By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

Exit planning client follow up works on a five year calendar, not a sales cycle. Map every owner to their stage, Discover, Prepare or Decide, touch them on a rhythm tied to that stage with a real reason each time, and keep your referral partners on the same clock so you are recent when the owner finally decides.

Here is the scene every CEPA knows. An owner did the assessment two years ago. Good meeting. He said he needed to think about it. You sent the recap, then a check in, then life happened. Last week you saw the announcement. He sold to a strategic buyer through a banker his CPA introduced. Nobody told you. Nobody had to. You were not recent.

Why does exit planning client follow up last five years?

Because the owner’s decision does not run on your pipeline. The Exit Planning Institute’s Value Acceleration Methodology moves an owner through three gates: Discover, Prepare in “structured 90 day sprints,” and Decide, where the owner chooses between more growth and an exit. Some owners move through that in 18 months. Others sit in Prepare for years.

The stakes on the owner’s side are huge. EPI notes owners can have “80% of their wealth tied up in” the business, and its State of Owner Readiness research says “only 20 to 30% of businesses that go to market actually sell.” That is the case you make to the owner. The case you make to yourself is simpler: the advisor who stays in touch for the whole stretch is the one in the room at the end.

What does a five year exit planning touch calendar look like?

This is the calendar I would run. It is a starting point, not a rule. Adjust it to the owner.

Year	Where the owner usually is	Touch rhythm	Reasons that work
Year 0	Met you, did not engage	Every 90 days	Their industry deal news, a tax or rate change that hits their sector, an intro to a peer owner
Year 1	Discover: assessment and valuation	Every 2 to 4 weeks	One number from the assessment, a personal goal they named, the next meeting date
Years 2 and 3	Prepare: 90 day sprints	Every 4 to 6 weeks, plus each sprint review	The one metric that moved, the next sprint, a key hire, a customer win
Year 4	Decide: grow or exit	Every 2 to 3 weeks	Who they should meet, what a buyer will ask, how their family is taking it
Year 5	Transaction or another growth cycle	Weekly in a deal, monthly after	Diligence milestones, close, then the first year after close

Two things make the table work. The rhythm tightens as the owner gets closer to deciding, because that is when a broker, banker or buyer starts calling them too. And the reason column never says “checking in.”

How do you follow up with an owner who said not yet?

Treat “not yet” as a Year 0 entry, not a no. Most of your future engagements are sitting in that row.

1. Log why they said not yet. Too busy, son might take over, waiting for a big contract to land. That reason is your future reason to reach out.
2. Watch for the trigger. The contract landed. The son took a job in another city. A competitor sold. Each one is a text.
3. Send something they can use. A deal in their industry and what the buyer paid attention to. An intro to an owner who went through it. Not a brochure.
4. Ask one question a year. “Has anything changed on timing?” once a year is fine. Every touch is not.

Here is an illustrative text, 40 words or fewer: “Saw a fleet services company two towns over sold to a PE group last week. Reminded me of what you said about your top two customers. Happy to share what buyers asked them about, no agenda.”

For more on the owner who is not ready, read the 18 month seller.

What should you send during the Prepare stage?

The one thing that moved and the one thing that is next. Owners in a sprint are running a company. They will not read a 12 page update between meetings.

The personal leg matters as much as the business leg. EPI frames planning around business, personal and financial goals. The personal ones are what owners actually talk about: the lake house, the daughter in law school, what they want to do on a Tuesday after they sell.

I learned this in political fundraising. I raised $3M with a manual tracking system, writing down kids’ names and what mattered to each donor after every call, then using it the next time we talked. Five years with an owner is the same job. The details are the relationship.

Who else needs to be on the five year calendar?

The CPA, the estate attorney, the wealth manager and the banker around the owner. They are on the same clock, and any of them can introduce a broker when the owner says “I think it is time.”

Here is the quiet risk. If the CPA has not heard from you in a year, the CPA introduces whoever they talked to last. Keep your referral partners on the same reason based rhythm, every six to eight weeks, with a report back on every owner they sent you. For how other advisors in that circle think, see how business brokers get seller referrals from CPAs and attorneys.

One compliance note. Many CEPAs are also registered reps. FINRA Regulatory Notice 17-18 says a firm must be able to retain records of business communications made through text messaging apps. Send engagement texts only through a channel your firm archives. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

Where does five year follow up break?

At volume. Say you have 40 engaged owners, 80 who said not yet, and 30 referral partners. That is 150 people on five different rhythms. A CRM task list tells you a date. It does not tell you the son took a job in Denver or the competitor just sold. So the touches go generic, then they stop.

That is the gap I built FRONT OF MIND to close. It opens on your 10 minutes for today. Every person has a one line reason why today: their company was in the news, a follow up is due, you met at an event 40 days ago and never followed up, or they are going cold. Every draft is a text style message, 40 words max, nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. Ask Liala “who do I know that is a CPA in Dallas” and get the right people with why.

There is no native iPhone app yet. It runs in your phone’s browser, and you can save it to your home screen. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them. Export or delete anytime.

If FRONT OF MIND doesn’t surface people in your network worth reaching out to within 72 hours, we’ll refund you. No questions asked.

If you want the whole system behind this, read the super connector operating system. Or start free with your first 25 contacts and see which owner comes up first.

See how it works