5 Underrated Ways to Find the Right Buyers

Welcome back to another edition of The Wise Exit newsletter. This week, we’re covering: 

• 5 underrated ways to find the right buyer for your business

• 5 questions to ask yourself to pressure-test your current buyer strategy

• 3 action steps to take this week to start building your acquisition plan

Let’s get to it.

💡 This Week’s Big Idea

5 Underrated Ways to Find the Right Buyers for Your Business (And Why Most Founders Get This Wrong)

Whenever founders and business owners start thinking about selling their company, most of their early energy goes into valuation. They ask themselves questions like, “What's my business worth?” or “What multiple should I expect?”

Don’t get me wrong, those are important questions. But there's another question that usually gets put on the back burner until it’s too late:

“Who's actually going to buy this thing?”

The truth is, the quality of your buyer pool has just as much impact on your exit outcome as the quality of your business. More buyers means more competition, more competition means more leverage, and more leverage means you’ll walk away with a better deal.

Here are 5 ways we always recommend founders build their buyer pool to maximize their exits:

1. Your Existing Industry Network

Oftentimes, the most overlooked buyers are the ones already in your orbit. People like vendors, customers, industry contacts, and local business leaders who already know and respect what you've built. Having discreet conversations with the right people here can surface serious interest before you've even formally gone to market.

2. Trade Publications

Being visible in the right industry publications builds your reputation with the exact people who are most likely to acquire a business like yours. And no, this doesn’t mean putting up a “for sale” sign in your front yard. Whether it’s through contributed content, thought leadership, or targeted ads, you’re simply showing up as a credible operator in your space and allowing the right conversations to happen whenever the time comes.

3. Trade Shows and Conferences

Industry events are one of the best places to quietly build relationships with potential acquirers long before you're ready to sell. They allow you to show up, connect with the right people, and stay on the radar of those who matter. Oftentimes, the founders who consistently attend these events are the ones who already have warm relationships in place when it's time to go to market.

4. Employees and Management Teams

In some cases, the best buyer is already inside your building. An Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) or a management buyout can be a compelling option, particularly if cultural continuity and legacy matter to you. While these deals often take longer to structure, they can also result in much smoother transitions.

5. An M&A Advisor Who Knows Your Industry

The reality is, most founders don't have the network, process expertise, or bandwidth to run a proper buyer search while also running their business at the same time. That’s why working with the right M&A advisor can often be the best option. Because they don’t just bring you access to buyers. They help you build the right process around those conversations so you keep the leverage you need to actually close the deal.

This is exactly what we do at Exitwise — connecting founders with specialized investment bankers and M&A experts who know how to find the buyers who will pay the most for what you've built.

If you want help thinking through what your ideal buyer pool actually looks like, reply to this email or contact us here. We're always happy to walk you through it in more detail, wherever you are on your business journey.

❓ 5 Key Questions to Ask Yourself This Week

1️⃣ If I had to sell my business tomorrow, could I name 10 realistic potential buyers, and do I have relationships with any of them?

2️⃣ Am I relying too heavily on one buyer channel, like a single inbound offer or my local network, instead of building real competition through multiple methods?

3️⃣ Have I thought through who the strategic buyers in my industry are who would pay a premium for what I've built?

4️⃣ Do I know whether private equity is actively investing in businesses like mine right now, and what they typically look for?

5️⃣ If I went to market today, would I have the bandwidth to manage a buyer process while still running my business at full capacity?

📋 3 Action Items for This Week

☑️ Build your initial buyer list: Don't overthink this. Write down every realistic category of buyer for your business — strategic acquirers, PE firms, competitors, customers. Then start naming actual companies in each category. Ten names are a good starting point.

☑️ Identify your top 3 strategic buyers and research them: Pick the three companies most likely to pay a premium for your business and spend 30 minutes understanding their acquisition history, what they've bought before, and why your business might be attractive to them.

☑️ Evaluate whether your current network is enough: Be honest with yourself. Because if the only buyers you'd realistically reach are people already in your network, you may have a process problem, not a business problem.

That's all for this week.

Remember, a great business with the wrong buyer process will almost always underperform. The founders who exit well aren't just the ones who built something great. They're the ones who found the right buyers and created enough competition to achieve the exit they deserve.

Reach out to us whenever you're ready to talk through your buyer strategy.

Talk next week,

Brian Dukes
Managing Partner at Exitwise