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Process
Ninety days, with dates against them.
A mandate is not an effort, it is a sequence of deliverables. These are ours, in order, with what you receive at each point.
- 01 Days 1 – 10
Mandate definition and market map
A working session to write the buy box: sub-sector, geography, revenue and EBITDA bands, ownership profile, platform or add-on, exclusions, and how the buyer should be described to an owner without being named. We then size the universe and build it.
Delivered
- Written Mandate Criteria
- Universe size and coverage read
- Approved Target List, in full, for your approval
- 02 Days 10 – 20
Materials, infrastructure and a controlled test
Outreach drafted by us and approved by you in writing, including the anonymous buyer profile the owner will see. Sending domains configured and warmed. Contact data validated. A first segment goes out — a controlled test, not the full list — so the message is tuned against real responses before it reaches the companies that matter most.
Delivered
- Approved outreach in all four channels
- Sending infrastructure live
- First response data
- 03 Days 20 – 45
Full outreach and qualification
The core list goes out across letter, email, telephone and professional network. Every response is worked: the interested, the “not now”, and the ones who reply to say something useful about the market. Telephone qualification against your criteria begins.
Delivered
- Fortnightly written progress report
- Qualified opportunities as they arise
- Owner feedback on the thesis itself
- 04 Days 45 – 90
Qualified meetings
Where an owner fits the criteria and is willing to talk, we arrange the meeting and attend it. You receive a written summary before it: what the company does, what we know about size and ownership, what the owner said, where the gaps are, and what we would ask.
Delivered
- Scheduled owner meetings
- Written fit summary before each
- Attendance at every meeting
- 05 Beyond day 90
Negotiation and completion
From indication of interest through letter of intent, exclusivity, diligence coordination and closing, we stay in every session. Not to negotiate for you — your counsel and your team do that — but to hold the thread with the owner, keep the process moving, and make sure nothing is lost between meetings.
Delivered
- Attendance at all sessions
- Owner relationship maintained
- Continuous re-touch of the wider list
§ 06
Honestly
When the first real conversations happen.
First qualified owner meetings typically fall between day 45 and day 75. Anyone who promises them in week two is describing a list, not a conversation. A founder who has never considered selling needs more than one touch and more than one month to decide he is willing to talk.