A buy-side masterclass segment on acquisition criteria and proprietary deal flow. It covers why a written acquisition criteria list should come before sourcing, why financials are the foundation of an acquisition, how to screen targets by size, cash flow, customers, and culture, how industry type shapes the target universe, and the case for active, proprietary sourcing and direct seller relationships over banker-led processes. Presented by Paul Giannamore as a private equity playbook on creating one's own deal flow. Topic is inferred from the title and the creator's chapter outline and bullet points; no audience evidence is available. # Video Identity Observations ## Intended Audience The content addresses **business owners and executives considering acquisitions**, primarily operators of small-to-medium firms rather than finance professionals: - Examples frame the viewer as an acquirer running a substantial operating company: *"unfucking his books uh on a million-dollar acquisition while you're running a $30 million firm, is that worth you and your team's time?"* - Lived-experience examples target owner-operators: a *"local competitor who you've known for 30 years"* wanting to sell, a *"lawn care business in South Central United States,"* and a niche *"software business that focuses on point of sale and inventory control for the hospitality industry."* - The closing explicitly invites two audiences — sellers and buyers: *"If you own a business and you're being contacted by strategic acquirers, search funds, private equity firms... take a step back and give us a call."* - Viewers are also positioned as recipients of outbound M&A outreach: *"these guys will boil the ocean... I know every one of you probably gets a dozen [form-letter emails] every day."* ## Claimed Scope This video is one installment of an **educational "buy-side M&A masterclass" series**: - The title self-identifies as a *"Buy-Side Masterclass Moment,"* and the transcript confirms a series format: *"We'll be filming the remainder of the buyside masterclass series in the coming weeks"* and *"later in the series, we're going to talk about price and risk and valuation."* - Scope covers acquisition strategy, screening criteria, deal sourcing ("hunter or fisher"), and proprietary deal flow — deliberately excluding valuation and negotiation, deferred to later installments. - Promised deliverables extend into practical templates: *"a template LOI, a buyside due diligence checklist."* - Prior content is referenced, indicating a **sell-side companion series**: *"in the sellside masterclass, I talked about being a hunter or a fisher"* and *"think back to my sellside M&A discussion."* ## Self-Description Evidence - **Presenter identity**: The speaker signs off as *"Paul Jammore"* (per transcript) and speaks from first-hand practitioner experience: *"when small or medium-sized firms call PTOIC... they'll call us up."* - **Organization**: The firm is referred to as *"PTOIC"* / *"PTOAC"* (inconsistent spellings in transcript) and is described as a sell-side advisory: *"I actually don't feel good about selling businesses to them... I would rather make a large publicly traded company overpay or a private equity firm overpay."* - **Stated philosophy**: *"Here at PTOAC, we love to kill it for our clients and I think that education is the cornerstone."* Education is positioned as adjacent to — and marketing for — advisory services. - **Positioning vs. intermediaries**: The speaker self-identifies as a sell-side adviser while candidly warning buyers against his own industry: *"in the same way you deal with sellside guys like me, you are naturally going to be put into a competitive process... So, avoid that."* ## Demonstrated (Non-Claimed) Presentation Patterns - **Conversational, example-driven teaching**: hypothetical characters ("Rodney here, Hot Rod") and vivid analogies (*"cigar box... bunch of receipts"*) rather than slides or formal frameworks. - **Blunt, profanity-tinged register**: *"unfucking his books"* — signaling an informal, practitioner-to-operator tone rather than institutional finance polish. - **Direct calls to action**: comments for topic requests, description links for templates and contact, LinkedIn outreach, and a request to *"share this masterclass series."* - **Content-marketing structure**: free education layered with a service funnel ("we'll help you forge a plan... contact us directly"). ## Explicit Claims vs. Demonstration - **Claimed**: series continuity, upcoming templates, firm advisory services, insider experience with both sell-side and buy-side processes. - **Demonstrated only in this video**: teaching style, audience framing, and sourcing-strategy content (acquisition criteria lists, target-universe sizing, proprietary deal flow via direct relationship-building). # Delivery Observation — Buyside Masterclass Moment ## Speaker & Format - Single speaker addressing the camera directly, identified in the closing line as **"Paul Jammore"** of an M&A advisory firm. - Delivering a segment of a **masterclass series**, with direct references to prior and upcoming installments: *"in the sellside masterclass, I talked about being a hunter or a fisher"* and *"later in the series, we're going to talk about price and risk and valuation."