For two out of three business owners, selling the company will be the largest financial transaction of their lives. Yet most have never had it valued, and many don't know where to begin. In this episode, Wendy Brookhouse and Kelsey MacAulay dig into the number 66, why business value belongs right alongside revenue and profit as a metric worth tracking, and the practical first steps owners can take, often years ahead of a sale, to understand what their business is worth and build it into something worth transitioning.

In This Episode

• Why business value deserves a seat next to revenue and profit as a number to track every year
• What the "66%" and "less than 40%" figures reveal about how few owners actually know their number
• How to get a baseline read on your business's worth when a sale is still 5 to 10 years out
• Which levers can lift both your profit and your multiple, and why that combination changes the sale price so dramatically
• Who belongs on your exit team, and why a transaction specialist is not the same as your generalist lawyer
• Why waiting until you're tired weakens both your energy and your bargaining position

Featured Quote

About the Hosts

Wendy Brookhouse is the founder and chief strategist at Black Star Wealth and a Certified Financial Planner with over 20 years of independent advisory experience. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners to build financial clarity, business value, and wealth that lasts.

Kelsey MacAulay is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Relationship Officer at Black Star Wealth, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. He works with business owners on the operational and strategic side of building a business worth transitioning.

Resources & Links

• CEPA (Certified Exit Planning Advisor): the credential Kelsey points to when choosing an advisor who specializes in transitions
• Baseline business valuation: an informal valuation to establish a starting number, referenced in the episode as a service Black Star Wealth offers
• Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB): succession research cited in the episode (roughly 76% of owners planning to transition within 10 years, and 9% with a written plan)

Connect With Black Star Wealth

• Website: blackstarwealth.com
• LinkedIn: Wendy Brookhouse | Kelsey MacAulay
• Podcast: The Number, available on all major platforms

If knowing your number feels overdue, visit blackstarwealth.com to learn whether a baseline valuation is a fit for where you're at.

The Canada Pension Plan comes off almost every paycheque, but most business owners never stop to ask how it works or what it means for them. In this episode, Wendy Brookhouse and Kelsey MacAulay use the average CPP payment of $925.35 a month as a way in. They explain how contributions work, why the choice between paying yourself salary or dividends has gotten closer than it used to be, when it might make sense to take CPP early or wait, and how your pay structure shows up when you eventually sell your business.

In This Episode

• Understand what CPP is and how the 5.95% contribution works, including why the self-employed pay both halves at 11.9%
• See why the tax gap between paying yourself salary and paying yourself dividends has narrowed, and what that means for your pension and for getting financing
• Weigh the tradeoffs of taking CPP early, which reduces your benefit each month before 65, against waiting, which increases it each month up to 70, and learn where the crossover point lands
• Recognize how your pay structure looks during a sale, when buyers normalize salary and add dividends back into profit
• Find out how to check what you are actually eligible to collect through Service Canada

Most business owners have run a few prompts through ChatGPT and assumed that counts as using AI. Susan Diaz, CEO and founder of Northlight AI and author of Swan Dive Backwards, joins Wendy and Kelsey to make the case for going deeper. The conversation covers why AI literacy matters more than access, how to treat AI as delegation instead of magic, and why documenting how your business actually runs is both the starting point for AI and a quiet driver of business value.

In This Episode

• Understand the difference between AI access and AI literacy, and why a license alone doesn't move the needle
• Reframe AI as delegation, so a weak result points you back to a weak brief rather than a broken tool
• See why writing down how your business works builds intellectual property and makes the business more valuable and sellable
• Use the 10/80/10 approach, where you set the thinking, let AI carry the middle, and keep the final polish
• Pick one tool and get better at it instead of chasing every new headline and feature
• Ask the harder questions about jobs, security, and adoption that leadership tends to skip

Featured Quote

About the Hosts

Wendy Brookhouse is the founder and chief strategist at Black Star Wealth and a Certified Financial Planner with over 20 years of independent advisory experience. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners to build financial clarity, business value, and wealth that lasts.

Kelsey MacAulay is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Relationship Officer at Black Star Wealth, and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. He works with business owners on the operational and strategic side of building a business worth transitioning.

About Our Guest

Susan Diaz is the CEO and founder of Northlight AI and the author of the self-published book Swan Dive Backwards. She works largely with small businesses on practical AI adoption and hosts a long-running podcast with more than 275 episodes. She wrote her book by recording 25 episodes over 30 days, 13 of them with guests, and using AI to help structure and cross-reference the material.

Resources & Links

• Swan Dive Backwards by Susan Diaz, available on Amazon (including Amazon Canada)
• Northlight AI, Susan Diaz's company
• The four AI archetypes from the book and its companion quiz: the Diver, the Pathfinder, the Operator, and the Bridge Builder
• The Big Leap and its four zones of incompetence, competence, excellence, and genius, referenced in the conversation

Connect With Black Star Wealth

• Website: blackstarwealth.com
• LinkedIn: Wendy Brookhouse | 1
• Podcast: The Number, available on all major platforms

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