Muriel Touati: Founder Dependency, Business Valuation, and Building a Company That Can Scale Without You

Welcome to the Behavioral Profit Show, where

we look at the behavior behind business results.

I'm Debbie Longo, Executive Behavioral Coach.

And on this show, we go beyond strategy and talk

about the decisions, communication patterns,

leadership behaviors, and internal shifts that

shape trust, culture, performance, and profit.

Today's conversation is about what really drives

change, not just what people say they want, but

the behaviors that create the results they get.

I have a very special guest today, Muriel. She

is the founder and CEO of Exit 3D Studio and

the author of The Valuation Gap, What Buyers

See That Sellers Miss, launching July 27, 2026.

A French entrepreneur based in New York City,

she helps B2B service business founders build

revenue that is predictable, scalable, and transferable.

So the business grows stronger whether they're

scaling, stepping back, or preparing to sell.

She brings a rare buyer side. perspective, having

evaluated 100 plus deals, gone through full due

diligence and walked away from a signed deal

when what was being sold didn't match what had

been presented. That experience combined with

a decade long background in digital marketing

shapes how she helps founders build businesses

that grow stronger and become more valuable over

time. I'd love to talk today about why founders

struggle to let go of control, even when they

know it's limiting their growth and what costs

them when it's time to scale or sell. Good afternoon,

Marielle. Welcome to the show. Good afternoon,

Debbie. Thank you for having me in the show today.

And thank you for being here. I appreciate it.

The first topic is, like I had said, why founders

struggle to let go of control, even when they

know it's limiting their growth and will cost

them time to scale or sell, right? Why founders

struggle to let go of control? Can you talk about

that a little bit? As a prospective buyer, I

can say it is a problem that the founder cannot

let go because it will be hard to transfer. And

after, if I take my operator entrepreneur hat,

I can say that sometimes it's hard to let go.

When we are able to do everything ourselves,

we think we do it better than anyone else and

it's just hard to delegate. Personally, I know

I tend to be more comfortable delegating with

an automation that I have set up, and I've tested

it, and I know this is working than a person,

because I've been through that several times.

And it's probably not good to say that for every

task, for sure. But some of the tasks where I

needed help, I Sometimes you have to go through

a lot of training and the person will go or go

to training. You work with them sometimes and

they still go. So you're always back with yourself.

And I mean, for those who work on their own a

lot or have a very small team, I am sure that

they will feel that way as well. Yeah, and that

was very good. Thank you because for me that's

true also, you know, because I'm a coach I'm

a business owner, you know all of the above it's

difficult, especially if the company is doing

good and They're successful and they're increasing

sales and profits, you know, and that's just

a normal thing And normally we want to control

anyway, you know, that's just like a human thing

basically, but if it's done like to excess or

where it can create an issue where you start

to control employees and other people because

nobody can tell anybody what to do. Nobody can

make anybody do anything, right? Because we have

the ability to think for ourselves and act on

ourselves for ourselves. Yeah, I think we have

to see it as a risk. And if the owner gets sick,

Or the owner needs vacation or the owner needs

to take care of a family member or something.

It's a risk because this cannot happen to him

or if it happens then the business just collapse

or stay in standby until it gets better or it

gets back. So maybe we need to see this as a

risk. Yeah, agreed. that's probably going to

be what it is going to be. And the bottom line

of it all, that's what it's going to wind up

to be. So when they know it's limiting their

growth, so we kind of just talked about that

a little bit, right? So what costs them when

it's time to scale or sell? So what do you think

about that? Can you respond to that? To scaling

the sale of a business? There are different ways

to do that. I think one of the first ways, and

I take my perspective by heart saying this, is

looking at the quality of the revenue, the business

model even. Is it project -based work? Meaning,

do you need every month or every quarter to win

new business to keep going and make money? or

do you have a way of having recurring revenue

so any new client add a new layer of revenue

on top of the previous one. I think this with

this model it is easier to scale over time because

you're not losing clients all the time. And I

have a great example here. For example, I was

evaluating a photography studio. He had a great

reference, great brand he worked with two years

ago. For the past two years, he had family, things

to take care of, health issues, no more business.

So the business just stopped. And yet, it still

wants you to sell it for a million dollars, a

business that don't have any more revenue. So

they're saying for growing, scaling is better

to have recurring revenue. And that's just pretty

much what we were just discussing also, a part

of what we were discussing. And when that happens,

when you have scaling, you think that you need

to sell, and you don't have that reoccurring

revenue even after you scaled, then maybe something

is going on also in the workplace. Maybe something

needs to be changed. That's going to cost me

money. It also could cost me my company. My company

could go bankrupt. It could go out of business.

