• Acquisition sourcing
• For owners and buyers
• August 2026
• 18 min read

Acquisition strategy

How to Find Businesses to Buy: A Practical Guide to Acquisition Sourcing

How buyers can find acquisition targets, reach business owners, source off-market opportunities, and build a repeatable pipeline of companies worth buying.

Finding businesses is easy. Finding a business you would actually want to own, getting in front of the right person, and starting a real conversation is much harder.

Businesses already listed for sale are an important source of acquisition opportunities, but they represent only part of the market. Many privately held companies are not actively for sale. Some owners may be open to the right conversation. Others may be years away from considering a transaction.

For a buyer, that means waiting for the right company to appear on a marketplace or in a broker’s email is rarely a complete sourcing strategy.

You need to know what you are looking for, map the relevant market, identify the right owners, find the best way to reach them, and stay organized enough to follow up when the timing changes.

That is acquisition sourcing.

At SMB Exit Partners, we think about the process in seven stages:

The acquisition sourcing framework

1. 01Define Set the acquisition thesis.
2. 02Map Build the target universe.
3. 03Connect Look for credible introductions.
4. 04Approach Reach owners directly.
5. 05Follow Up Create several chances to engage.
6. 06Qualify Test fit in the first conversation.
7. 07Nurture Maintain relationships over time.

The individual tactics matter, but the real advantage comes from putting them together into a repeatable process.

What Is Acquisition Sourcing?

Acquisition sourcing is the process of identifying businesses that meet a buyer’s acquisition criteria and creating opportunities to speak with their owners about a potential transaction.

Those opportunities generally come from two parts of the market.

On-market opportunities are businesses already being marketed for sale, typically through business brokers, M&A firms, investment banks, marketplaces, or other intermediaries.

Off-market opportunities are businesses that are not currently being marketed for sale. A buyer identifies a company that fits its criteria and finds a way to start a conversation with the owner.

There is no reason to choose between the two. A good acquisition search can pursue both.

What matters is the end result: a pipeline of credible conversations with owners of businesses that are worth buying.

1. Start With a Clear Acquisition Thesis

Before building a target list or sending an email, define what you are actually looking for.

Depending on the buyer, that can include:

• Industry: Which sectors and subsectors are attractive?
• Geography: National, regional, local, or within a defined radius?
• Size: What revenue, EBITDA, or seller’s discretionary earnings range makes sense?
• Business model: Are recurring revenue, contracted revenue, route density, aftermarket sales, subscription revenue, or other characteristics important?
• Customers: Does the company sell to consumers, SMBs, enterprises, government agencies, or particular end markets?
• Ownership: Are you targeting privately held or owner-operated businesses, and are there any ownership types you want to exclude, such as private equity-backed or strategic-owned companies?
• Transaction structure: Are you looking for 100% ownership, a controlling interest, an owner rollover, or another structure?
• Owner transition: Do you want the seller to remain involved after closing, and if so, for how long?
• Other characteristics: Customer concentration, management depth, capital intensity, cyclicality, geographic density, or anything else that materially affects fit.

The criteria should be specific enough that you can look at a company and make a reasonably quick decision about whether it belongs in the search.

This sounds basic, but it has an enormous effect on everything that follows. Poorly defined searches create bloated target lists, generic outreach, and a lot of conversations that were never likely to lead anywhere.

2. Build the Target Universe

Once you know what you want, map the market.

There is rarely one database that contains every relevant privately held business. Good target research usually means combining several sources and adapting the research process to the industry.

Those sources might include company websites, Google and map results, industry associations, licensing databases, trade-show exhibitor lists, professional directories, LinkedIn, local business organizations, government and corporate records, industry publications, commercial databases, marketplaces, intermediaries, and referrals.

The best sources will vary considerably by sector.

If you are searching for a regulated home-services company, state licensing records may be particularly useful. If you are looking for a specialized manufacturer, trade associations, certifications, supplier ecosystems, and exhibitor lists may tell you much more.

The point is to understand where companies in that particular industry can actually be found.

It is also worth resisting the temptation to measure progress by the number of rows in a spreadsheet.

A list of 5,000 loosely relevant companies may be less useful than 500 businesses that have actually been screened for geography, services, ownership, approximate size, and strategic fit.

The goal is not the biggest list. It is the best practical universe of companies that could fit the acquisition thesis.

3. Figure Out Who Actually Owns the Business

Once you identify an attractive company, the next question is deceptively simple:

Who owns it?

