On-market, pre-market and off-market — three ways to find a business worth owning — and everything that happens once the right one is in hand.
01
The buyer profile
Every engagement opens with a full interview — background, operating experience, capital position and what he was equipped to run.
The interview, written up
Geography, financing capability, career track record and acquisition criteria — the document brokers read before they decide whether to take the call.
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IT / operations backgroundSBA pre-qualified
Accounts opened on every platform
A complete buyer identity — marketplace logins, broker portals and auction sites, created and maintained so he arrives as an established buyer, not an anonymous signup.
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02
The buy-box
We agreed the sectors, size and geography worth his time — then pointed the whole machine at it.
The kind of business we hunted
Real, boring, cash-flowing service and trade businesses — the ones banks finance and an operator can run.
03
On-market
Every major marketplace, scanned daily against his buy-box. Scored, then the strongest applied to automatically.
Sourced, scored, tracked — daily
One engine watching every marketplace so nothing that fits gets missed on the day it lists.
The full pipeline — every business we screened
336 real listings across every market, scored against his buy-box. Company names, marketplace links and locations stripped out — the sectors and financials are real. Scroll it: this is one buyer's raw funnel.
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336 screened → 1 offer
Every deal, chased for weeks
Applied under his name, then followed up again and again — the relentless follow-up most buyers never do.
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65 applied · chased 4–5×
04
Pre-market
Relationships with brokers, so their listings reach the buyer before they reach the open market.
The broker sequence, running
A structured two-week sequence sent from his address — introduction, credentials, a market note, then the day-10 ask for anything pre-market. NDAs signed same day.
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31% reply · avg ~8%25 CIMs received
05
Off-market
Going directly to owners who never listed — the hardest channel to run, and where the least competitive deals live.
Direct-to-owner, done properly
Build the owner list, enrich contacts, stand up sending domains, warm them, then run outreach at volume — monitored daily.
06
We act as the buyer
Applications, NDAs and proof of funds go out under his name — so brokers deal with a buyer, not an agency.
NDAs signed and returned same day
Confidentiality handled for him, so nothing waits on paperwork.
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Proof of funds, on demand
Brokers won't release a memorandum without evidence a buyer can pay. Generated per deal so his place in the queue never stalled.
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07
Analysis — the real financials
The heart of it. These are the actual books of the business he's buying — pulled apart line by line on a 96-minute diligence call.
Narrowed to the five we fully analyzed
From 300+ screened down to the handful worth a full model — 65 applied, 25 memoranda, 9 shortlisted, 5 fully analyzed, 1 offer.
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300+ → 5 → 1
The five memoranda, read cover to cover
Every confidential memorandum for a shortlisted deal — every company, owner, broker, customer and supplier name blacked out; the financials left in.
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Drywall & interior finishing · 15 pages
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Design / manufacturing · 39 pages
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Consulting services · 36 pages
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Lab equipment services · 8 pages
Five years of the seller's books
Revenue, COGS, every expense line and a normalised EBITDA / SDE bridge across 2021–2025. Broker mark and company name redacted — the numbers are real.
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SDE $334K–$492K2021–2025
Every expense line, verified
Payroll, subcontractors, taxes, tools, travel — down to the dollar, from the company's own QuickBooks.
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Receivables aged, buyer by buyer
The A/R aging pulled straight from their books — $54K current, $101K in the 1–30 bucket. Customer names and the company redacted.
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The two-year forward model we built
Month-by-month revenue, operating expenses, debt service and net income — so the buyer knew exactly what the business throws off after the note.
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$2.74M Y1 revenue modelled
A full 16-page due-diligence report
Executive summary, revenue quality, add-back audit, working capital, risk register and a recommendation — built per deal.
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16 pages13 sections
The 230-point on-site owner interview
History, operations, sales, customers, estimating, employees, financials, fleet, risk and growth — the questions he walked in and asked, on his behalf.
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230 questions
What the diligence call surfaced
Ninety-six minutes with our M&A lead, line by line — the real catches that move price and protect the buyer.
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08
The numbers
Price, earnings, debt service and the funding stack — modelled before anyone got attached.
The deal model — does it service its own debt?
Purchase, financing stack, yearly debt service and coverage ratio — modelled on the real numbers. DSCR 2.44, with $243K in cash flow after debt.
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DSCR 2.44$243K post-debt cash flow
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09
Capital & banks
We introduced him to a real SBA lender, drove the term sheet, and negotiated the structure.
A real bank term sheet — lender redacted
A live SBA 7(a) proposal against his financials, liquidity, credit and experience. We negotiated his personal real-estate out of the collateral.
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SBA 7(a)real estate kept out
The actual loan structure
SBA 7(a) term note plus an express line of credit — purchase, working capital, fees, cash injection and seller note.
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$1.2M facility10% down
We read the term sheet line by line
Our review before he signed — prepayment penalty, real-estate collateral, life-insurance, the seller note, the working-capital risk and equity seasoning. Real emails; names & addresses masked.
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buyer ↔ Acquisitions.com ↔ lender
His money, or ours to find
He wanted his own equity and no dilution, so we structured it that way. When a buyer would rather not, we open the investor room and bring the capital to the deal.
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10
The offer → signed LOI
One offer on the right business. We structured it, wrote it, and it came back signed and accepted.
The letter of intent — signed by both sides
100% equity buyout at $1,000,000, structured for SBA. Signed by the buyer, accepted and countersigned by the seller. Names and entity blacked out; signatures and dates are real.
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accepted July 11 offer → 1 yes
The broker thread that got it signed
The real emails between the buyer, the broker and our team over the signing — every name masked, our acquisitions.com address kept.
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buyer ↔ broker ↔ Acquisitions.com
Every deal, side by side
Price, earnings, multiple, coverage and cash flow — with the LOI and full report one click away on each.
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11
What he sees
A report every day, and a live portal he can open any time.
A daily activity report
Brokers contacted, replies, NDAs signed, PoF letters, CIMs received, deals analysed and calls booked — every day.
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12
Where it stands
Under contract and in diligence — roughly two months from first call to a signed deal.
A 96-minute working diligence call
Not a course, not a chatbot — an hour and a half going through the financials, the model and the on-site plan, line by line. This is the actual recording.
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1 hour 36 minutes on one deal