The method
Five gates, twenty-five criteria, and one rule: evidence before adjectives. The Standard tests the parts of a company that still rely on its owner — and the records that prove whether that reliance has actually changed.
Diligence is not a review of how well the company performs. It is a test of what continues once the current owner stops answering the phone — and whether anything can be verified without that owner in the room to explain it.
The Standard organizes that test into five gates. Each gate asks one question an owner can answer honestly, names the evidence a third party would request, and states the decision that evidence supports.
The five gates
If you stopped answering calls for 30 days, which decisions would wait for you?
What it decides: Whether the company has transferable authority — or a buyer is acquiring a dependency on you.
Could a capable operator handle routine work and exceptions from what is actually documented?
What it decides: Whether operating knowledge belongs to the company or still lives in people’s heads.
Are pricing, discounting, estimating, and job review governed — or dependent on your judgment?
What it decides: Whether earnings are produced by a repeatable commercial system or by founder intervention.
Which customers, contracts, referrals, and channels remain durable after a change in ownership?
What it decides: Whether revenue is attached to the enterprise, the owner, or a small number of fragile relationships.
Can another person trace the earnings story from monthly books back to source records?
What it decides: Whether a financial claim can be verified without relying on memory, explanation, or a polished PDF.
How the work is staged
Narrative never precedes structure. A seller record built before the underlying dependencies are addressed simply documents them more clearly for the buyer.
Establish what is supportable, what is exposed, and what should happen next.
Fixed-fee entry point
Review Tier I →Convert the priority dependencies and evidence gaps into working controls.
Scoped after Tier I
Review Tier II →Build the evidence room and the seller record that survives third-party challenge.
Scoped after Tier I
Review Tier III →The 30-Day Owner Test runs the five gates in about five minutes and shows you where attention concentrates. Nothing is uploaded, and it scores instantly, with a recommendation.