A Search Fund Called About Buying You. Read This First.
A pleasant, well-spoken person calls or emails. They admire what you've built and would love to talk about buying it. It's flattering — and it's also the opening move of a negotiation you didn't know had started.
What that call actually is
Somewhere out there, professional buyers are working through a list, and your company is on it. That doesn't make the interest fake — it's very real — but it does mean you're one conversation among many for them, and they do this for a living. You, presumably, are selling a business for roughly the first time. That asymmetry is the whole game.
The most useful thing you can do in the first five minutes is separate interest from an offer. Someone wanting to talk is not someone naming a price, and the moment you start behaving like a seller — volunteering numbers, floating what you'd take — the negotiation has begun on their terms instead of yours.
Who's on the other end
It could be a search fund (an individual raising money to buy and run one company), private equity (a fund building a platform or bolting on an add-on), a strategic buyer (a competitor or adjacent company), or an advisor fishing on someone's behalf. Each wants something different and behaves differently, and knowing which one you're talking to changes how you should respond.
That's worth its own read — we break down the buyer types and how to tell them apart in a companion guide. For now: find out who they actually represent before you tell them anything worth knowing.
The three moves before you say a number
Don't over-share. No financial statements on the first call, or the second. High-level ranges at most, and only once you know who they are. Get your numbers ready. Clean books and a defensible earnings figure are what let you engage from strength — and they take time you won't have once a live process is moving. Get advisory in your corner. The buyer has a team whose job is to pay you less; you should not be the only person on your side of the table.
None of this requires you to want to sell. It just keeps the option open on your terms instead of theirs.
Why 'we'll just see what they offer' costs you
The plan to sit back and let the offer come to you feels shrewd. In practice it hands the buyer the anchor, the timeline, and the information advantage. Unprepared sellers routinely accept a first number that leaves money on the table, or worse, agree to a price and then get quietly retraded during diligence when the messy books surface a problem.
Preparation flips that. When your numbers are clean and your earnings are provable, diligence confirms your story instead of unravelling it — and a buyer who can't find surprises has nothing to renegotiate against.
You don't have to sell to prepare
Here's the part owners underuse. Getting ready is valuable even if your answer is "not now." The calls will keep coming — good businesses get approached repeatedly — and each time, being ready is pure leverage. You can engage seriously when a genuinely strong offer appears, and walk away calmly from the rest, because you already know what you're worth and can prove it.
That readiness is exactly what we build: clean books, a defensible number, and a plan for the call before it comes.
Straight answers
Should I even take the call?
Take it — information is useful and you're allowed to be curious. Just treat it as reconnaissance, not the start of a deal. Listen more than you talk, find out who they are and what they want, and commit to nothing, especially not a number.
They asked me to send financials. Should I?
Not on the strength of a friendly call. High-level ranges are plenty early on; real statements wait for an NDA, and the full picture for a signed LOI. Information is your leverage — release it in order, not all at once.
Is an unsolicited offer usually a lowball?
Often the opening number is optimistic — for them. That's not an insult, it's a negotiation. The way you find out what your business is really worth isn't their first offer; it's having your own defensible number to measure it against.
Do I need a banker or advisor for one phone call?
Not for the call itself. But before you engage seriously, yes — you want your numbers diligence-ready and someone in your corner. The buyer has a team; going it alone is how good businesses sell for less than they're worth.
Related
See what a clean dollar is worth in your numbers
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