But these are decisions that businesses make

all the time. And these are very, very, very

important decisions, you know? I think for a

business owner would be in the situation where

he or she has only project -based work. Well,

this is, again, a reason to reduce the founder

dependency here because it is very important

that the founder step back a little bit, get

a new perspective and work on that, how to create.

more wealth for the business, how to create new

offers and just take that time while the business

keeps running, for example. Yeah, and that's

very true. And that's very correct because this

is what businesses do all the time. This is a

very, very, very common scenario. These things

that we're talking about here and these are very

important subjects, I think, to talk about because.

somebody has to be able to get something out

of this, a listener, or just somebody that can

relate to this. If you could talk about some

concrete examples from deals that you've evaluated

as a buyer where the founder was technically

not bottlenecked on paper, but was in practice.

I would say the deal where I... I mentioned the

photography studio, obviously this one, but the

deal where I got my offer accepted where technically

he had a team and he was still the general manager,

but he had so many different departments with

somebody that was managing, let's say the marketing,

managing the sales, managing the operation. So

you could think they have some management layer,

so he's not involved. But when I was evaluating

everything, for example, in the data room, there

were some sales calls video. And I was seeing

the sales person there was doing the demo alone.

But for the second call, like the closing call,

who was there? The owner. So it was It's like

sales was not fully independent. It delegated

a part of it. But without him, probably half

of the sales wouldn't happen. This was an example.

Also, another one, it was using... Let's say

most of the business was coming through LinkedIn.

And more specifically, through the LinkedIn profile

of the founder. So... This again was an issue

because the LinkedIn profile of the founder was

not part of the sale. It was excluded. So it's

like you're cutting the main acquisition channel.

You need the founder to close. There was, yeah,

every founder depended on this one. Even if on

the surface, it looks like they had a management

team. Things was working great. They had some

clients coming in. Also a lot of clients leaving,

this is another topic. And that's very good too,

you know. And this goes back to, you know, what

we were saying. Because when you have a business

and you have a team, everybody has to be involved.

Everybody has to decide whether the business

is going to be successful or not. And that's

up to the whole entire company. It's not just

one or two people or 10 people, you know, it's

everybody in the company. And that's really the

most important thing. So that was good. So why

documentation and delegation are harder than

they sound? And what's really stopping founders

from doing it? Yeah so why delegation is harder

than it sounds? I guess because to delegate you

need to prepare like for example documenting

what is it that you do to be having someone else

doing it like such as creating SOPs and stuff

like that and this can be a bit time consuming

if you want to do it well and you want someone

else to do it exactly. but the good thing i think

these days is depending on the task you can also

build or have someone build an automation for

you so maybe you explain it once you show it

once but then after you run automatically exactly

the way you want it it works for a lot of things

not for everything but it's i think this is one

of the reason Sometimes it's hard to be delegating

because of the documentation just to resume what

I said to the documentation of documenting what

the different tasks and after also finding the

right person to do it or building that automation

and building it well. And so like I'm a behavioral

coach too so this really goes in line with what

I say and what I teach because a lot of clients

come to me and they have these types of issues

too, where they have an issue with delegating

and putting things down on paper and evaluating.

And that is the bottom line is that's going to

affect, and this is part of what you said also,

is that's going to affect the bottom line. It's

going to affect the sales and profits. You could

say me not delegating equals this, equals an

employee getting angry, equals me arguing with

an employee, equals the employee quitting. And

there's tons of steps that go in between. Right,

but the bottom line is that that is going to

decrease just one problem with one employee is

Most likely going to wind up decreasing my sales

and profits and then you times that by 10 times

by a hundred and this is why This happens to

these businesses So this is why this topic is

these things here that we talk about very important

because it just sounds like one little thing

Just one little problem, but it's not. You work

also on the mindset to be able to be, I understand

that is also very, very important to learn to

let go, to trust, all those things for sure.

Often being an entrepreneur, it's self -development.

journey because you have to fight all the fears

or all you don't want to face, you have to face

it. You have to do a call or something and you

get rejected or you have to face your rejection

issue or if an employee leaves, wow, abandonment

issue. Like all those things that you actually

have to work on as an entrepreneur. and building

a business, it's going to trigger, I think, all

your trauma. It has to. But it's a good tool

also, being an entrepreneur, to resolve all this

trauma, you know, work on everything in a healthy

way, in a practical way. So it's good to take

the risk. This is how these things start. It

could wind up to be a problem or it could wind

up to be successful. And this is how I start

a business or this is how I form my business.

