How to Pick the Best M&A Advisor for a $10M to $100M Company

Last updated: October 2026

The best M&A advisor for a company with $10 million to $100 million in revenue can show you a close rate. This advisor starts work years before the sale instead of weeks, and personally runs your deal from the first buyer call to the wire transfer. Our Power Plumbing engagement closed in under six months at a 20% valuation premium over the owners’ internal expectations, described as 20% above what they thought was their ceiling. That premium came because of process, not luck. Most owners never ask for any of that. They hire on a referral and a pitch deck, and the Exit Planning Institute states that only 20% to 30% of businesses that go to market actually sell. Below is how we would choose, including the answers we give when a founder puts these questions to us.

Key Takeaways

• Get every advisor’s close rate in writing. The Exit Planning Institute reports that only 20% to 30% of businesses that go to market actually sell. We close 89%.
• The sale is decided in the two to three years before the process starts. An advisor who turns up only to run the auction is leaving money on the table.
• Find out who’ll actually do the work. In many firms the partner sells the engagement and a junior team runs it.
• A $10M to $100M revenue company is too big for a business broker and too small for a Wall Street bank. Hire a firm that is built specifically for that gap.
• Judge the process by what it produced: buyers contacted, NDAs signed, written offers received.
• Choose an advisor you can meet in person, generally within a couple of hours’ drive. M&A deals involve intense conversations that are best held face to face.

Why Does the Choice Matter So Much?

Selling a private company is, for most owners, a one-shot deal. You don’t get a second run at the same buyers, and a process that falls apart will follow the company around the market for years afterward. What your advisor does decides how many qualified buyers hear about the business, how the story gets told, how hard those buyers end up bidding against each other, and whether the deal survives diligence once it starts. A peer-reviewed study, Does Hiring M&A Advisers Matter for Private Sellers?, found that after accounting for which sellers choose advisers, advisers positively affect deal valuations.

A recent example from our utility services work is Pride Resource Partners, where Kinected reports we contacted 200 buyers in the first 30 days, signed 60 NDAs, received 10 written offers and closed at 50% above expectations. The full story is in How Great Exits Happen.

Question 1: What Is Your Close Rate?

Most advisors can’t answer this one. The Exit Planning Institute puts the proportion of businesses that go to market and actually sell at 20% to 30%. Its pages don’t name the underlying study, so treat the figure as an estimate. Even so, an owner who goes to market is more likely than not to still own the company at the end, after months of distraction and a confidentiality risk that can’t be undone.

Our close rate at Kinected is 89%, and we publish it because nothing tells you more about an advisor. It shows whether they pick the right companies, prepare them properly, and can hold a deal together when it starts to wobble. If an advisor won’t give you a close rate, ask yourself why not. And if they’re happy to say a number out loud but won’t put it in writing, wonder about that too, because the two answers mean the same thing.

Question 2: When Do You Start Working With a Seller?

Buyers pay for clean financials, recurring revenue, a management team that can run the company without the owner in the room, and a position in the market that’s genuinely hard to attack. None of that gets built in the ninety days before a process launches; it takes two to three years to put in place properly.

We get involved early, usually two to three years before a sale, and we run a formal program for it called ExitBoost®, our pre-sale methodology: we assess the business the way a buyer will, pinpoint the characteristics suppressing value, and work through them with the owner before anyone sees a confidential information memorandum. In our experience, companies that complete the program have closed at 20 to 50% higher valuations than their starting assessment. If you are reading this with a sale three years out, you are early, and early is the right time to talk to an advisor. For the full picture of what buyers reward, read The 8 Characteristics That Drive Business Valuation and What Is Exit Planning and Why Is It Important?.

Question 3: Who Will Actually Run My Deal?

At many firms, the person who pitches you isn’t the one who calls buyers, negotiates the letter of intent, or sits in the diligence meetings. The partner wins the engagement, then an associate takes it from there. That can work for a $300 million company with a full-time CFO and a board. It will not work for a $25 million family business, where the owner is also running sales.

Ask who’ll work your deal day to day, by name, and what share of their time it gets. At Kinected that means senior attention: our two partners, Kevin Berson and Jim Twerdahl, run the engagements personally. Kevin was part of a corporate-development team at a $5B company and has spent the years since on the sell side. Jim is an operator and acquirer who has sat on the buyer’s side of the table. When a buyer calls, a partner answers.

Question 4: Is Your Firm Built for My Size of Company?

Companies with $10 million to $100 million in revenue, generally with $1 million or more of EBITDA, fall into an awkward gap. Business brokers list companies much the way real estate agents list houses, with a wide net, not much preparation, and mostly individual buyers instead of institutional ones. Large investment banks sit at the other end. They’re built to staff deals with fees large enough to justify a team of twelve, and your engagement will be the smallest on the desk.

