Questions owners ask us.

Three steps. You answer five quick questions so we know whether there’s any point talking. Then a 45-minute video call with Mark, where you tell us about the business and we tell you what we’d pay for it. Then you decide, in your own time.

We can often make an offer on that first call. Where we can’t, we’ll tell you exactly what we still need and when you’ll have a number.

None. No fee for the conversation, no fee for the offer, and no commission at any point — we’re the buyer, not a broker.

Most owners we speak with don’t sell to us, and that’s a perfectly normal outcome. You’re not signing anything to have a conversation.

Please do. We’d rather you had someone else in the room than not.

Anyone selling a business they spent thirty years building should have their own advisor looking at the numbers. If you don’t have one, we’ll say so and suggest you get one before anything is signed.

No. We buy businesses in the state they’re in, and most owner-run companies have financials that would make an accountant wince. That’s normal and it’s not disqualifying.

If you happen to have the last two years of profit and loss to hand it makes the number sharper. Plenty of owners come to the first call with nothing at all.

Mostly by earnings, and then heavily by how much of the business runs through you personally. Specifically we look at:

• What the business actually earns before your own salary and one-off costs
• How much of it depends on you being there — the single biggest factor
• Whether revenue is recurring and contracted, or won job by job
• Depth of the team, and whether anyone could run it without you
• Customer concentration — how much damage losing your biggest account would do
• The condition of your equipment, fleet and any property

A business that depends on its owner typically trades at two to three times earnings. One that runs without its owner trades at six to ten. Same customers, same crew — a very different number.

Honest answer: a direct sale usually trades some price for speed and certainty. If you run a full market process with a broker, market the business for nine to twelve months, and a strategic buyer falls in love with it, you may well beat our number.

What you get from us instead is speed, certainty and privacy. No listing, no marketing period, no parade of buyers through your business, and no year of not knowing.

Which of those matters more is genuinely your call, and we’ll tell you plainly if we think a market process would serve you better.

Yes. The structure often matters more than the headline number, and there’s usually room in both.

Cash up front, seller financing, an earn-out, or keeping a stake and staying involved — those combinations move the total considerably. Tell us what you actually need out of it and we’ll build around that.

Not to us. We’re buying the business, so there’s no commission and no listing fee.

For comparison, a broker typically charges eight to twelve percent of the sale price. On a $5M sale that’s $400,000 to $600,000.

You’ll still want your own attorney and accountant, and you should budget for them. We don’t pay those and you shouldn’t let us.

Not from us, and not from a listing, because there isn’t one.

This is the main reason owners come to us rather than a broker. A market process means a memorandum, a price, and your company becoming visible to competitors, customers and eventually your own crew. Selling directly means the only people who know we’ve spoken are you and us.

You decide when your team is told, and we’ll help you plan that conversation when the time comes.

We’re not going to tell you nothing changes, because that would be a promise we can’t keep and you’d be right not to believe it.

What we can tell you is that the people who’ve been with you fifteen years are a large part of why the business is worth buying. We’re not buying it to strip it for parts — we’re buying it because it works, and it works because of them.

Before anything is signed we’ll go through specifically what a transition looks like: what stays the same, what would change, and why. You’ll get a straight answer rather than a reassuring one.

Not during the process. In most deals the name over the door doesn’t change, so for the majority of your customers nothing visible happens at all.

How and when anything is communicated is agreed with you, not decided for you.

We use it to work out what we’d pay, and nothing else. It isn’t shared, listed, or shown to third parties.

If we don’t end up buying, you’re welcome to ask us to destroy what you sent and we will. Ask for a mutual NDA before you send anything — any serious buyer will sign one without blinking, and you should be wary of one who won’t.

Home service and skilled trades businesses: HVAC, electrical, plumbing, pest control and property restoration. We also look at niche manufacturing and healthcare services.

Typically $5M to $50M in revenue, usually fifteen years or older, privately held and owner-run.

If you’re outside that, say so on the call anyway — there may still be a sensible conversation, even if it isn’t about us buying.

Owners in their late fifties to early seventies who built the business themselves and have started thinking about what the end looks like.

Often there’s no obvious successor. The children have their own careers, the general manager isn’t ready or doesn’t want it, and the owner is doing a job they’ve outgrown by about a decade.

Almost none of them woke up one morning having decided to sell. Most start with a conversation like this one.

Across the United States. We buy nationally, and the first conversation is by video, so where you are doesn’t limit anything.

Typically 60 to 90 days from an accepted offer, and sometimes faster. Most of that is diligence, legal work and lender timing rather than anything either of us is dragging out.

If you need longer — a season to finish, a family situation, a lease to run down — say so. Timelines are one of the easier things to build around.

We put the terms in a letter of intent, which sets out price and structure but doesn’t bind you to sell. Then diligence: financials, contracts, equipment, staffing. Then legal documents, then closing and funds.

You’ll have your own attorney through all of it, and we’ll tell you what’s happening at each stage rather than leaving you to chase.

A letter of intent isn’t a binding commitment to sell. Owners walk away during diligence and that’s their right.

We’d rather you pulled out than sold something you weren’t sure about. This is the biggest financial decision most owners ever make and there’s no version of it where you should feel cornered.

We’ll tell you on the call, and we’ll tell you why rather than going quiet on you.

We’ll also tell you what we’d do in your position — whether that’s taking it to the open market at today’s number, or spending a year on two or three specific things that would change that number materially. Most owners find that worth an hour of their time even when we don’t do business.