We've been obsessed with helping business owners for 40+ years. This may be our best yet.

What's in a name?

The word NEXIT® is two things at once. (Three things if you count the registered trademark.)

NEXT — because every owner we've ever worked with has a next. A next chapter, a next version of themselves that has nothing to do with payroll or a P&L. And because the businesses we help don't stay where they are. They grow, they change, they evolve into something better than where they started.

EXIT — because it's coming for every owner, whether they plan for it or not. A sale. A succession. A handoff. Sometimes a health event that makes the decision for them.

NEXIT lives at the intersection of both. We help you move toward what's next by making sure the exit you've earned can pay for it.

We Started in Marketing Because That Industry Is Pretty Messed-Up

In 1984, Dave Sandweiss started an ad agency with a chip on his shoulder. Kevin Koster joined him in 1987. Same chip. Different story, same conclusion: small business owners were being treated like meal tickets by the media and advertising industry. Reps who overpromised. Agencies that overbilled. Creative and media designed for egos, not results. The small business owner was seen as a revenue opportunity, not as the economic backbone of their communities that they actually were.

Our agency was built to fix that. Negotiating media like it was money coming out of our own pockets. Creative that melted phones. Unheard of clients who became category leaders or created their own categories. And client relationships lasting decades instead of months. Forty years later, the passion and belief haven't changed. Small business owners are the most underserved, overcharged, and overlooked participants in the American economy. They deserve better than what most industries offer them.

Defining Moments On Our Journey To NEXIT Growth Partners

It Became Very Personal

In 2005, we lost Dave Sandweiss in a car crash.

There was no time to prepare. Just a phone call that changed everything, and a business that had to keep moving forward because the people inside it depended on it.

Half of all business owners don't exit on their own schedule. We've heard that statistic hundreds of times since. We knew it was true before we ever saw the research.

An unexpected exit isn't a hypothetical. It's a phone call. And when it comes, the difference between an owner who prepared and one who didn't isn't philosophical. It shows up in dollars, in options, and in whether the people they spent a lifetime taking care of are taken care of in return.

So if we remind you of a nagging mother on this topic, you know why.

No One Teaches This At Marketing School

Upon finishing John Warrillow's classic Built To Sell, it occurred to us that four of the eight drivers of a company's value fall under the marketing umbrella. (If you're keeping score at home, Two fall under finance, two under operations and four under marketing.)

We had been helping clients with those functions for years but had no idea that orienting a client's goals toward an ultimate exit could dramatically impact that client's final payday as well as enhance all of the paydays leading up to it.

We soon conceived "NEXIT" and developed the NEXIT Growth System and deployed it at the agency. To our knowledge, Skopós - The Brand Refinery is still the only ad agency in the country that approaches marketing with a Top Line/Bottom Line/Goal Line approach. And having become certified and licensed in the Value Builder System, we soon received our first opportunity to run an assessment.

And They Don't Teach This Either

She had spent close to twenty years in business and wanted to sell, retire, and move closer to her daughter in Florida. We had already reviewed the assessment and saw her company was valued at around $600,000. Before sharing that, we asked her what she wanted to sell for.

"I need to get $2 million for it."

There is nothing in certification training about how to tell a business owner that their life's work is worth less than a third of what they need to retire. We could explain the why and what she could do to fix it. But the moment of discovering that a lifetime of work has not produced enough business value to retire is one no business owner ever wants to experience.

Sadly, her business was more the rule than the exception. In fact, the first five assessments we did for clients delivered similar news: businesses worth half or less than the owner expected and, in most cases, needed. Going 5/5 was depressing, but it also underscored the need for NEXIT and to make these assessments available. Had these owners known 2-5 years earlier, it's a totally different retirement outcome.

The $15 Million ROI

A well-run business approached us and took our assessments. They scored above average with a value estimated at $10 million. We did identify two non-marketing-related issues that a potential acquirer would be concerned about.

Two years later, we heard from them again, looking for an introduction to an M&A attorney. They retook the assessments to provide the attorney with fresh data. Their value had shot up to $25 million in two years. $10 million to $25 million in two years, following a 20-minute assessment and a 90-minute meeting to review and understand the report.

THAT is when we first truly appreciated the life-changing power of what we have in our assessments and thus the need to develop an efficient process to offer them without requiring ongoing retainer agreements or agency work.

AND NOW THERE'S ANOTHER INDUSTRY WAITING AT THE END TO TAKE WHAT'S YOURS

Not everyone wants you to win

The advertising industry takes its shots at small business owners early.

And now, in recent years, funded by big PE money at the leading MBA programs, we have ETA buyers, an entire world of people who spend every working hour finding businesses like yours, identifying every gap, every key-person risk, every customer concentration issue, and pricing those findings into an offer before you've sat down at the table.

They are not villains. They are doing exactly what they are paid to do, and they are very good at it. The problem is not that they show up. The problem is that most owners aren't ready when they do.

And now we have something (someone) else to get us fired up.

WE'RE OWNERS, TOO

This isn't academic for us

NEXIT Growth Partners and our 42 year old brand practice are small businesses. We have people who count on us. We make payroll. We worry about margin. We know what it costs in money, in time, in sleep to build something worth building.

We didn't study business ownership from the outside. We're in it. That's not a marketing line. It's why this firm exists.

Cash in on your sweat equity

We built NEXIT because the end of an owner's story should be proportional to everything that came before it. The years of sacrifice deserve a return. The risks deserve a reward. The employees you took care of deserve to see you taken care of.

We find your number. We show you what's holding it down. We give you a clear path to close the gap. And we make sure that when the time comes, whether you choose it or it chooses you, you are not the least prepared person in the room.

Kevin Koster is the Founder and Managing Partner of NEXIT Growth Partners and President of Skopós, a brand refining and marketing firm based in Kansas City. A 40-year marketing veteran known for helping small and mid-sized business clients achieve tens of millions in annual growth, Kevin believes that a real brand is built from the inside out, starting with purpose (skopós) and people, not from the outside in with logos and websites.

Kevin is one of only a handful of professionals to be both a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) and a Certified Value Builder (CVB). Additionally, Kevin developed the NEXIT Growth System in 2016. NEXIT® is a step-by-step process that enhances sales and brand strategy while increasing sales multiples by improving performance across four key marketing-related and other business value drivers. NEXIT Growth Partners provides best-in-class valuation and business analytics for business owners wanting to take control of their value and grow their final payday.