If you took a month off — no calls, no estimates, no walking a single job — would your electrical contracting business still be there when you got back?
For most owners running a crew, the honest answer is "not the same business." And that answer matters more than almost anything on your balance sheet. In Walking to Destiny (second edition, 2023), Christopher Snider points to estimates that roughly 80 percent of an owner's net worth is locked inside the business. For most owners, it's the biggest thing they own and the hardest thing to turn into cash.
I've spent a lot of time with this book. It was my main study resource when I earned my Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) designation. Before I became a CPA, I came up in the electrical trade, dispatching service crews, doing takeoffs, and estimating jobs. So I read it with two sets of eyes: the advisor's, and the guy who used to sit in the service office.
Here's my honest review. Along the way, we'll get to the one number most owners get wrong.
What is Walking to Destiny actually about?
Walking to Destiny argues that you should build your business as if you'll sell it someday, whether or not you ever do. A business that can run without you is worth more, gives you more choices, and is easier to live with. A business that can't run without you is a job you happen to own.
Snider's real subject isn't the exit. It's the years before it. He lays out a process: discover where you stand, prepare by fixing what's holding your value down, then decide whether to keep growing or start transitioning. He breaks the work into 90-day stretches instead of one giant "someday" project.
That structure is the book's best gift to a contractor. You already think in phases: rough-in, trim, final. Snider asks you to run the business side the same way.
If you're earlier in the journey, my review of Jake Harmon's Start Your Electrical Contracting Business covers the money habits that decide whether a new shop survives. Snider picks up where that leaves off: once the shop survives, what is it worth?
Why most electrical contracting businesses depend too much on the owner
Most electrical contracting businesses depend on the owner in ways a buyer can spot in the first meeting. The license is in your name. You price the big jobs. The general contractors call your cell, not the office.
None of that makes you a bad operator. It makes you a normal one. Most contractors I talk to are in exactly this position, because that's how a shop gets built: the owner does everything until the business grows past him.
Here's the part most people miss. When I was estimating jobs and dispatching crews, I saw how much of a shop's value lived in a few people's heads — who knew what a job really cost, which customer paid slow, which GC would call back with the next bid. Snider treats those relationships, systems, and know-how as real business capital. But a buyer can't take any of it home unless it's written down, shared, or built into how the shop runs.
I covered the licensing and pricing side of this in Can You Sell Your Electrical Contracting Business, or Are You the Business? It's also the same idea from my review of Who Not How: the question isn't how you'll do everything, it's who else can.
So how do you measure how far you are from a business someone would buy?
The three gaps Snider wants every owner to measure
Snider asks you to measure three gaps. In plain English:
The profit gap is the difference between what your shop earns now and what a well-run shop your size could earn.
The value gap is the difference between what your business is worth today and what it could be worth if you closed that profit gap and lowered the risk a buyer sees.
The wealth gap is the difference between what you have and what you'll need to fund life after the business.
The value gap is where the money is. Industry data from Vertical IQ puts the median electrical contractor sale at roughly 2.5 times seller's discretionary earnings. At that multiple, each dollar of yearly earnings a buyer believes in can add about $2.50 to your price. Every dollar they don't believe in adds nothing.
Which brings us to the number most owners get wrong.
Why your tax number isn't the number a buyer pays for
Your tax return is built to lower your tax bill. A buyer's offer is built on earnings they can verify. Those are two different numbers, and most owners have only ever looked at the first one.
For years, you and your accountant have probably worked to keep taxable profit as low as the law allows. That's legitimate planning. But a buyer starts from what your books show, then asks what can be added back — one-time repairs, a family member on payroll who won't stay, costs that end when you leave. The add-backs you can document tend to get counted. The ones you can't prove usually get dropped. At 2.5 times earnings, a $20,000 add-back that gets dropped can mean $50,000 less at the closing table.
And if personal expenses have been running through the company — "I put it through the business" — that's a problem twice. Once with the IRS, and again when a buyer can't tell which costs are real.
There's one more piece S-corporation owners miss. A buyer will ask what it would cost to hire someone to do your job. If you've been paying yourself a low salary, that replacement cost comes out of the earnings they're willing to pay for. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) already expects S-corporation owners to take reasonable compensation for their work before taking distributions. Getting your salary right tends to help on both fronts: it keeps the tax side clean, and it shows a buyer the true cost of running the shop.
The bottom line: the earnings a buyer will pay for are the ones your books can prove.
How my three-legged stool fits Snider's
Snider frames being ready for the future as a three-legged stool: the business, your personal finances, and your life after the business. If one leg is short, the whole thing tips.
I use the same three-legged stool in my own business and my own life, and it's the main reason this book stuck with me. Most owners work on one leg — the business — and assume the other two will sort themselves out at sale time. Snider points out that the personal leg is the one owners skip most often: what you'll do, who you'll be, and how you'll spend your days when you're not the one everybody calls.
