Exit Planning Starts Now: How to Build a Sellable Business Long Before You Sell

In this episode of The Elevate Your Business Podcast, host Paden Squires sits down with Adam Koós — founder and president of Libertas Wealth Management Group and creator of Adrenaline Advisor Consulting. Adam shares how he built a thriving firm from the ground up after starting his career just ten days before 9/11.

From grinding through door-to-door sales to managing four major market crashes, Adam opens up about resilience, leadership, systems, and what it really takes to balance ambition with family life. He also shares how entrepreneurs can turn their business into an investment instead of a job — and why marketing, delegation, and intentionality are key to scaling without burning out.

Episode Timestamps:
01:00 – Who Adam is beyond his business: husband, dad, and purpose-driven entrepreneur
05:00 – Learning work-life “intentionality” from his father’s example
07:00 – How calendar design helped him build real boundaries
09:00 – Lessons learned from early career hustle and burnout
11:00 – Redefining “balance” as intention, not perfection
13:00 – How Adam redesigned his schedule for freedom
16:00 – Learning to “turn off” and be fully present at home
19:00 – The difference between being behind vs. being behind on what matters
20:00 – Foundational financial advice for entrepreneurs
22:00 – Why every owner needs a CPA, fractional CFO, and value acceleration plan
25:00 – Transition planning vs. exit planning: what business owners get wrong
27:00 – How to make your business sellable (and why you shouldn’t wait)
31:00 – The #1 skill behind success: relentless execution
32:00 – Resilience through setbacks and costly mistakes
37:00 – How systems and processes transformed his firm
38:00 – Why marketing is a moral responsibility for ethical advisors
41:00 – The role of mentorship and learning from other business owners
43:00 – Turning your company into an investment, not just a job
44:00 – Final words of encouragement for entrepreneurs who feel stuck

Key Takeaways:
💡 Systems create freedom — chaos destroys it.
💡 Success comes from hard work and resilience, but scaling requires delegation.
💡 Treat your family appointments like client meetings — they’re just as important.
💡 Every entrepreneur needs financial infrastructure: CPA, CFO, and planning for value.
💡 Build your business to run without you — that’s how you turn it into an investment.
💡 Marketing isn’t vanity; it’s how good advisors protect people from bad ones.

Key Quotes from Adam Koós:
🗣 “Pretend everything you do will be on tomorrow’s front page — and the rest will take care of itself.”
🗣 “There’s no trophy for working harder than everyone else. Nobody cares.”
🗣 “If you can delegate it or automate it, do it — and spend your time doing what you love.”
🗣 “I’m not a financial planning firm that does marketing. I’m a marketing firm that happens to do financial planning.”
🗣 “Hard work and resilience are everything — but systems are what make them sustainable.”

Connect with Adam Koós:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamkoos

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