How we work
Sales campaigns, not listings.
Here’s how we build sales campaigns, not just listings. We data-identify strategic acquirers and sell to the companies and brands who aren’t even looking, but have a high-leverage reason to acquire our client’s business.
General market buyers vs strategic acquirers.
Most businesses get sold through general buyer marketplaces and general brokers. In each case, the business is more or less a commodity: it joins a pool of thousands of other businesses for sale that proactive buyers browse. That model is valuable for smaller or distressed businesses, but it reduces premium businesses to lower multiples.
Imagine you’re selling art. You can sell it to a big market of buyers on Amazon who are browsing for “any art”, often for a best price. Or you can have an art dealer identify the right strategic art collector and sell that specific piece for you, at exponentially higher sums. We’re the art dealer.
Finding, contacting and presenting cold to a company that wasn’t even looking to make a multi-million dollar acquisition requires a campaign, not just a listing.
The campaign, step by step.
From signed contract to go-live, and the sales work that follows.
- 01
Day 0
Market monitoring
Once we sign the client contract (our Sale Representation Agreement), we set up market monitoring. We identify top brands, channels, communities, media and newsletters, set up AI-based alerts, and subscribe to and follow all that is relevant. It all gets digested into a crash introduction to the market, our sales materials and our value-add follow-ups.
- 02
Setup
TAP: target acquirer profile
Our language for an ICP (ideal customer profile). Built by our two-person in-house data and leads research team, our competitive intelligence and lead generation tech stack, and our AI setup.
- 03
Setup
CCR: companies and contacts research
We data-identify the actual companies, as well as the key roles and contacts we want to approach with the outreach campaign. The initial CCR is built during the 2 to 3 week setup, and stays an ongoing work item through the campaign.
- 04
Setup
Datasheet and presentation deck
Every campaign gets a presentation deck, built from our Datasheet: a standardized onboarding fact sheet covering the assets, financials and soft points specific to the businesses we work with. We don’t call it a CIM or prospectus. Strategic acquirers are CEOs, not M&A departments, so we communicate in their voice. The deck leads with a narrative, with data and evidence of why the business is a growth-by-acquisition they should pursue.
- 05
Setup
Data room and growth model
Cleaned-up financials and a projections model our team builds. We don’t just export QuickBooks or Xero financials.
- 06
Go-live
Sales and blind marketing
Go-live starts the sales and blind marketing. Press releases, ads and content are kept generic, or “blind”, with no identifiable information. Then the sales work begins, ranked below.
What lands buyers and offers, ranked.
From our 11 years: the sales and marketing channels that landed serious buyer conversations and winning offers, from most critical to least effective.
Tactical follow-ups
There’s not a more significant level to sale success. Every other step tees this one up; without tactical follow-ups, deals simply wouldn’t close. We bring data, reports, insights and models to target acquirers. On the Sony deal, we often had 10 to 11 people on a call.
CCR: direct outreach
The metaphorical meat, the potatoes, even the plate. Well past 80% of our most competitive and winning offers and successful closes came from our direct outreach campaign built around the CCR.
Open
Our referral network is likely to climb here across 2027.
Referral network (Co)
Relationships with management consultants at firms such as EY and Accenture, and industry thought leaders. Now expanding through Co, our M&A collective: deal syndication, advisory counsel and introductions.
Paid ads and marketplaces
Paid ads run with generic, non-identifying messaging, often in market-centric newsletters and communities, and are climbing in value. Marketplaces are on their way out: the offers they bring are low multiple, low cash, high earn-out.
Buyers list
Built up organically over the years, but rarely a match. Our pricing is designed to make sense to industry-specific acquirers who capture leverage from the acquisition.
Press releases
They rarely produce enquiries, and that’s not what they’re engineered for. They put the deal on the radar of companies that run monitoring, and serve as follow-up pieces in established conversations.
We serve the seller.
We’re always sell-side: exit advisory and sale campaigns. If we were contracted to a buyer, our mission would reverse, and we’d be driving price down for the seller, not up. Connections and relationships exist, but our responsibility is to the seller client.
Case study article
Here’s how we sell a wellness and spa industry event and media company.
Read about this in more detail in the full campaign strategy we posted on LinkedIn.
Read the articleSell now
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