* ## Recurring Communication Patterns ### 1. Hypothetical scenario-building as the primary teaching device The speaker repeatedly constructs invented personas and situations with concrete detail: - A retiring competitor: *"a local competitor who you've known for 30 years who says, 'You know what? I'm about ready to retire and I want to sell my business.'"* - Named, colorful characters: *"Rodney here, Hot Rod, running this business, hasn't done his books for the better part of the decade."* - Industry comparisons: *"if you own a lawn care business in South Central United States... There's 50 lawn care companies in every town"* versus *"a software business that focuses on point of sale and inventory control for the hospitality industry. You might literally have three or four potential acquisition targets globally."* ### 2. Rhetorical questions posed to the audience Used to prompt self-assessment rather than deliver answers: - *"is that worth you and your team's time?"* - *"So, how do you source them?"* - *"Where are you in your journey? Is this selling anytime soon?"* ### 3. Mock dialogue / role-played voices Frequently voices the other party in quotation marks: - *"Hey, Paul, I've got a business that looks like it's a great match for your company. You want to buy it?"* - *"I'm engaged by a client who's really interested in buying your business. Would love to talk."* - *"Hey, my client's getting divorced or retiring and wants to sell the business."* ### 4. Contrast framing as an argument structure A repeated two-sided device: - **Hunter vs. fisher** framing for deal sourcing. - **Buy-side vs. sell-side mirror logic**: *"whatever's good for the seller on a sellside situation is bad for you, the buyer, in a buy side situation."* - Efficient-but-ineffective vs. effective-but-slow: form-letter outreach is *"not very effective, but it's highly efficient."* ### 5. Numbered, checklist-style logic Teaching through ordered steps and lists: - *"Number one, I'm focused on increasing cash flow, decreasing risk. Therefore, my business strategy is X, Y, and Z."* - The recurring term **"criteria list"** / **"box"** for screening: *"You've got a huge list... effectively put together a box here."* - Template deliverables promised: *"a template LOI, a buyside due diligence checklist."* ## Vocabulary & Tone - **Colloquial and profanity-inflected**, unusual for a technical finance topic: *"unfucking his books,"* *"cigar box,"* *"go pound sand,"* *"boil the ocean,"* *"annoying form letter emails,"* *"screw a lot of them up,"* *"stay out of hot water,"* *"pull the trigger."* - **Insider jargon mixed with plain explanation**: "proprietary funnel," "quasi auction," "buyers bidding against themselves," "search fund approach," "take a play from the private equity playbook." - **Direct address** using "you," "we," and first-person admission of fallibility: *"you are going to screw a lot of them up because you can't know the things that you can't know"* and *"we have to learn the expensive way through direct experience."* - **Blunt, opinionated verdicts**: *"I actually don't feel good about selling businesses to them because I know I'm going to make them overpay"*; *"I'm not saying you can't get a deal from a sellside guy."* ## Recurring Key Phrases (with repetition evidence) - **"acquisition criteria" / "criteria list"** — appears at least four times across the segment. - **"overpay" / "overpaying"** — repeated in quick succession in one passage: *"He's going to end up overpaying... he's going to overpay for it. It is a bad investment."* - **"proprietary"** deals/funnel — used twice in the sourcing section. - **Closing formula**: *"Thank you for joining me today and I'll see you on the next one"* — a series-style sign-off. ## Structural Habits - **Callback to prior content** to create series continuity (sellside masterclass, "hunter or a fisher"). - **Forward promises** of future content and downloadable resources with a call to action: *"put them in the comments below,"* *"I put a link in the description section below."* - **Explicit commercial close** at the end, inviting business owners to *"take a step back and give us a call"* and tying the teaching to a stated philosophy: *"education is the cornerstone."