New book · January 2027

Is Your Business Running You?

If you disappeared next Tuesday, what breaks first?

Most founder-led and family business owners have built something that only works when they show up. That dependency has a price: in what the business is worth, in your freedom, and in what you'll walk away with. It's called the Owner Dependency Tax™. And you can reduce it.

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The ODT Score gauge: Owned by the Business 40 to 50, Working Manager 25 to 39, Strategic Leader 15 to 24, Owner Optional 0 to 14, with the needle at 12 above an empty chair.

Where does your needle sit today?

of owners say they're fully prepared to transition (Chase, 2026)

to calculate your ODT Score today

90 days

to start reducing your tax with your first 90-Day Sprint™

The invisible tax

Which Side Looks Like Your Business?

Sound familiar?

You're Paying the Tax If…

None of this means you built it wrong. It means you built it around you. That's the tax.

Your phone rings on vacation, and you answer it.
Your best clients want you, not your team.
Decisions wait until you weigh in, even the small ones.
Your managers bring you problems instead of answers.
The know-how that runs the place lives in your head.
You've thought about stepping back, but you can't see who would catch what you drop.

What it costs

Most Owners Plan to Leave. Few Are Ready.

The ODT Equation: higher dependency leads to higher risk, a lower multiple and lower value; lower dependency leads to lower risk, a higher multiple and higher value. Same EBITDA, same business — the only variable is you.

Read the top row, then the bottom row.

Same EBITDA. Same business. The only thing that changes is how much it depends on you, and that one variable moves the risk, the multiple and what your life's work is worth.

75%

of owners intend to transition within 10 years

2025 EPI Generational State of Owner Readiness™ Report

20–30%

of businesses that go to market actually sell

2025 EPI Generational State of Owner Readiness™ Report

say they're fully prepared to transition

Chase, May 2026

The gap between those numbers comes down to one question: can the business actually work without you?

Owner dependency costs you three ways. It caps what a buyer will pay. It keeps you tied to the day-to-day. And it shrinks what you and your family walk away with. The longer it runs, the bigger the bill.

The Five Dependency Areas

Where Owner Dependency Hides

Look at the picture before you read on. Which of these five would break first if you disappeared next Tuesday?

The Five Dependency Areas around the ODT Score: Knowledge and Expertise, Decision-Making, Operations and Delivery, Sales and Growth, Client Relationships. The goal: reduce dependency in each area and raise your value everywhere.

01 · Decision-MakingWho makes the calls when you're not there — and how often do they still call you anyway?
02 · Client RelationshipsDo key clients expect you personally, or can your team carry the relationship fully?
03 · Operations & DeliveryAre your processes documented and running — or do they depend on you watching?
04 · Sales & GrowthCan your pipeline grow and close without you in every major conversation?
05 · Knowledge & ExpertiseIs the critical know-how of your business in your head, or in systems your team can use?

Your ODT Score shows which areas cost you most.

The way out · The Four Stages of Freedom™

There's a Way Out, and It Has Four Stages

Your ODT Score runs from 50 down to 0. Lower is better. The full journey takes about 24 months, one 90-Day Sprint™ at a time.

The Four Stages of Freedom: Stage 1 Owned by the Business, ODT Score 40 to 50, 3 to 4 times EBITDA; Stage 2 Working Manager, 25 to 39, 4 to 5 times; Stage 3 Strategic Leader, 15 to 24, 5 to 6 times; Stage 4 Owner Optional, under 15, 6 to 8 times or more. Actual results will vary.

Which stage are you in today?

What has kept you there?

What would one stage forward change for you and your family?

Stage 4 is Owner Optional™ — the Must-Have Company™.

*Actual results will vary.

How you get there · The Trust Ladder™

Trust Isn't a Feeling. It's a System.

Every owner says, "I'd let go if I could trust my team." Here's how that trust gets built, one rung at a time. Which rung is your team on today?

The Trust Ladder: 1 Externalize Knowledge, 2 Decision Rights, 3 Instrument, 4 Widen on Evidence. Trust is not a feeling, it's a system.

1 · Externalize KnowledgeWhat would your team need written down to do it without calling you?
2 · Decision RightsWhich decisions could you hand off this quarter, in writing?
3 · InstrumentWhat numbers would tell you it's working, without you watching?
4 · Widen on EvidenceWhere has your team already earned more room?

Dave's journey · Eight quarters

What the Climb Actually Looks Like

Dave is the owner at the heart of Owner Optional. This is his ODT Score, quarter by quarter. Notice where it stops moving.

Hold · The Ordeal

Owned by the Business Working Manager Strategic Leader Owner Optional™

Q1–Q4 · The fast drop

The first points come quickest. Clear the obvious bottlenecks and the score moves.

Q5–Q6 · The hold and the Ordeal

The score goes flat. This is the stretch where owners are most tempted to take the wheel back.

Q7–Q8 · The team carries it

The last points don't come from Dave working harder. They come from his team stepping up.

Dave is the fictional owner in Owner Optional. *Actual results will vary.

What changes

Build a Business That Thrives Without You

Reduce dependency. Strengthen the company. Create options.

Freedom

Step away without everything slowing down.

Capacity

Let leaders decide, act, and deliver.

Transferability

Build a company others can confidently lead.

How Owner Optional Advisory Works

1Measure

Establish your ODT Score and expose where dependency concentrates.

2Prioritize

Choose the dependency shift that matters most right now.

3Transfer

Run a focused 90-Day Sprint™ to move work, knowledge, and decisions.

Owner Optional · Releasing January 2027

Read the First Chapter Today

Owner Optional is the field guide to diagnosing and reducing your Owner Dependency Tax™, told through Dave, a Columbus business owner who learned to build a company that didn't need him. Register now and we'll send you a sneak preview right away.

Today: the sneak preview — "If You Only Read Ten Things" plus Chapter 1, "The Tax You Never Agreed to Pay"
At release: the ebook free, plus 15% off the hardcover
Before launch: first word on the release date and launch events

Free ODT Assessment

Ready to Measure It Now?

You can't reduce a tax you haven't measured. In about 10 minutes you'll get:

Your ODT Score, from 0 to 50
Which of the Four Stages of Freedom™ you're in
Your biggest dependency area, and where to start

Get My ODT Score → Returning? View your report

The Owner Dependency Tax Series

Three Books. One Framework.

Owner Optional releases January 2027.

Book One

Owner Optional

Design a business that thrives without you. The foundational framework for reducing your Owner Dependency Tax™ across all five areas.

Book Two

Owner Optional Field Guide

The 90-day companion workbook. Templates, the Decision Authority Matrix and structured tools to run your first 90-Day Sprint™.

Book Three

Seen From Every Seat

Advisors. Partners. Perspectives. One Goal: Your Client's Freedom. The advisor's playbook for helping owners diagnose and reduce their ODT.

About the author

Meet Joe Lorenz

Joe Lorenz knows the tax from both sides of the ledger. He built and exited Pro-Terra, an environmental contracting company, over 17 years — and later watched a second venture, enerGREEN360, fail in 2019. It is never one issue. It never is. But the Owner Dependency Tax puts blinders on an owner, and by the time he could see the failure points, there was no one else positioned to catch them. Across 20 years in Vistage — a decade as a member, a decade as a Chair — working with founder-led companies, he saw the same pattern everywhere he looked. This book is the system he built to break it.