Your clients own businesses. When those businesses are not ready to sell, or not worth what the owner expects, you need somewhere credible to send them. Exit Factor partners with wealth management firms, business brokerage and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) platforms, franchisors, and CFO or accounting firms to give their clients and franchisees a path to a more valuable and sellable business.
A national account partnership with Exit Factor costs your organization nothing, requires no exclusivity, and does not put your client relationship at risk. Your advisors identify the owners who need value-building work. Exit Factor routes each one to a Certified Exit Factor Consultant in that owner’s market, does the work, and increases your clients’ value. You keep the relationship, and you get the client back in better shape than you sent them.
Business Exits Behind the Model
Industries Served
Local Office Markets
Partner Categories
Some organizations spend their working lives around business owners and have no answer when an owner says they want to sell in a few years and the business is nowhere near ready. That is the gap an exit planning partner program fills. Exit Factor builds referral partnerships with four kinds of organizations, each with its own activation plan, because a wealth advisor and a franchise operations lead do not have the same conversation with an owner.
For most business owner clients, the largest asset on the balance sheet is illiquid and sits inside a company the firm does not manage. Exit Factor works on that asset directly, growing its value and preparing it for a clean transition, which protects the future assets under management (AUM) opportunity when the business sells. A weak exit means less to manage on the other side, or nothing at all. Exit Factor does not manage money and does not compete for AUM.
Every brokerage has a pipeline of owners who want to sell and are not sellable yet. The usual options are to turn them away and lose the future fee, hold them in a long pre-listing limbo, or refer them to a consultant nobody has vetted. As a business broker referral partner, a firm sends those owners to Exit Factor, keeps the listing relationship, and gets the client back positioned for the deal they wanted to write in the first place.
An aging owner base is a quiet problem until it is an obvious one. Owners who cannot exit gracefully hang on too long, close, or sell at a distressed number, and every other owner in the system hears about it. Exit Factor helps franchise owners prepare their businesses for sale or transfer, thereby supporting resale value and protecting system performance. As a franchise ourselves, Exit Factor understands franchise systems from the inside, which considerably shortens the learning curve.
A CFO or CPA referral partner sees the financial picture earlier and more clearly than anyone else in the owner’s orbit, and already knows which clients are heading toward a transition with books built for tax efficiency rather than for diligence. Exit Factor does the value-building work without touching the tax or financial relationship, but rather focuses on foundational business practices and operations.
Exit Factor supplies the talking points, the scenarios to watch for, and the pitch materials for your category, so advisors know which clients fit and how to raise it without turning it into a sales conversation.
Referrals come in through a dedicated intake process built for your organization, which is handled by our corporate team, giving you one contact to deal with.
Each referral goes to a Certified Exit Factor Consultant based on the client’s market and needs.
The consultant works with the owner on the operational, financial, leadership, and structural gaps that keep a business from being worth what the owner wants for it. Every consultant uses the same framework, the VORTEx Model, built on insights from more than 2,000 business exits across 75+ industries, which makes a referral safe to make.
While you will continue working with the client during the Exit Factor relationship, once they are done with the business, they come back in better shape.
Central point of contact, no cost to participate, no minimum referral volume, and no exclusivity requirement.
What Your Organization Receives
A technology firm came to one of our business brokerage partners roughly 18 months out from a planned sale. The business was profitable, and the owner was ready, but the company was worth $825,000, and everything about it ran through one person. Rather than list it or turn it away, the broker referred the owner to Exit Factor.
Owner-dependent, with a sale planned within 18 months.
Profitability improved, and leadership was activated, so the business no longer ran through the owner.
Six months on market, multiple over-ask offers, and the highest multiple that office had ever sold for.
The broker who made that referral did not lose a client. They turned one they could not list into the best deal that office had ever done.
Tell us about your organization and the Director of National Accounts will follow up to schedule a thirty-minute call. The first conversation is a fit discussion, not a pitch.
