Stage 5 of 9
Meeting the buyers
First meetings are mutual interviews. The candidate is assessing a company; the owner is assessing whether this is someone they want to hand it to.
What buyers ask first
- Why is it being sold, and why now
- Where the orders come from and how that has changed
- How much of the operation depends on the owner personally
- What the owner would fix with another year and no constraints
The fourth question is the one that separates candidates. An honest answer builds more credibility than a polished one, and every buyer already knows there is a list.
What to keep back
Supplier names, customer lists and the exact terms of the best contracts belong to a later stage. So does anything about staff that identifies individuals.
Reading the room
Serious candidates ask about the risks. Casual ones ask about the upside. A candidate who has not asked a single uncomfortable question by the end of a second meeting is either very inexperienced or not really buying.
Chemistry counts
For an owner-managed company the handover lasts months and sometimes years. A candidate who is difficult in the second meeting will not be easier in the eighth. That is a legitimate reason to prefer another offer, and it is a reason owners are often too polite to state.
A buyer who never asks an uncomfortable question is not close to making an offer.