* ## Uncertainty Notes - The precise firm name is rendered inconsistently in the transcript ("PTOIC," "PTOAC"); the correct spelling cannot be confirmed from this source alone. - The speaker's name ("Paul Jammore") may reflect a transcription artifact; only the audio could confirm it. - All patterns above are drawn from a single video, so claims about long-term habits are limited to this segment; the references to prior series episodes suggest but do not verify consistent style across videos. # Buy-Side Acquisition Criteria and Proprietary Deal Flow ## Source Overview - **Video ID:** 01a168c6-fd09-7fbd-aa66-782ac57ef5c9 - **Title:** Acquisition Criteria & Proprietary Deal Flow | Buy-Side Masterclass Moment - **Speaker:** Paul Jammore, identified by the speaker's own sign-off in the transcript ("Again, I'm Paul Jammore"). No curated speaker metadata was supplied. - **Format:** Single-speaker educational segment, part of a buy-side masterclass series. - **Scope note:** The speaker refers to an earlier sell-side masterclass and a forthcoming series. That material is not in this transcript and is not assessed here. --- ## 1. Core Thesis The speaker's central position is that buyers should define an **acquisition criteria list** and build a **proprietary deal pipeline** before entering the market. > "I think it's really important to put together an acquisition criteria list prior to even going out into the market." - **Stated reasoning:** Acquisitions should follow from a business strategy and a identified gap. The speaker lists examples of gaps: geographic growth, technological capabilities, and hard-to-reach customers. - **Qualified value claim:** The speaker says acquisitions "may be the best way" to close a gap, and attributes this to the value equation. > "You can buy the best company in the world, but if you overpay for it, it's still a bad investment." - **Deferred topic:** Price, risk, and valuation are deferred to later episodes covering the offer and negotiation stages. --- ## 2. Acquisition Criteria and Screening ### 2.1 Building the Criteria The speaker describes criteria as a filter, or "box," for upfront screening. Example criteria include: - Target revenue range - Required cash flow - Preference for a retiring owner The stated strategic priority was: *"I'm focused on increasing cash flow, decreasing risk."* ### 2.2 Universe Size Varies by Industry The speaker presents universe size as a function of industry, with two contrasting examples: | Business Type | Speaker's Described Universe | Implication Stated | |---|---|---| | Lawn care, South Central US | Hundreds of targets; "50 lawn care companies in every town" | Criteria must narrow a large field (e.g., 500 to 100) | | Hospitality point-of-sale and inventory software | "Three or four" potential targets globally; "count on two hands" | Sourcing is simpler, though the speaker frames this as making the job "easier" | These are illustrative examples. The speaker did not provide data supporting the counts. ### 2.3 Financial Diligence as a Screening Factor The speaker treats the state of a target's books as a key screening criterion. The example given is a local competitor whose owner has not kept proper books for "the better part of the decade." > "You're buying financial performance. So, understanding the books, being able to diligence the books are going to be an extremely important aspect." The speaker frames the question as one of opportunity cost: > "Is unfucking his books on a million-dollar acquisition while you're running a $30 million firm, is that worth you and your team's time?" **Divided view (stated):** - *Position A:* Some buyers "might answer yes, we can wait," because they have the resources and capabilities. - *Position B:* "Others of you may not." The speaker does not resolve which position is correct. The decision depends on the buyer's capacity. --- ## 3. Sourcing Approaches ### 3.1 Fisher vs. Hunter The speaker distinguishes two postures, drawing on his earlier sell-side framing that sellers should be "hunters." - **Fisher (passive):** Waiting for bankers, lawyers, or others to bring deals. The speaker says: *"You might end up waiting a decade for your phone to ring."* He also says: *"If you're going to take the fishing approach... you're already behind everyone else."* - **Hunter (active):** Developing outreach capability directly. ### 3.2 Buy-Side Brokers The speaker describes buy-side brokers as an option that is: - **Efficient** in terms of the buyer's time - **Ineffective** in terms of response quality. The speaker calls the outreach "annoying form letter emails" and says "not very effective, but it's highly efficient." ### 3.3 Preferred Approach: In-House Capability The speaker's stated preference is for in-house development, if the buyer intends to pursue acquisitions as a growth strategy. > "The best way to do this is actually develop your own in-house capabilities if you're building a business where you think you can create a lot of value by doing acquisitions." **Stated learning-curve claim:** The speaker expects buyers to make mistakes. > "You are going to screw a lot of them up because you can't know the things that you can't know." He adds that advisors can help avoid "hot water," but that "a lot of these lessons... we have to learn the expensive way through direct experience." --- ## 4. The Case for Proprietary Deal Flow ### 4.1 Competition Logic The speaker draws on sell-side logic to argue that competition benefits sellers and harms buyers. - **Seller benefit (as described):** Competition provides psychological leverage and creates a "quasi auction" in which buyers bid against each other. - **Buyer consequence:** "Whatever's good for the seller on a sell-side situation is bad for you, the buyer, in a buy-side situation." **Conclusion stated:** Buyers should avoid investment bankers "if you can." ### 4.2 