Common questions.
Clear answers.

The retainer pays for the work during the search: data tooling, contact validation, handwritten mail, and a real M&A operator running owner conversations across six to nine months. Pure success-fee shops can't fund that. They cherry-pick the warmest 10% of a list and leave the rest, which is where most proprietary deals actually live.

The retainer also credits dollar-for-dollar against the 1% consulting fee at close. So if you've paid six months of retainer by the time a deal closes, that comes off what you owe at the table. The retainer pre-pays a chunk of the close fee instead of stacking on top of it.

Two things. The data work goes deeper than a database export: fifteen filters layered against intent signals to find owners showing real movement. And an experienced M&A operator runs every owner conversation, not a sourcing analyst or BDR. Narrower funnel, better conversations.

Verified target list within 30 days of kickoff. First multichannel sequence by week six. First qualified owner conversations in the 30-to-45-day range.

We skip the 4-to-6-week sender warm-up most outbound shops need by keeping a standing roster of pre-warmed inboxes in good standing with the major providers.

Owners in this segment spot templated marketing from across the room. A real handwritten note in ink, sent by USPS, is one of the few channels they can't filter or delete. Older founders and trades operators read every piece of mail their assistant puts on the desk, even when they ignore email entirely.

It's the highest-lift addition you can make to a digital sequence in this segment, which is why Epic is our most common tier.

Sweet spot: Main Street and lower mid-market, EBITDA roughly $500K to $5M. Sectors we've run searches in include manufacturing, dental and other healthcare services, HVAC and trades, light industrial, specialty distribution, MRO, and B2B services. If your sector isn't on that list, bring it to the strategy call.

Six months of active outreach. Month one builds the buy box and warms the sending channels. Months two through six run the multichannel sequences with cultivation continuing throughout.

After six months, the agreement continues month-to-month until either party gives 30 days' notice. So nothing ends abruptly at month six. That window matters because long-tail owners often reply right around then.

Typically six to nine months from kickoff. First qualified conversations land in the 30-to-45-day range; the path from there to LOI runs another four to seven months. Most owners are six to eighteen months out from the moment interest turns into action, and the cultivation is what carries them across the line.

Add another two to four months after LOI for diligence and structuring. So kickoff to closed deal often runs eight to twelve months total. Some land faster. Some take longer.

Three options, all built into the agreement.

Keep running is the one we recommend. Outreach continues through LOI and into diligence, the Full Buy Box Guarantee™ stays in place, and a visible pipeline of alternatives gives you leverage at the table.

Pause once for the LOI. If you'd rather focus on the active deal, you can pause the engagement one time, up to 30 days, while you diligence an executed LOI on a Target we sourced. The guarantee survives. The term just extends by the pause length so you still get your full six months of active work. A second pause, anything longer than 30 days, or not resuming voids the guarantee.

Pivot the buy box anytime by mutual written agreement. We restage the buy box and the guarantee carries over.

The agreement continues month-to-month until either party gives 30 days' notice. Nothing happens automatically at month six.

Most engagements keep going for at least another month or two, because the long-tail owners (six to eighteen months from action) often reply right around that window. When you do wrap, you keep the full cultivation list as a self-managed CRM.

One thing carries over either way: the consulting fee still applies to any Target sourced through the engagement that closes within 36 months of delivery, on a declining schedule (see the next question).

Yes. We restage the buy box, re-tune the outreach inside a sprint, and update Schedule A. Same team stays on your search, and the Full Buy Box Guarantee™ carries over against the new buy box. We sign off on the change together so the new buy box is on the record.

A small enrichment deposit at signing, a monthly retainer through the engagement, and a 1% consulting fee at close. The retainer and the deposit both credit dollar-for-dollar against the consulting fee, so they pre-pay the close fee rather than stacking on top.

It funds the enrichment phase between signing and launch: building the buy box, verifying contact info, and getting your target list ready to run. The list lands within 15 business days. The deposit credits against the consulting fee at close. We walk through the full mechanics on the scoping call.

1% of deal value at close, on any deal originated through the engagement. The retainer credits dollar-for-dollar against this fee, so the at-close payment is 1% minus whatever you've already paid.

The fee applies for 36 months from Target delivery, even after the engagement ends. Post-termination schedule: 100% in months 1–12, 60% in months 13–24, 30% in months 25–36, then nothing.

No fee owed on businesses you find and acquire entirely outside our sourcing.

In writing: by end of the Engagement Term, at least 98% of the Verified Target Buy box receives a multi-touch sequence of at least five touches across the agreed channels. If we miss, we refund every retainer fee paid during the term, within 30 days of term end.

The guarantee covers the work, not the outcome. We can promise the outreach gets done. Whether a deal closes depends on owner timing, diligence, and price expectations, none of which any sourcing firm can promise.

A few Targets sit outside the count: ones that opt out of communications, businesses that close or get acquired during the term, and contacts whose email, phone, and postal all fail validation. Full terms in the Engagement Agreement.

It happens. Some engagements run the full six months and hand you a pipeline of warm relationships that turn into deals after the active term ends. That's expected. Long-tail owners often open up right around when the term closes, which is why most engagements keep going into the month-to-month period.

One thing to be clear about: the guarantee covers the work, not the close. If the outreach landed at 98% but the response curve didn't produce an LOI in the window, the guarantee doesn't trigger a refund. The flip side: we're picky about which buy boxes we take on. Fit gets vetted on the strategy call before any agreement is signed.

Yes, with 30 days' notice. The agreement is month-to-month and fees aren't refundable once billed, except under the Full Buy Box Guarantee™ remedy.

The Full Buy Box Guarantee™ is built around running the full sequence through the term, so it applies on engagements that don't pause for more than a couple of weeks or end before the term wraps. Pausing or ending early is allowed; the guarantee just doesn't carry through.

Ending while under LOI on a sourced deal is allowed, but usually not recommended. Negotiations go better when the buyer is visibly working a pipeline of alternatives.

The consulting-fee tail survives termination: still owed on any Target sourced through the engagement that closes within 36 months of delivery, on the declining schedule above.

Two named roles, same people end-to-end. A Search Team Lead handles kickoff, criteria refinement, and the qualifying call with every responding owner. An Origination Coordinator runs the sourcing engine: buy box build, contact validation, outreach copy, send cadence, and weekly reporting.

Leadership sits in on every kickoff and stays reachable for anything that warrants senior attention.

Your thesis, target list, and any seller info shared through the search are confidential, used only for your engagement. We sign NDAs on request, and the target list and seller financials never leave the team running your search.

On competitor overlap: we may run similar mandates within the same broad sector or geography, never with direct overlap. The boundaries (industry sub-segment, geography, deal-size range) get drawn on the strategy call before any Engagement Agreement is signed. When an owner could fit two clients, only the client whose criteria fit most cleanly hears about that owner.