Jon’s Guide to Free Time and Boost Your Bottom Line

Your Search Firm Is an Asset—Here’s How to Treat It Like One

Let’s start with a core idea: your search firm is an asset. You’ve built something real, and that investment has value—value you can eventually sell, maximize, or use to create more freedom in your life. But what if you’re working solo? What if you’re ten years from retirement and don’t need to think about this yet? That’s okay.

What I want to share with you are practical strategies for setting your firm up for long-term value. I’m going to walk you through what search firms are currently worth, how they’re being valued, and what specific steps you can take to position yours—not just to sell one day, but to free up your time right now to focus on what matters most.

AI plays a major role in that. At its best, AI frees up your time so you can spend more of it with the people and on the things that are truly important. That’s the real conversation here. I’m working right now with search firm owners well into their eighties who are still in the business every day but want out. They’re ready to sell, but they can’t. Why? Because there’s too much risk for a buyer. I’m helping around 25 firms prepare their business five years ahead of their exit. That preparation makes all the difference—it gives them the ability to maximize the value of their firm instead of scrambling at the last minute.

Why Most Owners Struggle with Exit Planning

Here’s the issue I see over and over again. Most search firm owners don’t have an exit strategy. They’ve spent their careers treating the business like a job—coming in every day, doing the work—and suddenly they wake up in their sixties, seventies, or eighties and realize they don’t know how to stop. They’ve bought themselves a job they don’t know how to leave, and the idea of retiring feels impossible. The good news is that it’s not as hard to plan for an exit as people think. But you need time. You need a strategy. And you need to understand the numbers.

So what’s your firm actually worth? In executive search, a common benchmark is three to five times EBITDA—earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Larger firms with more stability can sell for even higher multiples. I’ve seen deals at six, seven, even ten times EBITDA depending on size and risk.

There’s also a simple rule of thumb in our industry: one times revenue. If you have a $2 million search firm and you’re not the bottleneck—the person doing all the selling, all the client handling, all the delivery—then you can typically sell that firm for close to one times revenue. That assumes a 25% profit margin and a four times EBITDA multiple. The key is not just revenue, but whether that revenue is transferable.

What Buyers Look for—and What They Avoid

There are a few core concepts you need to understand if you’re going to eventually sell or scale back from your firm. Buyers are looking at risk. If your firm is completely dependent on you, that’s a high-risk deal. If you’re the one holding all the relationships, if all the clients expect to talk to you personally, if you’re the one doing every function from sales to delivery to admin—that business doesn’t run without you. And that’s a problem. I had a client with a $2 million firm who had to step away for health reasons. She wanted to sell, but because all the value lived with her, the sale price dropped significantly.

The marketplace rewards size and stability. It rewards recurring revenue, consistent growth, and low turnover. It punishes risk, key-person dependence, and inconsistent performance. Big firms like Korn Ferry are trading at fifteen times multiples because they’ve removed risk and built enormous scale. Even mid-sized firms like Klein Hirsch are getting solid exits—six times EBITDA on $18 million—because they’ve structured their business to run without any one person.

Free Time and Firm Value Go Hand in Hand

This isn’t just about money. It’s about freedom. When you build a business that runs without you, you gain the ability to choose. You can sell it, keep it and work an hour a day, take time off, explore other ventures, or just live life. The same decisions that increase your firm’s valuation also give you more free time right now. You get your time back while making your firm more valuable. That’s the win.

This brings us to what I call “bus proofing.” If you got hit by a bus tomorrow, what would happen to your business? Would it keep running? Would revenue drop? Or would employees leave? Most firms can’t answer those questions confidently, and that’s the problem. To be bus-proof, your firm has to be able to survive without you. That means building a structure that doesn’t depend on your daily involvement. If you can leave for a year and the firm doesn’t miss a beat, you’ve done it right.

How to Start Structuring for Value

The truth is, most firms are worth less than they could be because the owner still does everything. They’re the recruiter, the rainmaker, the accountant, and the operations lead. If you want to increase the value of your firm, that has to change. And the good news is, as you offload more responsibilities, you don’t just increase value—you increase your time. I’ve seen owners reclaim 40% of their time simply by bringing on a strong sales development rep who gets them in front of new logos every day.

There’s a natural progression here. First you offload data research. Then engagement—automated drip campaigns, omnichannel outreach, anything repeatable. Then appointment setting, which is now the hottest hire in B2B. Eventually, if you want to be fully bus-proof, you replace account management and business development as well. The more you give away, the more valuable your firm becomes—and the more flexibility you gain in your life.

I’ve worked with owners who fully bus-proofed their firm intending to sell it, only to decide to keep it. Why? Because the business was now running better than ever and only needed an hour or two of their time each day. They were free to travel, golf, spend time with family—and still benefit from the revenue stream they’d built. When you build your firm the right way, you don’t just create a sellable asset—you create options.

The Path Forward

There are plenty of exit options out there. You can sell, scale back, or simply enjoy the freedom of a firm that runs without you. But the path to any of those outcomes starts with the same core steps: structure your business to reduce risk, delegate key functions, and shift out of the daily grind. As Bob Buford said in Halftime, the first half of your life is about being successful—the second half is about being significant. If you’re working in your firm until you’re 90, you’re probably not spending a lot of time on the things that matter most. That can change.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your recruitment business:

1. Grab a free copy of my Retainer Blueprint

It’s the exact, step-by-step process of getting clients to give you money upfront. https://get.therecruiteru.com/lm​​

2. Join the Recruiter Think Tank and connect with firm owners who are scaling, too. It’s our Facebook community where smart recruiters learn to make more money and get more freedom. https://www.facebook.com/groups/there​​…

3. Join me at our next event

Join us at The AI + Systems Playbook for Scaling Search Firms – May 28-30 12-3 PM ET. https://get.therecruiteru.com/leverage

4. Work with me and my team privately

And if you ever want to get some 1:1 help, we can jump on the phone for a quick call and brainstorm how to get you more leads, more placements, and more time. https://get.therecruiteru.com/scale-now​

Latest From TRU

• Jon’s Guide to Free Time and Boost Your Bottom Line
• Greg’s Powerful Guide to AI: Saving Money and Time
• Mike’s How to Guide: The Best Systems That Thrive
• How to Predict Placements with Certainty—Even in a Slump
• New Niches In Recruiting: The Best Approach For Expansion