Do you want to sell, or do you want to be free?

What are you building toward?

The real answer - the one that lives in your gut.

I've talked to 100s of agency owners, and almost everyone talks about exit. About building enterprise value, positioning for acquisition and the multiple they'll get when they sell.

The language of exit is everywhere in our industry, but less than 20% of agencies sell.

It's how we measure success. It's how we think about the point of building a business. It's the assumed destination - the thing we're all working toward, even if we don't say it out loud.

But when I dig a little deeper - when I ask what they want their life to look like, what would make them feel like they'd won - an altogether different answer emerges.

They don't want to sell. Not really.

They want to stop working 60-hour weeks. They want to take a vacation without their phone buzzing every hour. They want the business to run without them. They want to feel like they own the business instead of the business owning them.

They want freedom.

Freedom and exit are not the same thing.

They might sound similar. They're both about escaping something. They're both about getting to a better place. But the path to each is completely different - and confusing them leads to years of building the wrong thing.

Let me explain what I mean.

If you're building to sell, what matters is transferable value.

You need a business that works without you - not just operationally, but in terms of client relationships, strategic direction, key decisions. You need clean books, documented processes, a management team that a buyer would trust. You need recurring revenue, low concentration risk, a defensible market position.

You need to look attractive to an acquirer.

If you're building for freedom, what matters is a business that doesn't need you day-to-day. You need systems that run without your involvement. You need a team that can operate autonomously. You need recurring revenue that shows up whether you're working or not. But you don't necessarily need any of the things that make a business attractive to a buyer - because you're not trying to attract a buyer. You're trying to build a life.

Someone building for exit might sacrifice short-term freedom for long-term value. They might work harder now, stay more involved, push for growth even when it's uncomfortable - because they're playing for the payout at the end.

Someone building for freedom might sacrifice some enterprise value for quality of life right now. They might keep the business smaller than it could be, might turn down growth opportunities that would require more of their time, might optimize for margin and lifestyle instead of revenue and scale.

Neither path is wrong.

But they're different paths.

And if you're confused about which one you're on, you'll make decisions that don't serve either goal.

In one camp we have agency owners who say they're building to sell, but want freedom.

What they really want is to stop being so tired. To spend time with their family. To have a business that gives them options instead of demands.

And because they're building for the wrong goal, they make decisions that push freedom further away.

They chase growth that requires more of their time. They take on clients they shouldn't take on. They hire people they shouldn't hire. They build complexity when they should be building simplicity.

Years go by. The exit they're supposedly building toward never materializes - or it does, but on terms that don't actually change their life much. And in the meantime, they've missed thousands of days of freedom that were available to them if they'd just built differently.

I also see the reverse.

Agency owners who want to sell, but are accidentally building for freedom.

They've created a nice lifestyle business. They're comfortable.

But comfort has a cost. The business hasn't grown the way it could. There's no management layer that a buyer would trust. The owner is still the face of the business, the keeper of the key relationships, the person clients really want to work with.

The enterprise value is low because the business is too dependent on one person - even if that person's day-to-day involvement is minimal.

When they finally want to sell - because circumstances change, or they're ready to move on - they discover that what they've built isn't worth what they thought. The freedom they enjoyed came at the cost of the exit they assumed would be waiting.

I'm not here to tell you which path to choose. Both are valid. Both can lead to a good life.

But I am here to tell you that you need to choose.

Consciously. Deliberately. With full understanding of what each path requires.

If you want freedom, own that. Build a business that gives you freedom now, not someday. Optimize for margin over revenue. Keep things simple. Don't chase growth for growth's sake. Accept that your business might be worth less to a buyer - and decide that the life you're living is worth more to you than the check you might someday receive.

If you want to sell, own that too. Accept that the next few years might be harder, not easier. Build the things that create transferable value - the management team, the documented processes, the diversified revenue base. Push for growth even when it's uncomfortable. Sacrifice some freedom now for the payoff later.

What you can't do is drift between them. Taking on growth when it feels exciting, pulling back when it feels hard. Telling yourself you're building to sell while making decisions that optimize for lifestyle. Wanting the exit without being willing to do what exits require.

That's how you end up with neither.

A business that isn't free enough to enjoy and isn't valuable enough to sell.

I’ve got some questions below that may help you figure out which path is yours.

If someone offered to buy your business tomorrow for a fair price, would you feel relieved or reluctant?

If you could wave a magic wand and have either a $10M exit in five years or a business that runs completely without you in 6 months, which would you choose?

When you imagine the future you're working toward, what does it look like? Are you on a beach somewhere, checking in occasionally? Are you running something bigger, with more impact, more responsibility? Are you doing something else entirely, funded by the sale of what you've built?

What does winning actually mean to you - not what you've been told it should mean, not what looks impressive to others, but what would make you feel like you'd done it right?

The life you want determines the business you should build.

Most build opportunistically, reactively - and then try to figure out what they want later. By then, they've created something that doesn't serve either goal very well.

But to get it right, you need to start with the end in mind.

If you're not sure which path you're on -or if you've realized you've been building toward the wrong one - reply with "EXIT" and let's talk about what needs to change.

Nick