For privately held businesses, the answer is not always obvious.

The person listed as president may be an employee. A founder may have transferred ownership to the next generation. Several family members may own the company. The operating business may sit beneath a separate holding company.

Before reaching out, try to determine who owns the business, who operates it, and who would actually evaluate an acquisition inquiry.

Company websites, LinkedIn, corporate records, licensing records, industry publications, local news, professional directories, and other public information can all help.

For a lower-priority target, a reasonable level of confidence may be enough to begin outreach. For a company you would be particularly excited to acquire, spend more time getting this right.

4. Don’t Treat Every Target the Same

One of the easiest mistakes to make in acquisition sourcing is putting every company into the same outreach sequence.

A business that looks like an exceptional acquisition should receive more attention than one that barely meets the criteria.

We generally think about targets in three groups.

The principle behind the tiers is simple:

The better the potential acquisition, the more effort it deserves.

Your favorite company on the list should not receive exactly the same treatment as company number 157.

5. Before Going Cold, Work the Network

For a high-priority target, one of the first questions should be:

Who could credibly get me to this owner?

A good introduction gives the owner context before the acquisition conversation even begins.

Think beyond obvious first-degree connections. The path might be:

• Buyer → CPA → Owner
• Buyer → Attorney → Owner
• Buyer → Commercial Banker → Owner
• Buyer → SBA Lender → Owner
• Buyer → Wealth Manager → Owner
• Buyer → Industry Executive → Owner
• Buyer → Supplier → Owner
• Buyer → Customer → Owner
• Buyer → Former Employee → Owner
• Buyer → Another Business Owner → Owner
• Buyer → Mutual Professional Connection → Owner
• Buyer → Friend, Former Colleague, or Alumni Connection → Owner

Instead of asking only, “Do I know the owner?”, ask:

Who do I know who might know the owner, the company, or someone close to either?

For the businesses you most want to acquire, it is worth answering that question before sending a cold email.

6. When There Is No Introduction, Go Direct

Most acquisition searches cannot run entirely on warm introductions. At some point, buyers need to reach owners they do not know.

No single channel works for every owner, which is why good sourcing is usually multichannel.

• Email

  Email is inexpensive, private, scalable, and easy for an owner to answer when convenient.

  It is also crowded. An owner may receive plenty of generic messages from buyers, brokers, investors, and service providers. If your message sounds like it was sent to 10,000 companies, there is little reason for the owner to treat it differently.

  A good initial email should quickly answer a few questions: who are you, why are you reaching out, why did you select this business, what are you looking for, can the conversation remain confidential, and what is the easiest next step?

  If there is a legitimate reason the company stood out, say it. Personalization should come from actual research, not a mail merge designed to imitate it.

• Phone

  Calling still matters.

  Emails are missed, filtered, deleted, or saved for later and forgotten. A short conversation can establish credibility and interest much faster.

  The purpose of an initial call is usually not to negotiate an acquisition. It is simply to determine whether the owner would be open to a conversation.

• Letters

  Physical mail is overlooked in a lot of modern sourcing programs, which can make it useful.

  A concise, professional letter addressed directly to an owner creates another opportunity to be noticed. It can be particularly relevant with established owner-operated businesses where the owner may not spend much time on LinkedIn or respond to unsolicited email.

  You do not need to send a letter to every company. For the right target, it can be another useful touchpoint.

• LinkedIn and professional networks

  LinkedIn can be valuable before it ever becomes an outreach channel.

  It can show you mutual connections, an owner’s professional history, company milestones, industry involvement, and other context that can improve the approach.

  If the owner is active there, it also provides another legitimate way to make contact.

• Industry events

  For a small number of priority targets, it can be worth understanding where the owner actually spends time.

  Trade shows, conferences, association meetings, and other industry events create opportunities to meet people in a more natural setting.

  Again, this is not a scalable tactic for every company on a list. It does not need to be.

7. Think in Touchpoints, Not Emails

One unanswered email tells you very little.

The message may have gone to spam. The owner may have been traveling. It may have arrived during the company’s busiest week. You may have the wrong email address. The owner may have read it, intended to respond, and forgotten.

A good sourcing process creates several reasonable opportunities for the owner to engage. That might look something like:

1. Email
2. →
3. Call
4. →
5. Follow-Up Email
6. →
7. Call
8. →
9. Letter
10. →
11. Later Follow-Up

Illustrative only. It does not need to follow that exact sequence.

