An adviser is engaged or about to be, buyer interest may already exist, and a transaction is roughly 3–6 months away. At this stage, the priority is protecting value and removing avoidable surprises — not reshaping the business.
"I've built a €12m business. But I've never sold one. The people across the table do this for a living."
Headline revenue looks strong, but the mix is less predictable or secure than it first appears.
A small number of accounts create dependency and buyer uncertainty.
Recurring revenue undermined by weaker cohorts or insufficient retention evidence.
The story relies on future performance the pipeline or conversion history doesn't strongly support.
Key relationships, sales, pricing or decisions remain concentrated in individuals.
Inconsistent pricing or uncontrolled discounting reduces confidence in sustainability.
Revenue generation works, but may not look systematic, repeatable or transferable.
Management claims may be credible, but the supporting data is fragmented or incomplete.
A material issue discovered by the buyer before the seller has identified or addressed it.
The objective isn't to make every weakness disappear. It's to understand the risks before the buyer does, fix what can still be fixed, strengthen the evidence, and be ready to defend the rest.
A focused, independent view of the commercial risks that could affect a transaction — and the actions available before the process launches.
Depending on scope and evidence availability. Not every risk can be resolved in this window — some need to be evidenced and defended rather than fixed.
A fictional scenario used to illustrate the assessment — not a real client engagement.
Get ahead of the questions before they become leverage.
Strong recent revenue, profitable, established customers, a credible growth forecast, and an attractive sector.
The top five customers represent a high share of revenue. The founder owns several key relationships. The forecast relies on pipeline opportunities with weak historical conversion evidence. Price increases are inconsistent. Customer retention is strong but poorly documented, and revenue categories aren't sufficiently segmented.
None of these automatically make the business unattractive. But uncertainty gives a buyer questions to ask — and unanswered questions can become perceived risk. Perceived risk can become negotiation leverage around value, terms, warranties, earn-outs or deal confidence.
Where the commercial red flags are. What a buyer is likely to challenge. Which issues were fixed. What evidence supports the remaining issues. What arguments are available to defend the commercial story.
We know where the buyer is likely to challenge us, and we are prepared.
Revenue Execution doesn't replace your M&A adviser or run commercial due diligence — the aim is that your adviser receives a better-prepared owner and a better-prepared business, whether the approach is coming through an adviser-led process or directly from a PE firm.
What's genuinely strong about the business, and why — stated plainly, not oversold.
Where the evidence sits behind each major commercial assertion you're making.
What management should expect to be asked, and by whom.
How genuine weaknesses get explained, evidenced and put in context.
Whether the numbers and assumptions get explained the same way by everyone in the room.
What commercial evidence needs to be assembled before diligence begins.
What your adviser needs to understand about commercial strengths, risks, revenue quality and likely challenge areas.
If a PE firm approaches directly: likely questions, what evidence exists, what shouldn't be overstated, and where the business is genuinely strong.
If a sale is 12 months or more away, the objective shifts from protecting value to building it. See how the longer-term Enterprise Value Assessment works, including a full illustrative sample report.
This assessment is the diagnostic entry point — not the end of the engagement, and not compulsory beyond it.
Commercial red flags across customer concentration, forecast credibility, owner dependency, pricing and evidence gaps.
The 30/60/90-day readiness plan above — separating what to fix, what to evidence, and what to defend. More on Plan →
Closing evidence gaps, preparing concentration analysis, documenting key accounts, and supporting your adviser with commercial evidence. More on Execute →
No — this is designed to run alongside an adviser-led process, not before it. It's often most useful exactly at this stage, while there's still time to act before diligence begins.
Then this is even more relevant — it helps you understand the commercial position before you're sitting across from someone who does this for a living.
Evidence gaps, data segmentation, documentation and reporting — genuinely fixable. Structural issues like customer concentration usually can't be, which is why some issues get evidenced and defended rather than fixed.
That's expected, and it's not a failure of the process. The objective is to understand it, contextualise it and be ready to defend it — not to pretend it doesn't exist.
Yes. The aim is to hand your adviser a better-prepared owner and a better-prepared business, not to work around them.
No. This happens before diligence, to reduce the surprises it might otherwise find.
Both are common at this stage and rarely fixable in 90 days. The work is demonstrating tenure, renewal history and relationship depth beyond you — evidence that contextualises the risk rather than pretending it away.