Frequently asked questions

Stratworth Advisory helps UK founders and owner-managers grow the value of their business and prepare to sell, pass it on or step back on their own terms. The work is founder-to-founder and built on our SCALE2SELL® framework: three dimensions of worth and eight strategic pillars, supported by toolkits, readiness scoring and regular strategy calls with Nik Spencer.

Established, founder-led UK businesses across sectors. Typically that means owners who are ready to scale with purpose, founders considering an exit in the next one to five years, and entrepreneurs who want to build value, not just revenue. You don’t need a date in mind to start: the aim is a business that rewards you today and is ready when you are.

Nik Spencer founded and leads Stratworth Advisory. His founder career began in 1992 with the UK’s first commercial-scale kerbside recycling service, sold to Biffa PLC in 1995. He co-founded WCR Municipal, acquired by PFB in 2006, and built Pure Recycling, whose operating and land-owning entities he exited to Kier PLC in 2010. He brings 34 years of founder experience and 3 successful business exits.

Stratworth Advisory is UK based, with its registered office in Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. We work with ambitious founders across the UK and across sectors. Strategy calls run by Zoom, Teams or phone, and Founder Strategy Days are held on-site or off-site, with UK travel and accommodation included in the fee.

No. Stratworth Advisory provides strategic business guidance only and does not offer regulated financial, legal or investment advice. Our work is about understanding what drives value and preparing you and your business for growth and exit. Where you need tax, legal or investment advice, or a formal valuation, take independent professional advice, and involve those advisers early.

Book a complimentary Founder Conversation with Nik, 30 to 45 minutes at no charge, to see whether we’re the right fit, or take the free SCALE2SELL® Readiness Assessment first. If you already know Stratworth, you can go straight to a Founder Discovery Session, where Nik recommends the right plan. You can also email nik@stratworthadvisory.com.

SCALE2SELL® is our proprietary framework. It works across three dimensions of worth (Founder Worth, Business Worth and Exit Worth) and eight strategic pillars: Vision & Value, Business Strategy, Financial Clarity & Drivers, Operational Efficiency & Systems, Team & Leadership, Customer Value, Market Position & Brand Strength, and Exit Readiness. Each pillar is scored from 1 to 5 and has its own toolkit of practical worksheets and scorecards. The aim is a business that rewards your effort today while preparing you to exit or retire on your own terms.

It’s a complimentary, scored assessment of how ready your business is to grow and, when the time is right, to exit. It scores your business from 1 to 5 on each of the eight SCALE2SELL® pillars, the same pillars and scale our clients track on the Quarterly Readiness Radar, so your free score is the same measure you would work on as a client. Your answers are treated in confidence and used only for the assessment, and Nik can talk them through with you on a complimentary Founder Conversation.

Each of the eight SCALE2SELL® pillars is scored from 1 to 5. Our Scoring Guide describes the 1, 3 and 5 points for every pillar: for Vision & Value, for example, 1 is an unclear vision, 3 is defined and shared, and 5 is fully embedded and inspiring. The free Readiness Assessment uses the same pillars and scale our clients track on the Quarterly Readiness Radar, an Excel radar of all eight pillars, so your first score is the same measure a client tracks.

It’s a 30 to 45-minute, one-to-one conversation with Nik by Zoom, Teams or phone, at no charge. It’s a chance to talk about your business and what you want from it, and for both of us to see whether we are the right fit. It isn’t a detailed diagnosis or an action plan: if there is a fit, the next step is your Founder Discovery Session.

You don’t have to choose on your own. In your Founder Discovery Session, Nik works through the issues that matter most and recommends the plan that fits. As a guide, Essentials suits founders building toward exit readiness, Advisory+ suits those preparing for funding, sale or strategic transition, the Exit Programme suits founders roughly one to three years from an exit who need more time with Nik, and Bespoke, by application, is for complex transitions, M&A preparation or succession planning.

Every plan starts after your Founder Discovery Session. Nik recommends the plan that fits, and you start it from your Stratworth Vault: you agree to our Terms of Business at checkout and pay your first month, with your £500 credited against it where it applies. Your six-month SCALE2SELL® journey then begins with Toolkit 1 and your first advisory session. Bespoke is by application, with a signed engagement letter.

Essentials is £495/month, Advisory+ is £1,250/month and the Exit Programme is £2,250/month. Bespoke is from £5,500/month, with the fee set in a signed engagement letter. Every plan has a six-month minimum term and includes full access to the SCALE2SELL® toolkits, a quarterly business readiness dashboard, curated resources and our partner network, email support based on your readiness stage, and additional templates and tools added where relevant to your journey. The difference between plans is how much time you get with Nik and how tailored the support is.

