Most exit preparation starts when the adviser is appointed. By then, the number buyers care most about is fixed.
McKinsey's 2025 study of more than 100 B2B software companies found the top valuation quartile running 113% net revenue retention against 98% for the bottom quartile, and trading at a median of 24 times revenue against 5. Retention isn't the only thing that separates those groups, but it's the one a buyer can read straight off your cohorts.
Why it can't be fixed late
Retention moves at the speed of your renewal calendar. If most of your contracts renew annually, a new renewal process or uplift approach started today shows up in one cohort a year from now and two cohorts the year after. A buyer looking at your data at T-6 months sees the curve you had, not the one you're building.
And they look closely. They split NRR into price and volume, so a year of uplifts that carried a weak base shows up as exactly that. They read it by cohort and by acquired business, so a decaying acquisition can't hide inside a healthy group average. They look at gross retention, because NRR built on a falling GRR is a business replacing customers, not growing them.
The gap between sponsors and management
Sponsors know this. In Accordion's 2025 survey of 200 PE sponsors and 200 portfolio CFOs, 81% of sponsors said exit preparation should start 12 to 24 months before a sale. More than half the CFOs said they usually start three to six months out.
That gap is not about effort. It's about what each side thinks preparation is. To a CFO under pressure, it's a data pack. To a buyer, it's two years of evidence that the engine works.
What two years buys you
- Every material renewal owned by a named person 180 days before it's due, not 30.
- A health score built from product usage, so the at-risk renewals are known six months early.
- NRR reported with and without price in every board pack, so you see what the buyer will see.
- Uplifts set by a matrix and applied with gross retention watched as a guardrail, so the price programme doesn't become the churn spike a buyer goes looking for.
Started two years out, that's eight quarters of cohort data a buyer can read for themselves. Started six months out, it's a slide.
A buyer won't take your word for your retention. They'll read it. Give them something worth reading.
Veridian Revenue Partners puts the renewal and retention rhythm in place alongside your team, 18 to 24 months before a sale. See Exit readiness.