Speaker's Own Position on Selling to Small Firms The speaker describes his firm's own practice of declining some deals with small and midsize family businesses. His stated reasoning is that these sellers are likely to overpay, which he describes as a bad investment. > "I actually don't feel good about selling businesses to them because I know I'm going to make them overpay." He says he would rather have a large public company or private equity firm overpay. This is a personal judgment in the speaker's own words, not a general finding. ### 4.3 Pipeline Logic The speaker argues that private equity firms and large corporates build proprietary pipelines for this reason, and advises buyers to do the same. --- ## 5. Recommended Outreach Method The speaker recommends direct, personal contact with potential sellers. **Stated sequence:** 1. Identify the right person at the target company. 2. Arrange a casual meeting (e.g., "a simple lunch or breakfast at a diner"). 3. Express interest without pressure, and offer help. **Sample framing given by the speaker:** > "I'm really growing my business and I think your business might potentially fill a gap for me. Where are you in your journey? Is this selling anytime soon?" **Expected payoff (strong claim):** > "I guarantee you, you're going to be top of mind when these guys start to think about selling their business." The speaker contrasts this with generic emails from search funds and other buyers, which he calls "noise" and says "most of those things get deleted." --- ## 6. Qualifications, Hedges, and Tensions The following points remain visible as the speaker stated them: - **Tentative vs. firm claims:** - "Acquisitions *may* be the best way" to close a gap, depending on value. - Competitive dynamics are described as applying "more times than not." - The guarantee about being "top of mind" is stated with confidence but is not supported by data in the segment. - **Investment bankers:** The speaker says buyers should avoid bankers "if you can," then concedes: "I'm not saying you can't get a deal from a sell-side guy," and "You may get lucky." - **Buy-side brokers:** Described as useful for reach and efficiency, but also as low-quality and "not very effective." The speaker does not say whether using one is advisable overall. - **In-house vs. outsourced:** The speaker prefers in-house capability for serial acquirers but acknowledges advisors can reduce risk. The threshold for when in-house development is justified is not specified beyond "if you're building a business where you think you can create a lot of value." - **Diligence capacity:** Whether to take on a messy-books target depends on the buyer's resources. The speaker explicitly declines to give a universal answer. - **Universe size claims:** The "two hands" and "500 opportunities" figures are illustrative and unsourced. --- ## 7. Promotional and Administrative Content These statements are not analytical claims, but they show the speaker's commercial interest: - **Resources promised:** A template letter of intent (LOI) and a buy-side due diligence checklist, to be released later. - **Viewer engagement:** Questions may be posted in the comments. A link is provided for notifications. - **Firm promotion:** The speaker's firm is presented as offering exit planning "specifically tailored to your financial goals," with a contact form in the description. The speaker is also available on LinkedIn. - **Stated firm philosophy:** "Education is the cornerstone," which allows clients "to make the best decisions for themselves." The speaker's firm is a sell-side advisory practice. This is a stated commercial interest that bears on the advice to avoid bankers and sell-side advisors, and it should be read with that in mind. --- ## 8. Transcription Notes - The firm name appears as both "PTOIC" and "PTOAC" in the transcript. The sign-off and context suggest the same firm, but the transcript is inconsistent. - The speaker's name appears only in the closing line. - The transcript contains some apparent transcription errors (for example, "a a," "a variety of ways," "sell-side guy" vs. "sellside guy"). These do not affect the substance of the claims recorded above. - "Hot Rod" and "Rodney" appear as a hypothetical example name and are not identified individuals. # Video Attribution & Provenance Record ## Video **Title:** Acquisition Criteria & Proprietary Deal Flow | Buy-Side Masterclass Moment **ID:** 01a168c6-fd09-7fbd-aa66-782ac57ef5c9 ## Speakers & Roles | Speaker | Role | Evidence | |---|---|---| | **Paul Jammore** (name as given in transcript) | Creator / host; M&A educator; sell-side advisor at **PTOIC / PTOAC** (spelled both ways in transcript) | Self-introduction at close: *"Again, I'm Paul Jammore"*; references *"we get into the more technical aspects of buyside M&A"* and prior *"sellside master class"* | | Other speakers | None present | Single-speaker format; no guests, interviewers, or narrators | ## Speaker Identity Notes - Speaker describes himself as sell-side M&A advisor: *"sellside guys like me"*. - References his firm receiving inbound inquiries: *"when small or medium-sized