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Epic.

Search engagement · Tier 02

Everything in Basic, plus LinkedIn outreach and handwritten direct mail. Two industry categories, five sub-industries, three regions — and the Due-Diligence Prep Packet that lands you in front of your lender ready to move.

Best fit

Who Epic is built for.

Epic is the default engagement. Most acquisition targets in the lower-mid market are founder-operated, partner-stage, or older. Those owners ignore email by reflex and read every envelope their assistant brings them.

They're also being approached by other buyers. Strategic acquirers. PE platforms running add-on programs. Independent sponsors with similar theses. The question isn't whether they've heard of you when they're ready to sell. It's whether they want to sell to you.

Common fits are independent sponsors, family offices building a multi-year acquisition cadence, holding companies, and any buyer competing for the same owners big PE is also chasing.

The channels in action

Three channels. One coordinated story.

Cold email, LinkedIn, and the handwritten layer that reaches the segment institutional outreach can't. Every artifact is built from research about the specific owner.

Aligned Profit
San Francisco, CA

FOREVER

Mr. David Reyes
Hartwell HVAC
Phoenix, AZ

Handwritten mail · The Epic lift

Real ink. Real envelope. USPS.

Hand-addressed letters to your top ~400 priority owners. The channel an owner can't filter or delete — and the one their assistant always brings them. Founders, partner-stage owners, and trades operators read every envelope and ignore email by reflex.

The physical artifact that signals seriousness and a longer time horizon than another templated outreach.

Email

Jordan Reeves · Aligned Profit

Tue, 9:42 AM

Re: Hartwell HVAC

David — caught the Camelback retrofit + the two techs you brought on this spring. We represent a sponsor building a Southwest residential HVAC platform: operator-led shops, tenured crews, $1–3M EBITDA. Your profile is the anchor they're looking for…

From a real mailbox, written from real research.

5+ warmed sender mailboxes with SPF/DKIM/DMARC clean. Each opening sentence references something specific about this owner's business.

LinkedIn

David Reyes

David Reyes

Owner · Hartwell HVAC · Phoenix, AZ

"Hi David — your Camelback retrofit caught my eye. We represent an independent sponsor building a Southwest HVAC platform: operator-led, tenured crews. You're exactly the profile. Worth 15 min when timing's right?"

+ Connect

A note that earns the connection.

Sales Navigator surfacing, research-driven connection notes, and follow-ups tailored to what each owner has actually said publicly.

Why this works

How a non-institutional buyer wins the deal.

In any vertical with active PE consolidation, the owner you want is being approached by three or four institutional buyers running the same playbook. Same templated email. Same merge-field LinkedIn note. Same junior sourcing analyst on the first call.

Founders notice. They built something they care about, and they pay attention to who's asking about it. A handwritten envelope on the desk reads differently than another email that gets archived. So does the conversation that follows when it starts with a real person who did real research instead of a script.

The PE firms that source the bulk of their deals proprietarily built their pipelines this way. Handwritten letters, plant visits, multi-year follow-ups. Conversations that close years after they start. It's the patient approach that wins on relationship instead of on bid.

Epic gives you that channel. Handwritten outreach to your top 400 priority owners, paired with the digital sequence to the rest. The buyer who shows up like a person, not a firm.

Inside the engagement

What's included.

01 · Foundation

Everything in Basic Search

Cold email outbound across 5+ warmed mailboxes, plus the right-list research and multichannel cadence that defines the methodology. Same base layer Basic runs on — widened to two industry categories, five sub-industries, and three regions.

02 · The Epic lift

LinkedIn + handwritten mail to your top priority owners

LinkedIn outreach via Sales Navigator paired with hand-addressed letters sent USPS. Real ink, real envelopes, with a short personalized note referencing why this specific owner could fit your specific mandate. Older founders, partner-stage owners, and trades operators ignore email entirely but read every piece of mail their assistant brings them.

03 · Diligence-ready

Due-Diligence Prep Packet included

Every qualified owner conversation lands in your inbox with a Due-Diligence Prep Packet attached: financial summary, owner motivation notes, ownership structure, operational red flags, and the fit-assessment from the M&A operator who took the call. Built so you can hand it straight to your lender or investment committee without doing the analyst work yourself.

04 · Cadence

5+ touches across 3 channels

Cold email, LinkedIn, and handwritten mail in a coordinated sequence. Each channel reinforces the others — an owner who sees your name in three places at once is far more likely to take a call than one who saw it in only one. The physical artifact also signals seriousness and longer time horizon.

05 · Targeting

Tighter cadence on top-tier targets

Your highest-priority owners get a denser sequence: more touches, shorter gaps, and the handwritten layer to break through. We escalate cadence based on engagement signals and your input on which segments matter most.

06 · Guarantee

Full Buy Box Guarantee™

Every Epic engagement runs the same Full Buy Box Guarantee™. The work is spelled out in your Search Engagement Agreement — if we miss what we agreed to, the retainer comes back. It's the only piece of the engagement with refund consequences attached.

Learn about the guarantee →

Why handwritten mail?

A real handwritten note in real envelope ink, sent USPS, is one of the only channels an owner can't filter or delete. We use handwritten mail to reach the segment of your buy box that doesn't respond to digital outreach, and to give priority targets a tangible artifact that signals seriousness. It's the single highest-lift addition you can make to a digital sequence in this segment.

Starting at

^$2,500/mo

Plus a $500 enrichment deposit at signing and a 1% consulting fee at close. The deposit and every retainer credit dollar-for-dollar against the consulting fee. Pricing varies based on industry, geography, and scope. See the economics.

Get your complimentary Buy Box Viability Analysis™

How it runs

One month to ramp. Six to run.

A standard Epic engagement runs seven months total. The first month builds the buy box and warms the channels. The next six are the search itself, with handwritten mail timed to land alongside the digital sequence.

Month 1

Ramp

Buy box construction, contact validation, sender warmup, handwritten-mail vendor coordination, kickoff with your team.

Months 2–3

Launch

Email + LinkedIn waves go out. First batch of handwritten mail to top-priority segment. Phone screens begin on replies.

Months 4–5

Cultivate

Follow-up sequences across all four channels. Second handwritten wave to priority owners. Qualified introductions land.

Months 6–7

Sustain

Continued cultivation of warm-but-not-ready owners. Monthly coverage report. Quarterly criteria check-in.

Other engagement options

When Epic isn't the right tier.

Epic is the default for a reason — it fits most buy-side mandates in the lower-mid market. But if your buy box is tightly defined and your timeline is flexible, Basic will get you there for less. And if your timeline is tight or your vertical is heavily PE-rolled, Ultimate's full channel stack is the right step up.

Step down to

Basic Search

If your buy box is reachable through email + LinkedIn + phone alone — younger operator-led businesses, tech-forward verticals, founders who live in their inbox — the handwritten layer may not earn its keep.

Learn about Basic →

Step up to

Ultimate Search

Adds full buy box handwritten mail plus Meta ad campaigns. Built for compressed timelines, larger buy boxes (1,000+ owners), and verticals under heavy PE consolidation pressure.

Learn about Ultimate →

Next step

See if Epic fits your buy box.

We'll put together a Buy Box Viability Analysis™ on your target industry and geography. Twenty minutes, yours to keep. If a different tier is the better fit, we'll say so.

Get your complimentary Buy Box Viability Analysis™