Stratworth Advisory is not currently VAT registered, so no VAT is charged on any of our fees: the prices you see are what you pay. If Stratworth is ever required to charge VAT, it will be added to fees from then on, as our Terms of Business set out.

Every plan follows the same six-month SCALE2SELL® journey; the plan sets how much of Nik’s time you have. Essentials includes one 45-minute advisory call a month, your toolkits as they are released, quarterly readiness reviews with recommendations, and customised email guidance. Advisory+ adds two 60-minute calls a month, priority access, deeper valuation mapping, exit-readiness support and an exit pathway review. The Exit Programme replaces the two calls with up to three hours of advisory time a month in total, one Founder Strategy Day a year, a quarterly review of your management accounts and data-room readiness with an exit roadmap updated each quarter, and priority responses by the next working day. Bespoke is fully tailored: up to six hours of advisory time a month in total, including any calls, a quarterly Strategy Day, buyer negotiation preparation, succession and legacy planning, and secure collaboration under NDA if required.

It’s our plan for founders roughly one to three years from an exit who need more than two calls a month but aren’t yet in deal mode. At £2,250/month it includes everything in Advisory+, with the two monthly calls replaced by up to three hours of advisory time a month in total in flexible 30 to 90-minute blocks, one Founder Strategy Day a year with UK travel and accommodation included, a quarterly review of your management accounts and data-room readiness with an exit roadmap updated each quarter, and priority responses by the next working day. Like every plan, it has a six-month minimum term.

Yes. Every plan, including Bespoke, has a six-month minimum term: you commit to the full six-month programme, and all six monthly fees are payable whether or not you use everything available to you. If a payment is overdue or fails, new toolkit releases, Vault access and advisory sessions may be paused until it is paid; a pause does not cancel or reduce the six-month commitment. After the minimum term, plans roll monthly: you can cancel any time before your next billing date in Manage billing in your Stratworth Vault, and your plan runs to the end of the month you have paid for. When a plan ends, your Stratworth Vault access ends. Anything you’ve already downloaded stays with you for your own reference, once all fees due have been paid.

Yes, by agreement with Nik. Email him, or raise it on one of your calls, and we’ll talk it through based on where your business is and what’s coming up. Any change in fee, advisory access or other plan terms is confirmed with you before it takes effect. There’s no online plan switching.

No. Each plan includes a set amount of advisory time each month: one 45-minute call on Essentials, two 60-minute calls on Advisory+, up to three hours on the Exit Programme and up to six hours on Bespoke, both bookable in 30 to 90-minute blocks. That time is measured monthly and doesn’t roll over, and calls and sessions are booked in advance by appointment.

Bespoke is by application, and we work with no more than two Bespoke clients at a time. Start with the Founder Discovery Session (£500): your Founder Discovery questions, then a session of about 60 to 75 minutes with Nik. If you both agree Bespoke is the right fit, Nik sends you a Bespoke Engagement Letter setting out the scope and the monthly fee, from £5,500, with a six-month minimum term. Once it’s signed, he sends you a personal link to start. You can download the template of the letter from our plans page. If both places are taken, we’ll tell you when one opens.

It’s where every Stratworth plan begins: the first structured, diagnostic conversation with Nik. The session costs £500, payable in advance. Once you’ve paid, you answer twelve short Founder Discovery questions in your Stratworth Vault, which takes around 15 to 20 minutes, and the fee is then non-refundable except as our Terms set out. Nik reads your answers as a one-page summary, then meets you for about 60 to 75 minutes to work through the principal issues and identify what matters most. He then recommends the right plan. If you start it within 30 days of your Discovery Session, the £500 is credited against your first plan payment.

It’s a full-day strategy session with Nik for your senior team, held on-site or off-site and focused on growth priorities or exit preparation. It includes a pre-session briefing and a concise post-event summary. The fee is £3,500, including UK travel and accommodation; overseas travel and accommodation are extra. Nik offers a limited number of Strategy Days each quarter. One is included each year on the Exit Programme and every quarter on Bespoke, and a Strategy Day can be added to Essentials or Advisory+.

SCALE2SELL® has eight toolkits, one for each pillar. Each is a set of four practical worksheets and scorecards that you complete and upload to your Stratworth Vault, so your conversations with Nik start from your own answers. They are released month by month over your first six months, in the order Nik works through them: Toolkits 1 and 2 in Month 1, Toolkit 3 and the Toolkit 3a Executive Dashboard in Month 2, Toolkit 4 and your first Quarterly Readiness Review in Month 3, Toolkits 5 and 6 in Month 4, Toolkit 7 in Month 5, and Toolkit 8 with your Six-Month Review in Month 6. Each month opens with that month’s payment. After Month 6, your work with Nik follows your real priorities, with a readiness review every quarter. If a payment fails, Vault access is suspended until it’s paid.

