● The lean foundation

Focused Search Engagement^™

The deal that lands in your inbox before BizBuySell ever hears the seller's name.

3

Channels

5+

Touches / owner

6–9

Months to typical LOI

98%

Coverage guarantee

Best fit

Who Focused is built for.

Focused is built for the Main Street acquisition range. Sub-$2M enterprise value, generally under $500K EBITDA. The retainer and close-fee economics are sized to pencil at that scale, where every dollar of fee has to earn its keep against a smaller deal. See the economics page for the full math.

You've probably already run the alternative. Refreshing BizBuySell at sunrise. Joining the same Facebook groups everyone else joined. Calling brokers who keep showing you the same picked-over listings at the same high multiples. Getting a different story each week about why the seller's still considering offers.

Focused is the way out of that. Real deal flow against your specific buy box, surfaced from owners who aren't running a brokered process. Realistic timelines because the owners are at realistic decision points. Common fits are self-funded searchers in tight verticals, smaller independent sponsors, and family offices with a single-vertical Main Street thesis.

The channels in action

What real outreach actually looks like.

Every message, every call, written from research on the specific owner and sent through the channel they actually use. No merge fields. No junior-analyst scripts.

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 subject line and 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.

Phone screening

Sara Chen

Sara Chen

M&A Analyst · Aligned Profit

14:32

An M&A operator on every seller call.

No BDR scripts. Every owner who responds gets a real conversation with someone who has talked to hundreds of sellers and qualifies fit before it lands in your inbox.

Why this works

Personalization is what gets read.

In any vertical with active PE consolidation, owners get the same email. Same merge-field intro. Same generic "we'd love to learn more about your business" close. The first three sentences could be from any of the dozen firms running the same playbook.

Owners delete those without reading. They've been deleting them for a decade.

What earns a reply is research. A specific reference to something the owner built, hired for, or said. A sentence about why your buy box maps to their business in a way no other buyer's would. An ask that's worth fifteen minutes because the message preceding it was worth two minutes of attention.

Focused is built around this. Every message references real research about why that owner could fit your mandate. Sending happens from warmed mailboxes with reputation managed daily, so the message lands where the spam filter doesn't catch it. The conversation that follows is with a real M&A operator who's read the same research. Personalization is the lift that lets the digital layer earn its keep on its own.

Inside the engagement

What's included.

01 · Email

Outbound across 5+ warmed sender mailboxes

Every campaign runs on dedicated sender infrastructure: fresh domains, warmed inboxes, SPF/DKIM/DMARC configured properly, and reputation monitored daily. We rotate across 5+ mailboxes so deliverability stays clean across the campaign and we don't burn one address. Owners see a real email from a real person, not a flagged outbound blast.

02 · LinkedIn

Sales Navigator outreach with direct requests

Connection requests with research-driven notes referencing why this specific owner could fit your specific mandate. Once connected, follow-ups are tailored to what we've learned about their business. LinkedIn lands differently for partner-stage owners who treat email as noise but still check their messages.

03 · Phone

Screening by an experienced M&A analyst

Every owner who responds gets a real phone conversation with someone who has talked to hundreds of sellers. No BDR scripts, no junior analyst checklist. We qualify fit, surface financials, and pressure-test seriousness before anything moves into your inbox.

04 · Cadence

5+ touches across 3 channels

Owners ignore single-channel outreach by reflex. Stacking three channels in a coordinated sequence is what forces a response from the segment that doesn't engage with email alone. Five touches is the minimum we'll commit to per prospect, in writing.

05 · Reporting

Monthly pipeline coverage report

You see exactly which owners were reached, how they responded, and where each one sits in the cultivation cycle. No black box. The report is the same one we use internally to track the search.

06 · Cultivation

Sustained outreach through the full timeline

Most owners aren't ready the day we first reach them. They're six to eighteen months from the event that turns interest into action. We stay useful across that window, so when they're ready you're already a warm relationship, not a cold pitch.

07 · Guarantee

"No Stone Left Unturned"

We reach 98% of every prospect in your buy box at least five times, or we refund the retainer. It's the only piece of the engagement with refund consequences attached, because it's the only piece we can fully control.

Learn about the guarantee →

Starting at

^$1,000/mo

*Pricing varies based on industry, geography, and scope. Includes a consulting fee at close that credits dollar-for-dollar against the monthly retainer. See the economics.

Get your free market analysis

How it runs

One month to ramp. Five to run.

A standard Focused engagement runs six months of active outreach. Month one builds the universe and warms the channels. The next five run email, LinkedIn, and phone in coordinated waves. First LOI-worthy conversations typically surface in months six to nine from kickoff, often after the active outreach period ends but while cultivation continues. Engagements can extend.

Month 1

Ramp

Universe construction, contact validation, sender warmup, kickoff with your team to lock criteria.

Months 2–3

Launch

First waves of email + LinkedIn outreach go out. Phone screens begin on inbound replies.

Months 4–5

Cultivate

Follow-up sequences across all three channels. Initial qualified introductions land in your inbox.

Month 6

Sustain

Continued cultivation of warm-but-not-ready owners. Monthly coverage report. Decision point at month-end: renew, pause, or wrap with the cultivation list handed to you.

Other engagement options

When Focused isn't the right tier.

Focused works for compact buy boxes with reachable owners and flexible timelines. If your universe leans toward older founder-operated businesses, or your timeline is tight, you'll likely get more out of a tier that stacks additional channels.

Step up to

Epic Search

Adds handwritten direct mail to your top-priority owners, the channel that reaches founder-operated and older targets who ignore email entirely. The default engagement, and the most common one we run.

Learn about Epic →

Step up to

Ultimate Search

Adds full-universe handwritten mail plus Meta ad campaigns. Built for compressed timelines, larger universes, and verticals where heavy PE competition makes top-of-mind awareness matter.

Learn about Ultimate →

Common questions

The engagement, timeline, and what happens next.

How long is the engagement?

Six months of active outreach. Month one builds the target universe and warms the sending channels. The next five run multichannel sequences across your buy box, with cultivation continuing on every owner who engages. Six months is what it takes to cover the universe properly. Engagements can extend.

How long until there's an LOI-worthy deal?

Typically six to nine months from kickoff. First qualified conversations land in the 30-to-45-day range, but the path from first conversation to LOI runs another four to seven months on average. Most owners aren't ready the day we first reach them — they're six to eighteen months from the event that turns interest into action, and the cultivation discipline is what carries them across the line when they are.

What if a deal goes into due diligence partway through?

That's your call. Keep the outreach running through LOI and diligence (recommended — the visible pipeline gives you leverage and a fallback if the deal doesn't close). Pause with 30 days' written notice; just know a pause exceeding 14 days during the Engagement Term voids the Coverage Guarantee. Pivot the buy box by mutual written agreement if your criteria have shifted. Full mechanics in the Search Agreement and the full FAQ.

What happens after the six months end?

The agreement continues month-to-month after the Engagement Term until either party gives 30 days' written notice, so the term doesn't end abruptly unless someone cancels. Most engagements keep going for at least another month or two, since the long-tail owners (six to eighteen months from action) often reply right around that window. When you do wrap, the full cultivation list is handed off to you as a self-managed CRM.

How do you charge?

A monthly retainer (scoped to the channel mix and intensity) plus a consulting fee of 1% of deal value at close. The retainer credits dollar-for-dollar against the consulting fee, so the retainer effectively pre-pays the close fee rather than stacking on top.

See the full FAQ →

Next step

See if Focused fits your buy box.

We'll put together a Market 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 free market analysis