This is how I create my job duties and whatever,

however else I'm going to make my business. And

it could go either way. And that's the bottom

line. So that's why we want to make sure that

we're doing everything right when we start a

business, get a coach or somebody that can help

them go through this process in order for them

to be successful, and that's really the bottom

line. What a business needs to look like to run

without its founder and the first concrete step

to start building that. For the business to run

without its founder, first of all, we need an

acquisition engine to get a new client that is

not dependent on the founder. That means having

different channels, ideally. A referral doesn't

count. Referral is a bonus. If you get referrals

or recommendations, that's fantastic. But you

need to have a way to generate leads outside

of the founders and directly to the business.

That's one thing. Another thing is probably the

decision. having other people in the business

to be able to take decisions and audit a bit

what the founders do and see what can be delegated

and start there, start documenting, raising SOPs

and recording the screen, trying to delegate

more. And one of the concrete ways to see where

to start is live for two, three days and see

what breaks. This will be the first things you

will need to be solving. Maybe it was giving

the power to someone else to take that decision

or ending that relationship with a client to

someone else. Could be someone else doing the

cold calling if it's what you are doing usually

to bring new business. Yeah, so all of these

details are the the the details the explicit

things, you know that we need to do that a company

is already developed and then they will be able

to run without the founder because if somebody

if a business owner or an executive develops

the business properly then they could take, everybody

takes their job duties, everything, their job

descriptions, everything that they do every day,

and they just do it. It's an automatic thing.

And now the business is running, right? And what

you explained is just basically like a lot of

the details of that. And those are good tips.

Those are good things to take into consideration

if I want to run a business like that, where

maybe the founder goes someplace else, Or they

have another business, they buy another business,

something like that. And that is truly a successful

business. And that takes a lot of negativity

away. It takes a lot of control away. It just

does a lot of positive things. when the business

can run without the founder. So the first concrete

step to start building that, I think we talked

about that, right? So that was just basically...

Yeah, yeah, I think I mentioned it before. The

first thing to do that is to step away to see

what breaks and just correct what is breaking

when you leave, because you will depend of the

business and what the business owner is doing.

Another thing is maybe try to... generate like

one lead online instead of going networking or

waiting that partners send a lead to you. Just

try to find someone completely out of your network

and transform it into your client. This is a

good thing to do also to start. building something

that's when a sales engine that run outside of

you. Yeah, agreed. Very, very true. And these

are, like I said, these are very, very, very

important things for a business to really hear

and really listen to. And maybe somebody could

get something out of this, hopefully. So this

was very, very good conversation. Is there anything

that you would like to say in closing? and how

can they get in touch with you? Yeah, in closing,

I will say I dig into this more in detail in

my book, The Valuation Gap, What Buyers See That

Seller Miss. It's a step -by -step guide to evaluate

your business the way a buyer would, so you can

correct, fix what is capping your growth right

now and build. a business that is worth keeping

or selling inside at the end of its chapter there

is what I call the buyer lens with several questions

and answers and so you can evaluate where you

know you are and is it you have problems of customer

concentration is it what you should fix first

or is it founder dependency or the quality of

the revenue or something else and to get in touch

with me on my website exit3dstudio .com it's

possible to book a call directly with me you

can find me on linkedin murielle20 so maybe it

will be in the show notes but murielle from exit3d

studio and you'll find me on linkedin and also

i have created a new youtube channel called exit3dinsights

where i share all those podcasts and interviews

in our dedicated playlists and also some more

insights about creating a business that is not

dependent on you, a business that runs without

you. Perfect. Thank you very much. I really appreciate

it. This was a very good conversation. And thank

you for listening to the Behavioral Profit Show.

If this conversation gave you a new way to think

about leadership, behavior, communication, or

business growth, make sure to follow the show

so you don't miss future episodes. You can also

learn more about my work, upcoming episodes,

and guest opportunities at DebbieLongo .com.

I'm Debbie Longo, executive behavioral coach.

And remember, when you understand the behavior

behind the outcome, you can create stronger decisions,

better communication and more profitable results.

Thank you very much for being on the show. I

appreciate it. Thank you, Debbie.