The company you want to buy isn't for sale. Here is how you become the first call when it is.
Part of Find. You set the thesis and make the calls. We run the search across on-market, pre-market, and off-market owners. A find is not an introduction. A find is a deal that can get done.
The problem
You know what you want to buy next. You can probably name a few of the companies. None of them is listed.
The listings won't help. They hold what is left after the direct buyers have passed, and the rare good one goes under contract within days. In one recent search across six states, the only listed company that fit the buyer's box was under contract almost as soon as it posted.
Meanwhile you are running a company. The search you meant to start keeps sliding to next quarter, and the owners you would want to talk to are hearing from someone else.
That is the frustrating part, because the deal should go to you. You know the trade, you would keep their people, and you would run the business the way its owner built it. A company like that should not go to whoever happened to be watching a listing site that week.
How it actually happens
At any moment, roughly 2 percent of the owners in your trade are actively selling, about 8 percent are open to it, and the other 90 percent are not for sale. The companies worth owning sit mostly in the 8 and the 90.
They change hands when an owner moves from not for sale to open to it. That move is usually quiet: a conversation with a CPA, a banker, a peer at a trade event. The first credible buyer the owner hears from at that moment usually gets the deal.
The question is not where the listings are. It is whether you will be the first call.
Before the search
You set the thesis and make the calls. We turn it into a mandate the market takes seriously.
What you are buying and why, on paper. Route density in a market you already serve. A crew you cannot hire. A customer list, a license, a piece of equipment that changes your cost position. Most of the value of a written thesis is what it lets you say no to.
A tight target profile. Revenue or earnings band, geography, type of work, owner situation, and what disqualifies a company on sight. A broker who hears a specific profile comes back with real names. A broker who hears a vague one sends public inventory.
Proof you can close, and a plan for after. How the deal gets funded, and what happens to the people and the customers once it does. No banker puts an owner in front of a buyer they cannot vouch for. This is what makes you that buyer.
The plan
One mandate, worked three ways at once. BluGrowth runs the work. Your part is small and comes only when it is worth your time.
Owners in a sale process, through a broker or banker or on a listing site. We screen every listing that touches your buy box, every week, and bring you only the fits. The brokers and bankers working your trade already have your mandate, so a fit reaches you before it reaches the market, and you answer first with proof of funds. Your part: nothing until a fit is worth your time.
Owners who are not selling but would listen to someone they trust: nearing retirement, tired after a hard year, short a successor. The people they trust are their CPA, attorney, banker, wealth advisor, equipment dealer and surety agent, and the peers in their trade, which includes you. Your mandate sits in front of those people, without your name until a deal is worth your time, so when an owner raises it, the advisor calls about you. Your part: your relationships, and a call when one of them leads somewhere.
Most of the market, and most of the companies you would actually want. We build the named list of operators that fit your box within working distance. The outreach goes owner to owner, because a note from a fellow operator offering a home for their people gets answered and a letter from an investor gets filed. We write it, send it, take the first call and qualify the owner, then stay in touch, because most will not be ready this year. Your part: a cup of coffee with owners worth meeting.
How it runs
The work runs weekly. You get a short written report each month and a call the same day any owner engages. Your time goes only to owners worth meeting.
The three groups feed each other. Today's 90 percent become tomorrow's 8 percent, and the owners reached early already know your name when they move. The goal is never to talk someone into selling. It is to be the first call when they decide to.
Once an owner engages, the rest of the function takes over: structure, funding, diligence, and close. Find. Fund. Finished.
What is at stake
Wait for the right listing, and you choose from what other buyers passed on, while the company you actually wanted goes to a private equity platform or a competitor who called first.
Work all three groups, and when the owner you want decides it is time, you are the first call. Their advisor knows your name, the owner has already met you, and the deal starts as a conversation instead of an auction.
The boundary
We do not keep an inventory of businesses for sale. That is a seller's business, and we do not represent sellers.
We do not buy meetings. No paid appointment setting, no incentives to owners for taking a call. The outreach is yours and it reads like it.
Questions
On-market deals are in a sale process: listed, or run by a broker or banker. Pre-market deals belong to owners who are open to selling but have not started, known mostly to the advisors and peers they trust. Off-market deals belong to owners who are not for sale today, which is most of the market and most of the companies worth owning.
Build a named list of operators that fit a written target profile, then approach them owner to owner and stay in touch over time. Most owners are not ready the year they are first contacted, so the goal is to be the first call when they decide, not to talk anyone into selling.
Owner to owner, because owners answer a fellow operator and ignore an investor. BluGrowth writes the outreach, sends it, takes the first call, and qualifies the owner. The buyer joins for a cup of coffee once an owner is worth meeting.
In pre-market work, yes: the mandate goes to brokers, bankers and advisors without the buyer's name until a deal is worth the buyer's time. In off-market outreach, no: the approach comes from the buyer, because that is what gets an owner to respond.
Outreach starts in the first weeks, but most owners are not ready when first contacted. The work is built to stay in front of them for twelve to twenty-four months, so the buyer is already known when an owner moves from not for sale to open to it.
