Knowing the number matters. Knowing what is moving the number matters more.
Five financial inputs and four readiness questions. Four minutes. What a buyer would actually pay for your business today, against the life you are working toward.
What the business must be worth.
The enterprise value the business has to reach at transition to fund the life you actually want.
Where you actually stand.
Four questions, one per Area of Alignment. Score yourself 1 to 6 on each, as honestly as you can. Most owners land in the 2 to 4 range across most areas — that's where the work usually is.
This is a four-question pulse. The full Layer 1 diagnostic scores all twelve factors with an advisor across the table — the same scale, more depth, more pushback on each answer.
Vision for life beyond the business, family alignment, outside interests.
Personal financial plan, estate and tax integration with the business.
Preferred exit path, time window, and deal mechanics literacy.
Continuity plan, insurance currency, and advisory bench.
Your enterprise value sits at or near the Freedom Point, which is significant — the financial side of the equation is often the harder side to move. The constraint at this stage is on the readiness side: one or more of the four dimensions of preparation is not yet where it needs to be, which means a transition attempted in current conditions would likely produce a structural outcome that leaves you exposed or narrows the paths that should remain open. The work in front of you is preparation rather than value-creation, and it is typically completed across 12 to 18 months of focused engagement. The enterprise value you have built protects your timeline while that work happens.
Owner readiness is the limiting factor in this reading. The dimension currently setting the ceiling is your personal vision and family alignment.
- 01What does life look like for you five years after the business changes hands? Most owners haven't put it on paper.
- 02Does your spouse picture the same future you do? The gap between two answers is often where readiness work begins.
- 03What relationships and interests outside the business are getting time today? Those are what life after will rest on.
The diagnostic — what's setting the ceiling, what to do about it, how the four dimensions break down — comes with your Snapshot.
Continue to your full Snapshot
How this is calculated
Freedom Point. Five-step calculation from the Brentwood Freedom Point Calculator. Built on the 4 percent safe withdrawal rule, with 10 percent professional fees and 20 percent effective taxes applied to the gross transaction proceeds.
Readiness Pulse. Four-question distillation of the twelve-factor Owner Readiness Scorecard. Each pulse score (1–6) is treated as the average factor score for that Area; subtotal equals pulse multiplied by three. The full instrument lives in Layer 1.
Composite. Equal-weighted across both components. Override rule: any component below 50 percent forces the composite to RED. GREEN requires both components in GREEN. The composite cannot launder a weak area into a strong headline.
What this is. A baseline measurement, not a verdict. Re-run annually as part of the Layer 1 cadence; year-over-year movement is the primary signal.