The right cadence depends on the owner, industry, relationship, and any feedback you receive.

The important distinction is between persistence and pressure.

Persistence means giving an owner reasonable opportunities to see the inquiry and decide whether they want to engage. If an owner clearly says they are not interested and do not want further contact, respect that.

8. Get Creative With the Companies You Really Want

If a company is one of the best potential acquisitions in your entire search, another automated email probably should not be the full extent of your effort.

Look for a legitimate way in.

• Is the owner attending an industry conference?
• Does someone in your network know the company’s accountant, attorney, lender, supplier, or another business owner in the same market?
• Has the owner spoken on a podcast or industry panel?
• Is the company active in a trade association?
• Is there something happening in the industry that gives you a natural reason to speak?
• Could you establish a relationship before discussing a transaction?

There is no universal playbook here, and that is partly the point. Creative sourcing is situational.

As the quality of the target increases, the sourcing process should become more thoughtful and more personal.

9. Timing Matters More Than Most Buyers Expect

A good company does not suddenly become a good acquisition target the day its owner decides to sell.

What changes is the owner’s willingness to have the conversation.

That willingness can change for all kinds of reasons: retirement, succession, family circumstances, a desire for liquidity, management changes, growth needs, competitive pressure, industry consolidation, or simply a change in personal priorities.

This is why an owner saying, “Not now, but maybe in a few years,” can be useful.

If the business is an exceptional fit, record the conversation and stay in touch appropriately.

A buyer who starts building relationships today can have a very different opportunity set several years from now than a buyer who begins searching only when they are ready to close a deal.

10. Don’t Ask “Are You Ready to Sell?” Every Six Months

Long-term follow-up should feel like relationship management, not a recurring sales sequence.

If an owner tells you the timing is not right, try to understand why. Then keep that context.

When you reconnect, there may be a legitimate reason to do so: something changed in the industry, the business reached a milestone, you are going to be in the area, or enough time has passed that a check-in makes sense.

Sometimes the first conversation ends with:

“We’re not considering anything today, but let’s stay in touch.”

For a great business, that can be a perfectly good outcome.

11. A Response Is Not Yet an Acquisition Opportunity

Generating owner responses can feel like progress, but response rate alone is a poor way to judge a sourcing program.

The real question is whether you are creating conversations with companies you would actually want to buy.

Once an owner is willing to speak, the first conversation can help establish:

• Company history
• Ownership
• Products and services
• Customers and end markets
• Revenue model
• Approximate size
• Growth
• Management team
• Owner involvement
• Reason for considering a transaction
• Timing
• Desired role after a transaction
• General transaction expectations

Detailed financial diligence can come later. At this stage, you are trying to answer a simpler question:

Is there enough alignment for both sides to keep spending time on this?

12. Build a System That Gets Better Over Time

Acquisition sourcing becomes much more valuable when you retain what you learn.

At a minimum, you should be able to answer:

• Which businesses have we identified?
• Which ones fit the thesis best?
• Who owns them?
• Do we know anyone connected to the owner?
• Who have we contacted?
• When did we contact them?
• How did we reach out?
• Who responded?
• What did they tell us?
• What is the next step?
• When should we follow up?
• Which relationships should we nurture?
• Which opportunities are progressing?

A CRM or well-designed database can manage this. The specific software matters less than maintaining a reliable history.

Without that history, it is surprisingly easy to spend months sourcing and then repeatedly start from zero.

13. Don’t Ignore Businesses That Are Already for Sale

There is sometimes a tendency to treat “proprietary” or “off-market” as synonymous with “better.”

It isn’t.

A great company does not become less attractive because an M&A firm introduced it.

Buyers should build relationships with business brokers, M&A firms, investment banks, accountants, attorneys, commercial and SBA lenders, wealth managers, industry executives, investors, and other buyers and operators.

They should also monitor relevant marketplaces and marketed opportunities.

The strongest acquisition pipeline may ultimately come from several directions at once:

1. Personal Network
2. +
3. Direct Owner Outreach
4. +
5. Intermediaries
6. +
7. Marketed Opportunities
8. +
9. Referrals
10. +
11. Long-Term Relationships

The goal is to expand the universe of good opportunities, not to win an award for finding every deal off-market.

Hypothetical example

Pest Control Acquisition Search

Consider a hypothetical buyer looking for an independently owned pest control company with $2 million to $10 million of revenue within 100 miles of New York City.

This is an illustrative example, not an actual SMB Exit Partners engagement.