firms call PTOIC"* — firm name is inconsistently rendered ("PTOIC" vs "PTOAC") in the transcript; flag as uncertain. - No curated metadata supplied beyond title and transcript; speaker identity rests solely on transcript self-identification. ## Referenced Sources & Third-Party Claims - Prior content: a **sell-side masterclass series** (hunting vs. fishing framing) referenced as earlier material by the same creator. - Upcoming content: remainder of the **buy-side masterclass series**, plus promised downloadable items: *template LOI* and *buy-side due diligence checklist* (future, not in this video). - Third-party claims made by the speaker (not independently verified): characterizations of buy-side brokers' mass-email tactics, search fund outreach ("from my perspective, that's noise"), investment banker competition dynamics, and private equity proprietary-deal practices. ## Promotional Segments — **FLAGGED** - **Promotion of the speaker's own firm:** closing section invites business owners to *"give us a call"* and references a contact form link and LinkedIn contact. - **Funnel/content promotion:** asks viewers to click a description link for notifications on upcoming LOI template and checklist; solicits requests/questions in comments for the ongoing series. - **Audience growth ask:** request to *"share this masterclass series"*. ## Comment Availability - Comments are open: speaker invites questions/requests *"in the comments below"* and promises to respond. ## Unavailability / Limits - No transcript timestamps; no external citations or named sources in the video. - Promised resources (LOI template, checklist) are **not available in this video**; access requires description links not present in the transcript. - Transcript contains garbled/uncertain items: firm name spelling (PTOIC/PTOAC), speaker name ("Jammore"), and a reference to "cellside master class" (apparently sell-side). Another broad area that you need to think about from the upfront is financials. Now, I have seen a lot of acquirers over the years get approached by a potential target. You might have a a local competitor who you've known for 30 years who says, "You know what? I'm about ready to retire and I want to sell my business." And you say, "Well, it's a great opportunity. I know a couple of employ his employees. I think they're fantastic. I can definitely serve those customers. The old man wants to retire. Maybe I can work out a deal where I pay him overtime. That's all well and good. But Rodney here, Hot Rod, running this business, hasn't done his books for the better part of the decade. I mean, he's using like a cigar box. He's got a bunch of receipts in there and it is a mess. You have to think about what you're willing to be bogged down with during due diligence. is unfucking his books uh on a million-dollar acquisition while you're running a $30 million firm, is that worth you and your team's time? Now, you might answer yes, we can wait. I've got the resources. I've got the capabilities. We can get through that very quickly. Others of you may not. So, you have to think about that because at the end of the day, you're buying financial performance. So, understanding the books, being able to diligence the books are going to be an extremely important aspect. Why I mention all these things is because I think it's really important to put together an acquisition criteria list prior to even going out into the market. So you've determined what your business strategy is. You figured out what sort of problems acquisitions can solve. It might be geographic growth. You might be interested in buying different capabilities, maybe technological capabilities. You might be interested in acquiring some hard-to-reach customers. There's a variety of business reasons why you might do an acquisition. But you've identified a gap and you realize an acquisition may be the best way to solve that. Now, I say may because it all comes down to the value equation, right? You can buy the best company in the world, but if you overpay for it, it's still a bad investment. So, later in the series, we're going to talk about price and risk and valuation, and we'll talk about that in the offer stage and the negotiation stage. Today, though, I want to really focus more on this whole criteria situation. Now, let's say you've now thought through your strategy, right? You say, "Number one, I'm focused on increasing cash flow, decreasing risk. Therefore, my business strategy is X, Y, and Z. In order to accomplish my business strategy, I have specific gaps. And those gaps might be I need to buy some hard-to-reach customers. I need to get into a new geography. I need to buy some technological capabilities. There's a a variety of different valid reasons for doing an acquisition that ties to your business strategy. Now, how do you source them? Well, you've got your criteria list. You've put this together. You said, "Okay, I'm interested in companies that do X to Y in revenue. Here's what cash flow needs to be. I'd prefer to have a an owner who's retiring." You've got a huge list. effectively put together a box here and that's going