The Stratworth Vault is your secure, private area on the Stratworth website. It holds your Founder Discovery questions, your toolkits as they are released, your dashboards and your quarterly materials, and it’s where you view, download and upload your work. Access runs for the life of your subscription, which keeps your materials confidential and version-controlled, and it locks if you cancel.

Go to the Stratworth Vault page and enter the email address you used to pay. We’ll email you a secure, single-use sign-in link that works for 15 minutes, so there’s no password to remember. Once you’re in, your dashboard shows your plan, your six-month journey and your files, a place to upload completed toolkits, and a link to book your next call with Nik.

Yes. Everything you share in advisory sessions or upload to your Vault is treated as strictly confidential, and we won’t disclose client information to third parties without your consent, other than our own professional advisers, insurers and the service providers who run the Vault, all bound by confidentiality, or where the law requires it. Bespoke clients can also work with us under a non-disclosure agreement if required.

Exit planning is the work of preparing a business, and its owner, for the day the owner steps back, whether through a sale, a management buyout, a family succession or retirement. It covers what the owner wants from the exit, what drives the value of the business, how dependent it is on the founder, and which exit route fits. Done well, it also makes the business stronger to own in the meantime.

Earlier than most founders expect. Many of the things buyers pay for, such as a leadership team that can run the business, a wide customer base and clean financial records, take time to build and time to prove. Starting while an exit is still years away lets you fix issues properly rather than explain them in due diligence, and gives you more choice over when and how you go.

Exit planning is about the owner: how and when you step away, what you want from it, and how to get the business ready for any route, including a sale. Succession planning is about continuity: who will lead or own the business next, whether family members or the management team, and how you hand over leadership, relationships and control. Most founders need both.

A good exit plan is short and written down. It covers your goals and walk-away number, your preferred exit route and a fallback, an honest baseline of where the business stands, the gaps to close and who owns them, your successors, your advisers, a timeline, and how often you will review it. Most founders review it every quarter.

The main routes include a trade sale to another business, a full or partial sale to private equity, a management buyout, a sale to an employee ownership trust, and passing the business to the next generation. There are others, such as a sale to a family office or a stock market flotation. The right route depends on what matters most to you: price, timing, continuity for your team or legacy.

A management buyout, or MBO, is the sale of a business to its existing management team. It can give continuity for staff and customers, but managers rarely have the capital to buy outright, so buyouts are usually funded by a mix of their own money, lenders, investors and payments to the seller over time. Take advice on the structure before agreeing terms.

Yes, and early. How and when you sell, and the route you choose, can affect the tax you pay, and the rules change from time to time. Stratworth doesn’t give tax advice, so talk to your tax adviser well before you go to market. GOV.UK’s guidance on Capital Gains Tax for business owners is a useful place to start.

The British Business Bank notes that a sale may be easier if you can show increasing profits, increasing turnover, strong cashflows, a wide and growing customer base and good visibility of forward contracts. Buyers also look closely at how much the business depends on its owner, the strength of the management team, and how cleanly the business will come through due diligence.

It varies with the business, the buyer and, above all, how well prepared you are. As one example, a founder’s account published by the British Business Bank describes an exit that took around 12 months from planning to leaving. Preparation usually needs to start well before that, because the issues that slow a sale down tend to be the ones that take longest to fix.

Owner dependency is how much a business relies on its founder for decisions, customer relationships, know-how or sales. It matters because a buyer is paying for future profits, and those look less certain if they could walk out of the door with you. The British Business Bank lists a business relying on its owner, or on a single customer, among the reasons an exit may not be viable.

Customer concentration is the share of your revenue that comes from your largest customer, or from a handful of customers. The more you rely on a few accounts, the more a buyer, lender or investor will worry about what happens if one of them leaves or renegotiates. Measuring it over time, and widening your client base while protecting key relationships, is part of the Customer Value pillar of SCALE2SELL®.

Due diligence is the buyer’s detailed examination of your business before they commit: the finances, tax, legal position, contracts, customers, people and operations. It is where many sales slow down or are renegotiated, usually over gaps the seller could have closed earlier. Building an organised set of documents before a buyer arrives makes it faster and calmer.

Buyers typically value a company either as a multiple of its normalised earnings or by discounting its future cash flows, and both rest on assumptions about risk and future performance. Stratworth’s valuation mapping helps you understand what drives value in your business. It is not a formal valuation: for that, and for anything tax-related, take independent professional advice.

Being investor ready means your business can stand up to an investor’s questions: a clear growth plan, credible financial information, a capable team, sound legal and commercial foundations, and a realistic view of how much funding it needs and why. We help founders prepare for those conversations; we don’t give investment advice. The British Business Bank also publishes useful checklists on getting investor ready.