For electrical contractors, that leg is real. A lot of us are the trade. Walking away from the truck can feel like walking away from yourself. And if you've already left a business or a career behind, the same question still applies: does your money have a plan, and do you?
I'm applying these ideas to Adair Advisory Group right now, and it's a work in progress. That means writing down how the work gets done, building systems and relationships that don't all run through me, and checking the numbers on a regular rhythm instead of once a year. I'm doing it because I think Snider is right: a firm that depends less on its owner is a better firm to own, whether or not it's ever sold.
Where Walking to Destiny falls short: the honest part of this book review
Walking to Destiny isn't a quick read on a lunch break. It's dense with frameworks, and parts of it are written with larger companies in mind. If you run a 12-person shop, some chapters will feel built for a business twice your size.
It also leans on the idea that you'll work with an exit planning advisor. That makes sense given who wrote it, but in places it reads like a pitch. And it doesn't get into trade-specific problems like who holds the license or how bonding capacity ties to your financials.
Still, the core ideas translate. If you only have time for part of it, read the sections on the three gaps and the three-legged stool first.
Is now the right time to start?
If you're not selling for years, now is still the time to start, because value takes years to build and the buyers who pay well have gotten pickier.
Private equity firms are actively buying electrical contractors. Investment bank Cascade Partners reports that electrical contracting deal volume jumped about 54 percent in 2024. That's real demand, but those buyers tend to pay for shops that run without the owner, and not every shop is a fit. In the broader small-business market, BizBuySell reported that completed sales fell 10 percent in the second quarter of 2026 as buyers became more selective.
Every year the business runs through you is a year you're not building the value a buyer would pay for. That time doesn't come back. The upside: the same fixes — clean books, a written pricing process, a second person who can run a job — usually make the business easier to run right now, whether or not you ever sell. I made the case for starting early in Exit Planning for Electrical Contractors: Why the Window Closes Years Before You Sell.
The good news is this is more straightforward than it probably feels from where you're sitting.
Three questions that show how to make your business sellable
The fastest way to use this book is a quick self-check. Answer honestly:
- Does every job over a certain size still get priced by you personally?
- Is the license (or qualifier) your business works under yours alone?
- Would your books need cleanup before a buyer — or your banker — could trust the numbers?
If you said yes to two or three, you're in good company, and you have a clear place to start. Each yes is a piece of your business a buyer can't take home yet. Snider's advice, in plain terms: pick one and work on it for the next 90 days.
If you want to walk through your answers with someone who knows the trade, schedule a free 15-minute call.
"What if it's worth less than I thought?"
That's the question most owners won't say out loud. For a lot of shops, the first number is lower than the owner hoped. That's normal, and it's useful. A number you learn at 50 is something you can work on. A number you learn at 64, with a buyer across the table, is just a price.
If you're thinking, "I'm not selling for 15 years," that's good news: time is the most valuable thing you have here. And if you're thinking, "I'm too busy running jobs," that's exactly why Snider breaks the work into 90-day pieces. You don't have to fix everything. You have to start with one thing.
Why it helps to have someone who speaks both languages
Plenty of advisors know the tax code. Fewer have estimated a service call or chased a GC for a progress payment. Working with Adair Advisory Group means one advisor looking at your tax return, your business value, and your retirement as a single plan, from someone who has worked the business side of an electrical shop.
Frequently asked questions
Is Walking to Destiny worth reading if I'm not planning to sell?
Yes. Snider's main argument is that a business that runs without you is better to own right now, not just at sale time. The 90-day approach works whether your exit is three years away or twenty.
How much is an electrical contracting business worth?
It depends on how much verified profit the business earns and how much of it depends on you. Industry data from Vertical IQ puts the median around 2.5 times seller's discretionary earnings, or about 3.5 times EBITDA. I walked through the math in What Is Your Electrical Contracting Business Actually Worth in 2026?
Can you sell a business if the owner is the business?
Often, yes, but usually for less, with more of the price tied to you staying on through a transition, or with the business sold mainly for its equipment. The less the business depends on you, the more options you tend to have.
How long does it take to make a business sellable?
Usually years, not months. Snider's approach is to plan for the long haul and work in 90-day pieces, so progress starts right away.
You started reading this because of one question: would the business still be there if you stepped away? You now have a clearer picture of what a buyer would see, and where your value might be hiding. The next step to reduce owner dependence in your own shop is a 15-minute conversation about your situation specifically.
If you're reading this thinking "this is me," that's exactly who the call is for.
Book a Free 15-Minute Business Value Check-In
This article is for educational purposes only and is not tax, legal, or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional about your specific situation.