1. Define

   The search starts by defining what matters beyond revenue and geography. Perhaps the buyer wants an established company with recurring customer relationships, a strong local reputation, and a service footprint that makes geographic sense.

2. Map

   Potential targets could be identified through company websites, map results, licensing information, industry directories, trade associations, LinkedIn, referrals, and other public sources.

3. Screen

   The initial universe can then be screened for factors such as geography, services offered, residential versus commercial exposure, number of locations, apparent scale, ownership, years in business, and whether the company appears to be independently owned.

4. Tier

   The strongest apparent fits move into the highest-priority tier.

5. Connect

   Before contacting those owners cold, the buyer checks the network. Does an accountant know the owner? An attorney? A lender? A supplier? Another pest control operator? A local business owner? A mutual professional connection?

6. Approach

   Where no credible introduction exists, direct outreach begins. That may combine phone calls, personalized email, professional networks, and, for the right company, a letter.

7. Follow Up

   Owners who do not respond receive reasonable follow-up.

8. Qualify

   Owners who express interest move into qualification.

9. Nurture

   And an owner who says, “I’m not ready, but maybe in two years,” does not disappear into an old spreadsheet. If the company is attractive enough, the relationship is maintained.

Over time, the output becomes much more than a list of pest control companies.

It becomes a pipeline of acquisition relationships.

Common Acquisition Sourcing Mistakes

• Searching too broadly. If almost every business qualifies, the thesis is probably not specific enough.
• Prioritizing list size over quality. More names do not automatically create better acquisition opportunities.
• Treating every company the same. Exceptional targets deserve additional research and effort.
• Going cold before checking the network. For a high-priority business, first see whether a credible introduction is available.
• Relying only on email. Owners respond differently. Use the channels that make sense.
• Sending generic outreach. If the message looks mass-produced, owners have little reason to treat it as personal.
• Giving up after one attempt. No response is not necessarily a rejection.
• Following up too aggressively. Persistence is useful. Ignoring an owner’s wishes is not.
• Optimizing for response rate. Ten conversations with businesses you would never buy are less useful than one serious conversation with an exceptional target.
• Failing to keep good records. Today’s “not yet” can become tomorrow’s acquisition opportunity.
• Ignoring intermediated deals. Off-market does not automatically mean better.
• Waiting for the perfect business to be listed. If your criteria are specific, some of the best-fitting companies may never appear in the places you are watching.

Should You Outsource Acquisition Sourcing?

It depends on the buyer.

If you have the time, team, data, relationships, outreach infrastructure, and discipline to run the process consistently, sourcing can absolutely be handled internally.

Outside support can make sense when the bottleneck is research, owner identification, outreach, follow-up, qualification, or simply the amount of time required to do all of those things well.

If you are evaluating an acquisition sourcing firm, ask practical questions:

• Who builds the target list?
• How are businesses researched?
• How do you determine who owns them?
• Do you prioritize targets or treat every company the same?
• Do you look for warm introductions?
• Who actually contacts the owners?
• Do you call, or is the process primarily automated email?
• How personalized is the outreach?
• Do you use letters or other channels where appropriate?
• How is follow-up handled?
• What counts as a qualified opportunity?
• How are companies the buyer already knows handled?
• What happens after an owner expresses interest?

A database can give you names.

A sourcing process should help turn the right names into conversations.

How SMB Exit Partners Helps Buyers Source Acquisition Targets

SMB Exit Partners was built in part from experience searching for a small business to acquire.

That experience reinforced something that is easy to underestimate before running a search:

Finding companies and finding acquisition opportunities are two very different things.

A company can look perfect in a database and go nowhere. An owner who has no interest today may become a serious conversation later. A warm introduction can completely change the context of an approach. And good follow-up can matter as much as the first message.

That perspective shapes our approach to buy-side sourcing.

For qualified buyers with a defined acquisition thesis, SMB Exit Partners can help build the target universe, research companies and ownership, prioritize targets, look for paths into high-priority businesses, approach owners directly, manage follow-up, qualify initial interest, and make introductions when there appears to be a fit.

When an opportunity progresses, we can also remain involved as the buyer evaluates and works toward a potential transaction. Diligence is often where a signed deal is won or lost, as we discuss in what Stanford’s 2026 Search Fund Study means for owners and buyers, and customer concentration is one of the issues that surfaces most often.

We are not trying to produce the largest possible list.

We are trying to create more conversations with owners of businesses worth buying.

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