Business Value Growth Plan: A 12-Month, Month-by-Month Plan to Raise What Your Company Is Worth

A business value growth plan is a written, 12-month list of the moves that raise what a buyer would pay for your company, with a starting valuation, a monthly scorecard and a re-valuation at the end. It works because value is just two things multiplied together, profit a buyer can trust and the multiple a buyer will pay for it, and almost every move in the plan raises one or both.

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Most of what ranks for "value acceleration" is written for advisors, in advisor language, about companies far bigger than yours. The pages describe a process (discover, prepare, decide) and then stop. None we found gives an owner an actual month-by-month plan, a short list of things to measure, or a worked example with real arithmetic. This guide does all three, in plain English, for the owner of a $500,000 to $10 million business who is not necessarily selling. Every outside figure is sourced at the bottom of the page.

The short answer: what a value growth plan is

Think of it as a fitness plan for your company's valuation. You weigh in first (a baseline valuation), you pick a small number of exercises that move the scale the most, you track a few numbers every month, and you weigh in again at the end of the year.

The formula behind it is the one buyers use for owner-run companies:

Value = trusted earnings x multiple

• Trusted earnings is your seller's discretionary earnings (SDE) or EBITDA after legitimate add-backs, backed by clean books. See 40 add-back examples.
• The multiple is what a buyer pays for each dollar of those earnings. It starts with your industry range (see multiples for 114 industries) and then moves up or down with risk: how much the company depends on you, how concentrated your customers are, how much revenue repeats, and how believable your numbers are.

A good plan works both sides. Raising profit by $50,000 at a 3x multiple adds $150,000 of value. Cutting risk enough to move the multiple from 3x to 3.5x on $400,000 of earnings adds $200,000, without selling one more job.

Value acceleration, in plain English

"Value acceleration" is the name the Exit Planning Institute (EPI) uses for its method. Strip out the jargon and it comes down to four ideas that are worth keeping:

1. Start with a valuation. EPI's Discover stage begins with a valuation and a business, personal and financial assessment, and EPI recommends getting a valuation at least once a year.
2. Work in 90-day sprints. Advisors who use the method break the work into quarters with a few "big rocks" each, rather than one giant to-do list.
3. Build the company's intangible capital. EPI training groups this into human capital (your people and leadership depth), structural capital (documented systems that stay with the business), customer capital (relationships and contracts) and social capital (culture and trust). These are the things that make a buyer comfortable paying a higher multiple.
4. Growing value is a decision, not a sale. The method ends with a choice: sell, transfer, or keep running a more valuable company. You do not have to be selling to use it. Valuation first, growth second, and selling is only one possible step after that.

What the method does not hand you is a plan you can start Monday. That is the rest of this guide.

Why most owners need one: what the owner surveys show

EPI runs regional State of Owner Readiness surveys. They are regional samples, so treat them as signals rather than national figures, but the pattern is consistent.

Put plainly: for most owners the business is the biggest asset they have, many hope to step back within five years, and a large share do not know what it is worth or have anything written down. A value growth plan closes that gap one month at a time.

The 12-month business value growth plan, month by month

The plan is grouped into four 90-day sprints. Each month has one focus and a short list of jobs. If a month does not apply to your business, pull the next one forward. Do not try to do everything at once: one finished month beats three half-started ones.

Sprint 1 (months 1 to 3): measure and clean up

Month 1: get your baseline.

• See your company's valuation today. Use a method a buyer would use (see 5 valuation methods explained), not a gut feeling. Write down the earnings figure, the multiple and the result.
• Recast your earnings. List every legitimate add-back with proof: your salary above market, one-time costs, personal expenses run through the company.
• Write down your goal. A target value and a date. "From $900,000 to $1.2 million in 12 months" is a plan. "Grow the business" is not.

Month 2: clean up the books.

• Close the books monthly, by the 15th of the following month, with a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet.
• Separate personal and business spending going forward. Every personal expense in the company is an add-back you will have to argue for later.
• Tie revenue to bank deposits and to your tax returns. Buyers check this first, and any gap costs trust and money.

