Protecting your fee base: the exit conversation every adviser should be having
How to raise an exit early, and why the adviser in the room first is the one who keeps the relationship and the funds under management.
Media Kit
Simon
Bedard
Founder and Managing Director of Exit Advisory Group
Author of Exit Like an Expert
Host of the Buy Grow Sell Podcast
The Authority on
Business Exits
An owner sells their business once. Simon Bedard sits in that room every week. As host of the Buy Grow Sell podcast, a regular on industry panels, and the host of events and Summits that have brought thousands of business owners together, Simon is a trusted voice on business valuation and exits.
With more than 25 years across finance, investment and advisory, and as Founder and Managing Director of Exit Advisory Group, he helps business owners bridge the gap between what they think their business is worth and what the market will actually pay.
He has also been on the other side of the table, having started, bought and sold companies himself. That is the experience he brings to a conversation about someone else's.
Increasingly, that work happens alongside financial planners and accountants, Simon runs the transaction while the adviser stays the client's trusted wealth partner before, during, and after the sale.
We are not born to 'do business'. We're born to live life. Our business should be a vehicle to deliver the life we want.
Credentials
- National Chair, Australian Institute of Business Brokers
- Registered Business Valuer
- Council Member, COSBOA
- Licensed Business Broker
- MBA with distinction
- Diploma in Financial Markets
- Valuations prepared in accordance with the International Valuation Standards
Company Awards
- Winner, Business Consulting. Bx Business Excellence Awards, 2024
- Australian Small Business Champion Awards Finalist, 2024 and 2025
- Regional Business Awards Finalist, 2024
20K+
Followers
>90%
Business Owners, CEOs, Executive Directors
35-65 years old
Well educated
Most earn over $150K
The book on the Australian succession wave
Australia's Succession Crisis
Simon's book lands in the middle of Australia's business succession wave. A generation of owners is heading for the exit at once, and a great many of them will go to market without having prepared for it.
20-30%
of small businesses that attempt to sell actually close a deal.
81%
of sellers wished they had spent more time preparing.
70%
started preparing less than two years before exiting.
From Exit Like an Expert
Learn More About the BookTrusted by M&A Leaders and Experts
“Simon's book on how to prepare for and realise value is a masterclass with relevance to advisors, investors and business owners.”
Suvir Varma
Advisory Partner & Former IC Member
Bain & Company
“Simon nails the reality of the deal process. This book teaches founders how to ensure their business is ready for a transaction so they can focus on negotiations without being caught off guard.”
Jason Marcus
Corporate Partner
Thomson Geer Lawyers
“Simon has produced the handbook on how to successfully sell a business for the Australian market. This is a must for all business owners. It outlines how to make a sale that everyone is happy with.”
Warren Hogan
Australian Economist
EQ Economics
Story Angles & Interview Topics
Six angles Simon can take on air, each one built on deals he has run rather than on theory.
01
Australia's succession wave
Between 20 and 30 per cent of small businesses that go to market actually close a deal. A generation of owners is approaching the exit at the same time, and that ratio is the story. What happens to the businesses that do not sell, and what an owner can do about it now.
02
"One day" is not a date
Selling when the time is right sounds like a plan, until you notice that the timing never announces itself. What the waiting costs, and what preparation actually involves.
03
Buying boring businesses
The buyers Simon meets are getting younger, and they are looking hard at established, unglamorous businesses rather than starting something from scratch. What makes a business worth buying, and what a buyer looks at first.
04
Proactive and forced exits
Simon meets owners who came to market because their health forced it, and others who were simply worn out. The gap between an exit you planned and one that arrived on someone else's timetable turns up in the price.
05
The identity trap
For a founder who built the business, selling it can feel like handing over part of themselves. Simon has watched that attachment stall a sale long after the numbers stacked up. The psychology behind why an owner delays.
06
What buyers actually pay for
A buyer prices future earnings, and discounts every risk they can see in the way there. This angle walks through what those risks look like on a balance sheet, in a customer list and in an org chart.
Keynotes, Panels & Workshops
Simon works with fellow advisers, financial planning groups, accountants and licensees, on two different things: the exit conversations their business-owner clients are having, and the value of their own practice.
He also speaks directly to business owners, most often through the associations they belong to. Every session is built around real deals rather than frameworks.
- Keynotes (20 to 60 min)
- Workshops
- Panels and virtual
Ideal Audiences
Advisers: financial planning groups and licensees, accounting and advisory firms, professional bodies.
Owners: industry associations and their member bodies, owner groups, SME conferences, PE and investment audiences.
For advisers, on their clients · CPD-eligible
Proactive and forced exits
Telling the difference between a client who is choosing to sell and one whose timetable is being set by health, a partner or a lender.
For advisers, on their own practice
What is your practice worth, and what would a buyer pay for it?
A practice is a business too, and what makes one saleable is decided years before anyone goes to market.
From technical practitioner to trusted advisor
AIBB National Conference, Hobart, opening the main programme.
For business owners, often through their association
From revenue to value: what actually makes a business worth buying
Bx Diamond Conference, 24 August 2026.
Australia's succession wave: what owners need to do before 2030
"One day" is not a date: why preparation beats timing
Founder dependency: the risk a buyer prices first
Proof, not topics
Where Simon has spoken
A national institute, its conference platform, and the policy rooms behind it. Ordered by what a programme committee weighs, not by date.
AIBB National Conference, Cairns
Panellist on "The Great Business Transition" with economist Warren Hogan and Jim Parker, President of the International Business Brokers Association. Simon opened and closed the conference as National Chair.
