How to Sell Your Company: A Multi-Time CFO's Full Playbook | Rick Smith

<p>CJ sits down with multi-time CFO Rick Smith, founder of Bonfire Advisory and author of <em>Six Months to the Sale</em>, to break down what actually happens when you sell a company. They cover why buyers value some businesses on ARR and others on EBITDA (and why being slightly profitable can hurt you), how to negotiate banker fees, what buyers find when they dig into your balance sheet, and why every cap table Rick inherits is wrong.</p><p><br></p><p>—</p><p><br></p><p>SPONSORS:</p><p>RightRev is a revenue recognition platform built for the AI economy, helping finance support usage-based pricing, credits, hybrid contracts, seats plus consumption, and whatever commercial model comes next. It gives product teams the freedom to keep innovating without outdated revenue systems slowing them down. Learn how RightRev can help at https://rightrev.com/cj</p><p><br></p><p>Rillet is an AI-native ERP built for modern finance teams that want to replace NetSuite and close faster. With revenue recognition, close management, multi-entity support, and native Stripe and Salesforce integrations, Rillet helps scaling companies run their finance stack in one place. Hundreds of teams, including Windsurf and Mercor, use Rillet to make the zero-day close real. Book a demo at https://www.rillet.com/cj</p><p><br></p><p>Maximor is an autonomous finance platform that runs order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, the close, cash management, and reporting on self-learning agents instead of a dozen disconnected tools. One PE-backed customer posts 98% of transactions directly to its ERP, with the remaining 2% routed to a human for review. You pay for outcomes, not seats. See it at https://www.maximor.ai/</p><p><br></p><p>Brex is an intelligent finance platform with AI-powered workflows that enforce expense policies at the point of sale, match receipts automatically, and reduce month-end close from weeks to hours. Thousands of companies, including Anthropic, Coinbase, and DoorDash, already run on Brex. Stop asking A-level finance talent to do B-level admin work. Learn more at https://www.brex.com/metrics</p><p><br></p><p>Anrok is the sales tax platform that watches your exposure everywhere, automates compliance, and flags risk before it turns into a surprise back-tax letter from a state you&#39;ve never set foot in. Companies like Anthropic, Notion, and Vanta already trust Anrok to stay ahead of rules that move faster than any spreadsheet can. Talk to a sales tax expert for a personalized exposur