lesson.
One three hour session on exits cannot fit every owner, because each one is at a different distance from a sale. An owner nine months from selling needs the data room and the due diligence list. An owner nine years away needs to hear why owner dependency takes so long to fix. The best person to explain it is somebody three years into fixing it. One session cannot serve both owners.
So this track runs across the year, mostly in conversation. You get daily access on Basecamp, the members’ online workspace, and the monthly roundtable. You also get one to one coaching with a subject matter expert, booked when you need it, on whatever problem is in front of you. Up to twenty agencies share the group, and some of them are further along than you on exactly this. The scheduled topics come in the fourth quarter, at the end of the year, once there is something built to value.
The mastermind
A group with owners further along than you
Exit, valuation and legacy is part of the yearly mastermind. Its scheduled topics come in the fourth quarter, after the year has built and reviewed everything else. Anything you raise before then is answered when you raise it. There is a live session every Friday, 3:30 to 5:00 PM Pakistan time, and one to one coaching with a subject matter expert, booked when you need it. Around them sit the monthly roundtable, a retreat every three months and daily access on Basecamp.
A yearly commitment: $750 a month, or $7,999 a year
Capped at twenty agencies
The bootcamp
The bootcamp is a separate, shorter course. It covers positioning, pipeline, closing, delivery and systems. Those are the parts of the agency this track later puts a value on. This track only helps once they are in place, which is why the roadmap puts these topics last.
From $125 a session, three hours live
Who teaches it
Hamid Mahmood
The mastermind is taught by experienced trainers including Hamid Mahmood, Asim Naeem and Umair Amjad. Hamid spent six years building HTML Pro, and when it failed he started again from scratch. On a subject about what an agency is worth, it matters that he has built one and lost one.
The roadmap
Where This Sits In The 52 Week Roadmap
The exit topics come in the fourth quarter, and the valuation topic is the last new material of the year. It comes last because an agency can only be valued once the work before it is done.
Q4Quarter 4, first
Personal lifestyle check
This is the other exit topic. It comes earlier in the quarter because it sets the goal for everything after it. Working backwards from the life you want is a different question from what the agency is worth. You need to answer it first, or the value question has nothing to measure against.
The closing run
The final reviews go over what the year built, one after another: lead generation, project management, automation and the full agency system. Then the last topic asks what the result is worth.
- 1Lead generationFinal review of lead generation
- 2SystemsFinal review of project management
- 3AI and automationFinal review of system automation
- 4SystemsFinal review of the full agency system
- 5Exit, valuation and legacyHow an agency exit works, and benchmarking
The year closes on questions and challenges, so this is the last new material in the programme. It comes last on purpose. An agency is worth valuing once there is a system to value, not in its first months.
The book
Book Chapters That Back This
These chapters of the book back this track, and the book’s final chapter is one of them. The book and the mastermind year end on the same subject.
Legacy Leadership
Have A Bigger Cause, Bigger Goals
Money alone stops motivating, including you.
There is a reason to keep going past the number.
The Expansion
Legal Protection
Contracts, IP and liability are an afterthought until they are an emergency.
The business is defensible.
The Expansion
The book’s final chapter
Planning The Next 10 Years Beforehand
Planning stops at the next quarter.
The agency is built toward an outcome, including an exit.
Most of the book is about building an agency, and the final chapter asks what the agency is for. The mastermind year follows the same order, because the roadmap was written from the book.
Who it fits
Who This Is For: Agency Owners, Freelancers, C Level
Three kinds of people come to a page about exits, and two of them are not really here about selling.
Agency owners
Why has this stopped growing, and is it me?
You are the reason the agency works, and more and more the reason it cannot grow. A buyer would write the same sentence in their due diligence notes. Reducing that dependency is the work whether you sell in three years or never. It is also the slowest work on this page.
Start at stage three, what moves the number
Freelancers
How do I turn skill into a business?
Nothing here is urgent for you yet. The first stage is useful now: knowing what you are building toward changes which clients you take this year. Taking the wrong clients is how owner dependency gets built in the first place.
Start at stage one, before you think about selling
C level and senior professionals
What do I not know that I do not know?
You have sat on the buying side of due diligence, or close to it, so you know what gets discounted. The difference here is that your own business is the one being assessed. You also see how much of its value rests on things you would have called administrative.
Start at stage two, what it is worth
Here is what members said after doing the work.
Proof
Results Our Members Report
The first reviews are from members writing about the structure and mentorship behind this work. Every review is published under the member’s own name, exactly as written.
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FAQs
FAQs
I am not selling. Is any of this for me?
Yes, most of it is for you. An agency that runs without you, has no client at a dangerous share of revenue and keeps clean monthly financials is worth more to a buyer. It is also a better business to keep. The work is the same, and only the reason for doing it changes.
How long before an agency is actually sellable?
It takes longer than most owners expect. The financials need to have been clean for twelve months before anybody asks, and reducing owner dependency takes years, not quarters. That is why the track is coached across a year with a group of owners, not sold as a checklist.
Will you tell me what my agency is worth?
No, we will not put a figure on your business from a web page, because the number depends on things a valuation has to look at properly. The coaching covers what agencies in your bracket sell for, which multiples apply and what moves yours. The benchmarking work compares your margins, utilization and growth against comparable agencies.
Is there a bootcamp session on exits?
No, and on this track that is a strength. A three hour session would reach owners who are all at different distances from an exit. What a member needs is somebody two years further along, and that comes from the group, not from a recording.
Who teaches this track?
The mastermind is taught by experienced trainers including Hamid Mahmood, Asim Naeem and Umair Amjad. One to one coaching with a subject matter expert is booked when you need it. Hamid spent six years building HTML Pro, and when it failed he started again from scratch. That matters on this subject, because he has built an agency and lost one.
What is the single biggest thing holding our valuation down?
It is almost always owner dependency, which is why the index calls it the single biggest valuation lever. When every relationship, decision and piece of judgement runs through the person selling, the buyer has to take on that risk. It is also the slowest one to fix.
Do you handle the legal and financial side of a sale?
No. The coaching covers what the process involves end to end, what needs to be ready and what buyers look for. You then arrive at a lawyer and an accountant knowing what you are asking for. The sale itself needs licensed professionals, and the coaching is clear about where that line sits.
What if I want to hand it over, not sell it?
Succession is its own area, covering a handover to a partner, a leadership team or family. The preparation is mostly the same. A business that cannot run without you cannot be handed to anybody either, whether money changes hands or not.
Next step
Join The Yearly Mastermind
Exit comes last in the year, and it tells you what the rest of the work was worth. Tell us what you want to be true about the agency in ten years, and we will tell you what this year has to do about it.
Twenty agencies per cohort at most, and that cap is the only scarcity we use.