Bx Diamond Conference
"From Revenue to Value: What Actually Makes a Business Worth Buying", a 40-minute session on the conference's growth day.
AIBB National Conference, Hobart
"From Traditional Broker to Trusted Advisor", the opening hour of the main programme. Simon was a member, not yet National Chair, so this was an invited slot on merit.
International Business Brokers Association
"Cross Border Transactions", to the international peak body.
Financial Advice Association Australia
"How to build a valuable company", to the peak body for financial advisers.
The CEO Institute
A session for chief executives on business value and exit.
Business Vision Summit
Simon shared the stage with Naomi Simson and Ita Buttrose.
Credit Suisse
Succession Planning Event. Simon was invited as a panellist, one of four, to a full room.
Simon's full speaking record, session catalogue and past events
For Financial Advisers & Accountants
We work alongside you, and stay in our lane.
When one of your clients sells their business, the proceeds arrive in a single event that reshapes everything you have been planning with them. They need the sale handled properly, and they need the person who knows their whole financial picture still beside them when it settles.
Exit Advisory Group runs the transaction. You stay where you have always been, advising the client before, during and after the sale, with the detail in front of you while decisions are being made rather than reported back once they are done.
Partner with Simon so your clients go to market prepared, and so you are still the one advising them when the proceeds arrive.
You keep the client. We never approach your clients about wealth, super, or investment advice.
New wealth to manage. A prepared exit turns an illiquid business into liquid wealth, and the client keeps you to manage it.
CPD-eligible education. Lunch-and-learns and keynotes for your team and your clients.
For Business Owners & Member Associations
Sessions your members can use, not a supplier pitch.
Your members run their own practices. They have been taught how to run one, price one and staff one. What the business itself is worth, and how to sell it, is the part the training usually leaves out.
Simon builds sessions to fill that gap, with stated learning outcomes so your education team can assess them, and delivers them as keynotes, breakouts, webinars or panels. He does not sell from the podium.
Book Simon to speakBuilt for your programme. Every session comes with an abstract, three to four learning outcomes and format options, so it can go straight into a submission or a CPD library.
Already delivered, not just offered. Two of the sessions have run on a conference programme, and the full record of where Simon has spoken is published rather than summarised.
Advocacy
A national voice for Australian business owners
As National Chair of the Australian Institute of Business Brokers, Simon advocates on the issue he sees every week: the succession cliff. When a viable business cannot be sold or handed on, it too often simply closes, taking local jobs, services and decades of built-up value with it.
Of the small businesses that go to market, between 20 and 30 per cent complete a sale. Closing that gap is the work Exit Advisory Group was built to do.
That work has taken him to Parliament House in Canberra, to a meeting with the Chair of the ACCC on merger and acquisition rules, to a submission to the Productivity Commission on succession and access to capital, and, as a Council Member of COSBOA, into the rooms the small-business peak body convenes. In June 2026 his small-business advocacy was recognised in the New South Wales Parliament.
“A strong voice on an issue that deserves far more attention: the looming small business succession cliff.”
NSW Hansard, 24 June 2026
COSBOA National Small Business Summit, Sydney, August 2026
COSBOA National Small Business Summit, Sydney, August 2026
Member for Mackellar. Parliament House, Canberra
Chair of the ACCC, on its changes to merger and acquisition rules
Independent Member for Wakehurst. Electorate office, with Exit Like an Expert
COSBOA National Small Business Summit, Sydney, August 2026. Simon attended as a delegate and as a Council Member of COSBOA
COSBOA National Small Business Summit, Sydney, August 2026
COSBOA National Small Business Summit, Sydney, August 2026
24 June 2026.
Submission to the Productivity Commission
Simon raises the need for a national succession strategy and government-backed acquisition finance.
Simon Bedard elected to National Chair, Australian Institute of Business Brokers
Elected 2025. Sits on the National Board and the conference committee.
Podcast Host
Buy Grow Sell
The podcast for entrepreneurs looking to acquire, grow, or exit a business. Simon interviews business owners who share the dizzying heights of success and hard lessons learned.
20,000+
Plays and downloads
4.8
Podcast Rating
100+
Episodes
Live Events & Summits
Bringing the business community together.
Simon has hosted a series of business summits that have brought more than 5,000 business owners together. At the Buy Grow Sell Summits, both virtual, he shared the stage with Mark Bouris AM and Janine Allis.
What People Say
Event Testimonial
Hear what event attendees have to say about the insights shared.
Event Testimonial
Real feedback on the value Simon delivers to an audience.
“Highly recommended advisory services”
“Simon assisted in the sale of my business to a long-term employee in 2023 by mentoring both of us through the process. This was a completely new experience for both of us, and I was so glad he had been recommended to us. He was excellent at explaining the processes for us, and it was incredibly useful to have someone on hand who could reassure us that the challenges we faced were completely normal... and last but not least really helped me to retain my sense of humour through the process.”
CharlotteG2023
Business Vendor (Google Review)
“Super genuine and approachable”
“The stakes are high when clients move to succession and business exit. In this area, I look to Simon at Exit Advisory Group. Super genuine and approachable. Thanks for your service.”
Kent Hutchins
Industry Partner
“A brilliant job”
“Simon Bedard and the Exit Advisory Group team did a brilliant job assisting me in the sale of my consulting business. I couldn't be happier with the result, delivered through their depth of understanding, and complete professionalism throughout.”
Paul Nelson
Founder & MD | Fuller Brand Communications