Getting the Information You Need So you’ve reached out to a business owner and they’ve indicated that they are interested in having a discussion about an acquisition. What now? What kinds of questions can you ask this person? The answer depends somewhat on who is making the calls. As a third-party professional, when we connect with the business owner, we ask a litany of questions regarding How to Conduct a Successful Acquisition Search 9 company operations, business strategy, growth opportunities and financial data. More than 90% of the time they are willing to answer our questions. Very rarely do we ever get pushback or a request for a confidentiality agreement. One of our Directors at Third Coast, Matt Clarke, was a Corporate Development Director prior to joining the firm. In his experience, he got significantly more pushback when asking detailed and somewhat sensitive questions. Very understandably, when smaller companies are approached by a larger company in or around their industry, they are a bit guarded with the information they’re willing to share. Interestingly, after Matt joined Third Coast Capital Advisors, he found that business owners were willing to share much more information. We chalk this up to a third-party professional buffer zone. This again speaks to some of the value that comes from using a third-party approach in Strategic Acquisition Search. Since we represent the buyer, we ask for as much as possible and hope that the target is comfortable sharing. As for information gathering on the first call, we ask a variety of general questions that provide detail around company history, operations, products/end markets, customers, growth opportunities, management, financial performance and shareholder objectives. In addition, we also ask questions that are customized to their industry and to the specific needs of our clients.