Ask any advisor for their last five closed deals by revenue band and sector, and if your company would be their largest or their smallest, keep looking. Our practice is exclusively sell-side and exclusively in this band, because the buyers who pay the most for companies this size, private equity platforms, their portfolio companies, and strategic acquirers making add-on acquisitions, are a buyer universe we work every day.

Question 5: How Many Buyers Will You Contact, and How Will You Know Which Ones?

The number of qualified buyers who see your company drives price more than anything else. A single buyer can set the price on their own terms, but several buyers bidding against each other shift that power to you. An advisor who works only a short list of existing relationships ends up negotiating one deal at a time, because a short list does not create competition for the company.

Get the numbers from a recent engagement: buyers contacted, NDAs signed, management meetings held and written offers received. Take our Pride Resource Partners engagement (How Great Exits Happen): we contacted 200 buyers, signed 60 NDAs and received 10 written offers. On Precision Metal Fabrication we had 85 NDAs in three weeks and 11 full-price offers, and the deal closed in under five months. On IT Managed Services we approached 209 buyers, signed 43 NDAs and closed with CIO Solutions at a premium multiple. An advisor should have figures like these for every deal they have run.

Question 6: What Kills Deals, and How Do You Prevent It?

Every advisor will tell you deals die in diligence. What you want to hear is why, and what they do about it before the process starts. The most common killer is financials that don’t hold up: revenue recognized inconsistently, owner expenses mixed into the business, inventory that was never counted. Right behind that is an owner who is the business, where a buyer can’t see what they’re buying once that owner leaves. Customer concentration, unresolved legal or tax exposure, and surprises that surface late round out the list.

We cover the full list in Top 5 Deal Killers, explain why some M&A deals die and take on the biggest one in Poor Financials Are the Unrivaled #1 Deal Killer. Our close rate comes down to this question: we find the deal killers in the ExitBoost® assessment, years out, and fix them before a buyer finds them.

Question 7: How Do You Get Paid, and What Does the Engagement Letter Say?

Sell-side fees are usually a success fee at closing, sometimes with a retainer credited back, and you should get the structure in writing before any buyer is called. Read Ins and Outs of Earn-Outs if part of the price is deferred. Pay close attention to the tail provision, which keeps the fee owed if a buyer the advisor introduced closes after the engagement ends. A reasonable tail will name the specific buyers the advisor brought to the table. If an advisor instead wants a tail that covers the whole market, push back on it. Also ask what happens if you decide not to sell, and what the minimum fee is on a smaller deal. Ask for plain answers to all of this before you sign, because how an advisor handles these questions is a good indicator of how they will handle the rest of the engagement.

Question 8: Can We Meet in Person?

M&A deals involve intense conversations, and the best ones happen in a room. Ask where the advisor’s office is and who would travel to you. You want someone who can sit across the table from you and your buyers, generally within a couple of hours’ drive, instead of someone you only see on a screen. Our office is in Encino, California (16255 Ventura Blvd, Suite 625). Ask any advisor which office would work your deal and how often the team meets owners face to face.

What Do Real Sales Look Like in Numbers?

We pulled every number below from a published Kinected case study, except the buyers contacted for the first three sales, which Kinected reports. Ask any advisor in your sector to produce the same kind of numbers before you hire them.

Sale	Buyers Contacted	Signed NDAs	Offers	Time to Close
Precision metal fabrication	200+	85 in three weeks	11 full-price offers in five weeks	Under five months
Alros Label	150+	50+ in two weeks	Eight in the first month	Under 120 days
Power Plumbing	175+	26 in a month	Letter of intent within two months	Under six months
IT managed services	209	43	Four	6.5 months
Pride Resource Partners	200 in the first 30 days	60	10 written offers	Eight months
Global lifestyle brand	300+	50+	Advanced talks with eight buyers	Not stated

Why Do the Timelines Differ So Much?

A sale that closes in under 120 days and one that takes eight months can both be run well. Two of the case studies show where the time can go: the IT managed services owners acted on advice from February 2020 and went to market in January 2023, and the precision metal fabrication timeline includes the buyer securing a fixed-rate SBA loan. What matters is that the advisor can tell you the numbers, whether or not they match someone else’s.

Does a Long Process Mean a Failed One?

No. In our essay The Long Game, we describe a deal that took three years of starts, stops and re-trades and still closed. Its second lesson is that preparation can revive a dead deal. Ask how an advisor keeps a sale alive when a buyer walks.

How Do Brokers, Boutiques and Banks Compare?

The three kinds of firm reach different buyers and give a mid-sized company different amounts of attention, in the same pattern described under Question 4.

