Of everything that sets what a business sells for, owner dependence does the most damage and gets the least attention. Owners tend to see it as a compliment. Buyers see it as the risk they are being asked to buy.
What a buyer is actually asking
The question underneath every conversation is simple. If the owner leaves, what is left?
If you price every job, hold every significant relationship, carry the technical knowledge in your head and are the reason customers stay, then a buyer is not acquiring a business. They are buying a job that comes with your workload and none of your history. They price that accordingly, and their bank prices it harder.
The blunt test buyers use is this. What happens if the owner is unreachable for four weeks? If the honest answer is that things quietly fall apart, that shows up in the offer.
The four areas that matter
Pricing and quoting. If you are the only person who can price work correctly, the business cannot grow without you and cannot survive your exit. This is the most common one and often the easiest to fix, because pricing logic usually can be written down.
Customer relationships. If customers deal with you personally and would follow you rather than the business, the buyer is paying for goodwill that walks out the door. Introducing a second point of contact on major accounts changes this over time.
Technical knowledge. The fix is documentation and cross training. Unglamorous and genuinely valuable.
Supplier relationships. Favourable terms that exist because of your personal history with a supplier are not transferable. Where you can, get them in writing in the business name.
How buyers verify it
They ask your staff. They look at whether processes are documented or remembered. They check whether quotes go out when you are away. They look at your holidays over the last three years, and if you have not taken any, they draw the obvious conclusion.
This is not adversarial. It is the same question you would ask if you were buying.
What reducing it is worth
It moves two things at once. It lifts the multiple a buyer will apply, because the earnings look more durable. And it widens the pool of buyers, because a business that runs itself appeals to investors and to trade buyers, not only to someone who wants to work in it.
A wider pool is what creates competition, and competition is what actually sets price.
The timeline
Twelve to twenty four months is realistic. Document the pricing logic. Introduce a second contact on your top accounts. Write down the things only you know. Take a proper holiday and see what breaks, because what breaks is your list.
This is the clearest argument for having an appraisal conversation early. Knowing your number is useful. Knowing which two or three things would move it, with enough time to actually move them, is worth considerably more.