to help you on the upfront screening uh those acquisition candidates. So now you start to think about the universe of potential targets. Now depending upon your business, this is going to vary wildly. On the one hand, if you own a lawn care business in South Central United States, you might have two or 300 potential acquisition targets in your geography. I mean, there's a ton of them. There's 50 lawn care companies in every town. So, you might have a lot to choose from. You might have to say, "Okay, there's 500 potential opportunities, and I really need to think about which ones fit within my acquisition criteria." And after you run that through your criteria, you might still have 100 potential opportunities. That's one thing. But if you run a business that does, it's a software business that focuses on point of sale and inventory control for the hospitality industry. You might literally have three or four potential acquisition targets globally, at least in your specific business. Now maybe your strategy is to move away from that or add adjunct services to your offering, but in your specific industry probably count on two hands how many potential targets there are globally. So that puts you in a very different position and it actually makes your job easier. Right now when we think about the reachout, there's a variety of ways to do this. And in the cellside master class, I talked about being a hunter or a fisher. When you're selling your business, I told you to be a hunter. You can't sit back and wait for buyers to come in. And this is one of those areas where you're going to take the same strategy on the buy side. You can be a fisher and just basically hang back and wait for people to call you up. You can wait for bankers to say, "Hey, Paul, I've got a business that looks like it's a great match for your company. You want to buy it?" You can wait for a lawyer to call you up and say, "Hey, my client's getting divorced or retiring and wants to sell the business and we thought we'd reach out to you." You can certainly do that. You might end up waiting a decade for your phone to ring, but you can do that. You can hire a buyside broker of some sort or an adviser who basically goes out, makes calls, sends annoying emails on your behalf, and tries to drum up some business. You can do that. And these guys will boil the ocean and they will send out a ton of annoying form letter emails that I know every one of you probably gets a dozen them every day. I'm engaged by a client who's really interested in buying your business. Would love to talk. And they just sent that out to 10,000 people. Right? Not very effective, but it's highly efficient. And it's highly efficient as far as a use of your time. And then you can take a play from the private equity playbook when it comes to building an acquisition pipeline. If you're going to take the fishing approach, which is kind of sit back and wait, you're already behind everyone else. But if you're going to get really aggressive, certainly you could use a byside broker. Um, but the best way to do this is actually develop your own in-house capabilities if you're building a business where you think you can create a lot of value by doing acquisitions. And acquisitions are one of those things that yeah I mean you actually will learn a lot of things about yourself and your capabilities if you do many of them because you are going to screw a lot of them up because you can't know the things that you can't know and no matter what sort of advisors you bring in house to help you certainly they're going to help you stay out of hot water but a lot of these lessons unfortunately as you and I both know we have to learn the expensive way through direct experience. And so that's what will happen. And the more acquisitions you do, the better you'll get at them over time. But the private equity guys and the large corporates, they build their own pipeline of proprietary deals. And there's a reason why they do that. So if you think back to my sellside M&A discussion, I said one of the absolute best things a seller can do when selling his business is bring in competition. That's the one of the best things you can do. not only from a psychological perspective because it gives you a lot of resolve. You can easily tell somebody to go pound sand when you got a lot of other buyers there, right? So, helps you from a psychological perspective. It also creates somewhat of a quasi auction where you've got buyers bidding against themselves. So, if that's really good for sellers, it's really bad for you, a buyer, right? So, whatever's good for the seller on a sellside situation is bad for you, the buyer, in a buy side situation. So, you do not want to go and deal with investment bankers if you can. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, when small um or medium-sized firms call PTOIC, we typically tell they'll call us up and say, "Hey, here's the industry we're looking at. Here's our criteria. We'd really like an opportunity to work with you. If you have anything, please send it our way." And we might look at it and say, "It's a small or midsize family business. It's conservative. I actually don't feel good about selling businesses to them because I know I'm going to make them overpay, right? I would rather make a large publicly traded company overpay or a private equity firm overpay than, you know, some guy running this $30 million family business who wants to do a deal. He's going to end up overpaying. It's going to be I'm selling a great company, he's going to overpay for it. It is a bad investment. So in the same way you deal with sellside guys like me, you are naturally going to put put into a competitive process. Corporates know it, private equity firms know it, and now you know it. So you need to avoid as much as you can. I'm not saying you can't get a deal from a sellside guy. There are a lot of sellside guys out there that have no idea what they're doing and they just want to close a transaction. You may get lucky, but I think more times than not, at bare minimum, even if the sellside adviser sucks, that seller is going to have some semblance of competition, which is going to change the psychological calculations in his or her mind. So, avoid that. Go out and build your proprietary funnel. And the way you're going to do that is reach out directly to potential sellers. Now, I think there's a lot of ways to do this. You could take kind of the the buy side broker approach, which is like, "Hey, I'm really interested." Or the search fund approach. You probably get a lot of emails from search funds like, "I'm we're looking to buy one really good business and run it." Okay, fine. Um, you could take that approach and send out emails, but from my perspective, that's noise, right? I mean, I think most of those things get deleted. It's really hard to differentiate yourself on an email, like who you are versus them. Now, they might recognize your company. You might be like, "Oh, that's my cross town rival. He's been in business 30 years. I want to go talk to him. But if you can figure out a way to have direct contact with the right person at the target company and then set up a lunch or a dinner, it doesn't have to be courtside at the Bulls and dinner at Gibson's. It could be a simple lunch or breakfast at a diner where you say, "Hey, I'm really growing my business and I think your business might potentially fill a gap for me. Where are you in your journey? Is this selling anytime soon? interesting possibility for you. And if it's not, that's fine. You just want to get your name out there that I am somebody who's interested in making an acquisition. I'd love the opportunity to sit down with you. I think you have an interesting business. I'd like to dig into it a little bit more. But on its face, it seems like there could be an interesting discussion here. If you're open to it, great. If you're not, fine with that as well. Here's my number. Let's periodically get together. And by the way, I'll help you any way I can. If you can begin to build a personal relationship with a variety of different targets in your industry, in your geography, or whatever the end point here you're looking is, I guarantee you, you're going to be top of mind when these guys start to think about selling their business. Like, you're going to be they have a name to a face. You've spent time with them. You've invested in them. It's far more powerful than stack of 180 emails they have in their inbox. We'll be filming the remainder of the byside masterclass series in the coming weeks. So if you have any requests or questions, feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer them. And finally, as we get into the more technical aspects of buyside M&A, I'll be able to provide you with a variety of different items such as a template LOI, a buyside due diligence checklist I think will come in handy as you go out and attempt to make acquisitions on your own. I put a link in the description section below. You can click on that so you can be notified as soon as those are ready to go out. Here at PTOAC, we love to kill it for our clients and I think that education is the cornerstone and which allows our clients to make the best decisions for themselves. The more you can understand about the nuances of how strategic acquirers work, how the operations of private equity firms work, and the psychology and the tactics of an M&A transaction, the better you're going to be when it comes time to pull the trigger. If you own a business and you're being contacted by strategic acquirers, search funds, private equity firms, and you're trying to size up what you might do, take a step back and give us a call. We'll help you forge a plan. Whether that exit is a year from now, 5 years from now, or 10 years from now, we'll help you think through a plan that is specifically tailored to your financial goals and objectives. So, please contact us directly. I've put a link to the contact form in the description of this video and you can also contact me directly on LinkedIn. And feel free to share this masterclass series with somebody who you think might benefit from it. Again, I'm Paul Jammore. Thank you for joining me today and I'll see you on the next one.