Month 3: find your risk discounts. Score yourself honestly on the things that pull a multiple down (our list: what lowers a business valuation):

• Owner dependence: how many customers, decisions and relationships run only through you?
• Customer concentration: what share of revenue comes from your largest customer and your top five? (See customer concentration thresholds and 15 fixes.)
• Recurring revenue: what share of next year's revenue is already contracted or scheduled?
• Key people and paperwork: are leases, licenses, key contracts and employee agreements in order and transferable?

Pick the two biggest discounts. They become the focus of sprint 3.

Sprint 2 (months 4 to 6): raise trusted profit

Month 4: fix pricing.

• Rank your jobs, products or customers by gross margin. The bottom fifth is usually underpriced.
• Raise prices on the bottom group first, with notice and a clear reason. Price is the lever that reaches profit fastest, because none of it costs anything to deliver. (More: raise prices or get more customers?)

Month 5: cut waste and know your job costs.

• Rebid your three biggest vendor costs (materials, insurance, software, fuel, rent).
• Track cost per job or per unit so you can see which work actually makes money.
• Cancel what nobody uses. Subscriptions and services that crept in over the years add up.

Month 6: re-value at mid-year.

• Run the same valuation as month 1, the same way, so the comparison is fair.
• Check the trend of trailing 12-month earnings, gross margin and your two risk scores.
• Adjust the plan. Keep what moved the needle, drop what did not.

Sprint 3 (months 7 to 9): make the company transferable

Month 7: build repeat revenue.

• Launch or tighten one recurring offer: a maintenance plan, service agreement, membership or retainer, with auto-renew and a real margin.
• Put existing repeat customers on paper. Informal "they always call us" revenue is worth less than the same revenue under contract. (Full guide: recurring revenue and business valuation.)

Month 8: build the team below you (human capital).

• Name a second in command for operations, and give them real decisions, not just tasks.
• Move your customer relationships to the people who will still be there after you. Introduce them, copy them, let them run the next meeting.
• Keep your key people. A written retention bonus or a simple stay agreement for your top two or three employees protects the value you are building.

Month 9: write it down (structural capital).

• Document your 10 most important processes: how you quote, deliver, bill, hire and handle complaints. A short checklist or a screen recording is enough.
• Move knowledge out of your head and into systems: shared calendars, a customer database, job management software.
• Use the guide: 25 ways to make your business run without you.

Sprint 4 (months 10 to 12): prove it

Month 10: strengthen customer capital and the paperwork.

• Diversify: if one customer is more than about 15% to 20% of revenue, set a target for new accounts in the next two quarters.
• Collect proof of loyalty: renewal rates, reviews, a simple customer satisfaction score.
• Clean up legal loose ends: assignable leases, current licenses, signed contracts with key customers and vendors, trademarks registered in the company's name.

Month 11: run the two-week test.

• Step away for two weeks, phone off except for true emergencies.
• Write down everything that broke or waited for you. That list is your owner-dependence discount, made visible, and it is next year's plan.

Month 12: re-value and reset.

• Run the valuation again and compare it with month 1: how much came from higher earnings, and how much from a higher multiple?
• Decide your next step: keep growing, plan a transfer to family or employees (see the 50-step succession checklist), or start preparing for a sale.
• Write next year's plan from the two-week test list and the risk scores that are still weak.

The monthly value scorecard: eight numbers to track

No page we found tells owners what to actually watch between valuations. These eight numbers take about 30 minutes a month once your books close on time.

Re-value every quarter if you can, and at least once a year as EPI recommends. A valuation that only happens when you want to sell tells you the score after the game is over.

A worked example: a landscaping company over 12 months

Here is how the plan could play out for an imaginary landscaping company. The company and its multiples are illustrative, chosen to show the arithmetic. For real ranges in your industry, see multiples by industry.

Value rose by $375,000. Here is where it came from:

• Higher earnings at the old multiple: $65,000 more SDE x 2.5 = $162,500.
• A higher multiple on the new earnings: 0.5 more turns x $425,000 = $212,500.

More than half of the gain came from lower risk, not from more profit. That is the point most owners miss: the moves that make a company easier to own (a manager, contracts, clean books, no single customer that matters too much) are worth as much as the moves that make it more profitable.

