My opinion fwiw. As pertains to small 1-3 person shops.

Unless you have a substantial RMR built up (i.e. security monitoring), your business probably won't be worth much. Salad days are over.

Electronic inventory is probably only worth .10/1.00 due to constant obsolescence. Start working now to get rid of it.

Your vehicles, tools have some value, tools less so. If you think your tools are worth a lot, just look on Craigslist and eBay for that reality check.

Your customer list might be worth a little. Some competitors in your area might be interested in acquiring your customer base. But do they have the staff to immediately handle taking on and servicing an additional 50-200 customers (or how ever many you might have)? We all know, it's not easy to pluck anyone out of the labor pool and plug them into our jobs. And how many of your competitors are flush with cash to simply buy a "customer list"?

I don't know if there are any national companies that would buy a small 1-3 person operation, no matter how profitable you were. But maybe, depending on the market area you service.

It's a difficult transition to make. And if you really care about your customers (most of us truly do), it becomes even harder to ensure they are taken care of during the transition and after you've left. Invariably, some of your customers are simply not going to be properly serviced after you've left.

I made this move 2 years ago. It was a difficult transition. And had you asked me 15 years ago, if it would play out the way it did, I would have not predicted it.

I'm not saying what others haven't also stated here. But I do speak from recent experience.

If your company owns real estate (mine did), it's the one tangible asset that can be sold and have something to show for your efforts. I chose to keep most of my tools and vehicle. I purposely let my inventory dwindle to a minimum over the last 5 years. So that wasn't much of a factor.

Btw, I don't regret the decision. Started doing CI in 1990. Watched it go through many changes. Some good, some bad. It's easy to get burned out. Just like relationships, business suffer from the 7 year itch. It makes it tolerable if you find ways to reinvent your business ever 6-8 years. It helped me. But I finally needed to get out and I did.