This program is built for organizations serving business owners at scale, a national network, offices, or franchise owners. If you are an individual advisor or a single office, the Certified Exit Factor Consultant in your market can build that relationship with you directly and start faster. Find your local office
A business broker referral partner is a brokerage or mergers and acquisitions (M&A) firm that refers owners who are not yet sellable to an outside firm that prepares them for a transaction, then takes the listing when the business is ready. The arrangement solves a problem every brokerage has, which is a pipeline of owners who want to sell and cannot yet command the price they expect. Exit Factor runs this kind of partnership at national scale with Transworld Business Advisors, paying the referring firm a fee on every completed engagement while the future listing stays with the broker who made the introduction.
Exit Factor partners with Transworld Business Advisors in business brokerage and mergers and acquisitions (M&A), Signarama in signage and visual communications, Fully Promoted in branded products and promotional marketing, Accurate Franchising in franchise development, and Stratus Building Solutions in commercial cleaning and building services. Each of these organizations serves business owners at scale and refers those owners to Exit Factor for value-building and exit-readiness work. Exit Factor continues to add partnerships with wealth management firms, brokerage platforms, franchisors, and accounting firms.
Yes. Exit Factor runs a national accounts program, a referral partnership for organizations that serve business owners at scale, including wealth management firms, brokerage and M&A platforms, franchisors, and accounting firms. Partners refer owners who need value-building or exit-readiness work, Exit Factor routes each referral to a Certified Exit Factor Consultant in the owner’s market, and the partner organization is paid a referral fee on every engagement that completes. There is no cost to participate and no exclusivity requirement on either side.
In a business advisor referral network, an organization with many client-facing advisors establishes a single corporate-level agreement with a specialist firm, then equips its advisors to make introductions locally. The corporate agreement handles the commercial terms and the specialist handles delivery, so individual advisors are never negotiating on their own. Exit Factor runs its network this way: one agreement at the organization level, category-specific training for the advisor base, and referral fees paid to the organization rather than to individuals.
Yes. Accounting firms are one of the four partner categories, because a CPA referral partner usually sees a client’s transition coming earlier than anyone else. The work does not touch the tax or audit relationship. Exit Factor consultants focus on operations, profitability, owner dependence, and transaction readiness, which is work most accounting firms do not staff for. Firms interested in this arrangement can start with a partnership conversation to confirm geographic and client overlap.
Exit Factor pays a referral fee on each completed engagement, calculated as a percentage of the engagement value and paid quarterly. Fees go to the partner organization rather than to individual advisors, and internal distribution is the partner’s decision. An engagement counts as complete when the client has paid the agreed fee for the work. The current schedule is shared during the partnership conversation, and there is no cost to the partner organization at any point.
No. Partnerships are non-exclusive in both directions. Exit Factor works with multiple organizations in the same category and does not restrict a partner from working with other exit planning or advisory firms. Partners are not asked to commit to a referral volume, and there is no obligation to refer Exit Factor clients back. The standard agreement runs one year and renews automatically unless either side gives sixty days written notice.
A Certified Exit Factor Consultant in the client’s local market takes the engagement, assigned by Exit Factor based on the client’s location and its own territory rules. Every consultant works the same methodology, the VORTEx Model, which is what keeps the experience consistent across more than 150 U.S. markets. The referring organization receives quarterly reporting on referrals and completed engagements without seeing confidential details of the client’s engagement.
Yes, and the fastest path is local rather than corporate. The national accounts program is built for enterprise organizations with hundreds or thousands of advisors, offices, or franchise owners, so a single advisor or single-office firm is better served by building a direct relationship with the Certified Exit Factor Consultant in their market. Those consultants work with local advisors, brokers, and accountants all the time and can start immediately. Find your local Exit Factor office.
The organizations already working with Exit Factor all started with the same conversation. Thirty minutes on how your organization works with business owners today, where Exit Factor fits, and whether the overlap is strong enough to build on. If it is not, we will say so on that call rather than three months later.