The moves that usually raise value most

If you can only do a few things this year, these tend to move the most value per hour of effort for an owner-run company:

1. Raise prices on underpriced work. Every dollar goes straight to earnings and is multiplied.
2. Get monthly, clean books. Cheap to do, and it protects every add-back you claim.
3. Hire or promote a second in command. The single biggest step toward a company that runs without you.
4. Put repeat customers under contract. Turns "likely" revenue into revenue a buyer can count.
5. Shrink your largest customer's share by adding accounts, not by firing the big one.
6. Document the work. Processes that live on paper stay with the company.
7. Track it. What gets measured monthly gets done.

For the full menu, see 37 proven ways to increase the value of your business.

Common mistakes with value growth plans

• Skipping the baseline. Without a starting valuation you cannot tell whether the plan worked.
• Chasing revenue instead of value. Unprofitable growth, or growth that all runs through you, can lower the multiple.
• Doing everything at once. Twelve focus areas in month one means none of them finish. Use the sprints.
• Cutting costs a buyer will add back anyway. Cutting your own pay does not raise SDE; it already gets added back.
• Trusting a free calculator as the scoreboard. Many ignore risk entirely (see are online valuation calculators accurate?).
• Waiting until you want to sell. Most of these moves need a year or more of track record before a buyer will pay for them.

Frequently asked questions

What is a business value growth plan?

It is a written plan, usually covering 12 months, that starts with a valuation of your company, lists the specific moves that will raise trusted earnings or the multiple a buyer would pay, tracks a few numbers monthly and ends with a re-valuation to measure the result.

What is value acceleration?

Value acceleration is the Exit Planning Institute's name for a process that starts with a valuation and assessment, works through prioritized improvements in 90-day sprints, and ends with the owner deciding whether to sell, transfer or keep growing a more valuable company.

How long does it take to increase the value of a business?

Some moves, like pricing and cost changes, show up in earnings within a few months. Moves that raise the multiple, like reducing owner dependence or building recurring revenue, usually need 12 to 24 months of track record before a buyer will pay for them, which is why it pays to start well before any sale.

How often should I get my business valued?

The Exit Planning Institute recommends a valuation at least once a year. Tracking it quarterly, the same way each time, lets you see which moves are working and adjust the plan.

Do I need to be selling to use a value growth plan?

No. A more valuable company is also more profitable, less dependent on you and easier to run. Selling is only one possible step after the plan; many owners use it to keep the company, pass it on or simply take more time off.

What raises business value the fastest?

Raising prices on underpriced work is usually fastest, because the extra profit is multiplied by your valuation multiple. Over a full year, reducing risk (owner dependence, customer concentration, informal revenue, messy books) often adds as much or more by lifting the multiple itself.

What should I track every month?

Trailing 12-month SDE or EBITDA, gross margin, revenue growth, days to close the books, recurring revenue share, largest customer share, owner hours in daily operations and the number of documented processes.

See where your business stands

Every plan starts with a baseline. Live Value lets you see your company's valuation in minutes, shows the moves that raise it most, and tracks it month by month as you work the plan.

Want to see how an owner in your industry did it? Get your free custom industry case study.

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Related guides: 37 ways to increase the value of your business, 25 ways to make your business run without you, recurring revenue and business valuation, customer concentration and business valuation, SDE and EBITDA add-backs, how much is my small business worth?

Sources

• Exit Planning Institute, 2023 Minnesota State of Owner Readiness Report (EPI with the EPI Twin Cities chapter, August 2023, 309 respondents)
• Exit Planning Institute, 2022 Colorado State of Owner Readiness Report (EPI with the Colorado Employee Ownership Office, September 2022, 400+ respondents)
• Exit Planning Institute, The Discover Gate of the Value Acceleration Methodology (Colleen Kowalski, July 2022)
• Exit Planning Institute, How EPI's Employee and Rookie of the Year Elevate Human and Social Capital (Rob DiFranco, March 2026)
• OpenExamPrep, Human and Structural Capital (CEPA study guide) (Ran Chen, 2025)
• Value Acceleration (Substack), Walking Through Value Acceleration (David Prowse, December 2021)
• Windes, What Is Value Acceleration
• Quiet Light, Tips for Growing Business Value (August 2022)

Figures from outside sources are reported as published and are not an appraisal of any business. The owner surveys are regional samples. The company in the worked example and its multiples are illustrative. For tax, legal or dispute purposes, use a credentialed appraiser.

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