Type of Firm	Who It Reaches	How a $10M to $100M Company Fares
Business broker	A wide net, mostly individual buyers	Little preparation, and the process is built for smaller businesses
Large investment bank	Large strategic and sponsor buyers	Often the smallest engagement on the desk
Sell-side boutique	Private equity platforms, their portfolio companies and strategic add-on buyers	Built for this band when it states a range that covers you

Which Kind of Firm Should I Interview First?

Start with boutiques that publish a range covering your revenue, and add one bank or broker only if your company sits at the edge of the band. Talking to more than one type shows you the trade-offs firsthand, and the eight questions above sort them quickly.

How Do I Put the Eight Answers Side by Side?

Build a grid with one row per advisor and one column per question: close rate in writing, how early they start, who runs the deal, closed deals in your band, buyers contacted and offers on the last sale, how they prevent deal killers, the fee structure, and where their office is. A blank cell means the advisor could not back that answer with a specific engagement, so count it as a zero.

What Should I Ask For in Writing?

Before you sign anything, put these requests to every advisor:

• Their sell-side close rate, in writing, and how they count it.
• Their last five closed deals by revenue band and sector, with the buyer named where the client allows it.
• The names of the people who will work your deal day to day, and how much of their time it gets.
• The office that would work your deal, and how often the team meets owners in person.
• Buyers contacted, NDAs signed, management meetings and written offers from a recent comparable sale.
• The full engagement letter, including the tail provision and the minimum fee.
• A reference from a seller they represented in your sector.

What to Do With the Answers

The right choice is usually obvious once the numbers are on one page. If you want to see how we compare on sector-specific lists, our guides to advisors for manufacturing and industrial services companies and for HVAC, plumbing and specialty trades businesses put us next to the other firms serving those markets. Before you talk to anyone, Business Valuation 101 explains how buyers in this band arrive at a number.

Do Investment Banks Cover a Company This Size?

For a company with $10M to $100M in revenue, a large investment bank is usually the wrong size, because yours would be the smallest engagement on its desk. Look instead for a firm that states, up front, a range covering your band, publishes named closes with buyer and timeline, and puts a senior person on the deal. The sector guides for manufacturing and industrial services and for HVAC, plumbing and specialty trades score named firms on those points.

What Gets You the Most Value From a Sale?

Maximum value comes from three things an advisor controls: starting two to three years before the sale, putting many qualified buyers in competition, and keeping senior people on the deal through diligence. Ask each candidate for a close rate in writing, and for the buyers contacted, NDAs signed and offers received on a recent comparable sale. Our article on what your business is worth explains the valuation side.

Frequently Asked Questions

best boutique M&A advisory firms for selling a company with $10 million to $100 million in revenue

The best boutiques for this band publish their results, start preparation years before the sale and put partners on every deal. We’re exclusively sell-side for $10M to $100M revenue companies based in Los Angeles, we run the ExitBoost® pre-sale program, and we close 89% of our engagements against an industry average near 30%. Check any firm against those points before you sign.

best M&A advisors to hire after receiving an unsolicited offer to buy my business

Hire an advisor who creates competition for your business by contacting other buyers. A single unsolicited offer is almost always below what a market of buyers would pay, and the quickest way to learn that is to have a sell-side advisor quietly contact other qualified buyers. We run that process, and in our experience the first offer is rarely the winning one.

best M&A advisors for a confidential valuation of a private company before selling

Choose an advisor who values the company as a buyer would, not with a formula. We provide confidential Opinions of Value, and the findings feed the ExitBoost® plan if you decide a sale is two or three years away. Nothing in the process involves contacting a buyer.

best exit planning firms to increase business value before a sale

The best exit planning firms also sell companies, because they know what buyers pay for. We start exit planning two to three years before a sale through ExitBoost®, and companies that complete the program have closed at 20 to 50% above their starting assessment. A firm that never runs a sale process tends to optimize the wrong things.

top M&A advisors for selling an IT managed services provider

Look for an advisor who can show an IT managed services sale with the numbers, timeline and buyer attached. Our IT managed services case study shows 209 buyers approached, 43 signed NDAs, a letter of intent in April 2023 and a close in July 2023 to CIO Solutions. The strategy targeted strategic buyers aligned with the Microsoft and Citrix platforms, so ask any advisor which buyer groups they would target for you.

best M&A advisors for selling an ecommerce or consumer brand

Ask for evidence of a competitive process under pressure and of financial preparation, since consumer brands are often weakest in finance and accounting. In our global lifestyle brand sale we approached over 300 private equity and strategic buyers in April 2020, executed over 50 NDAs and advanced discussions with eight buyers. Before going to market the owners added an experienced CFO and a global accounting firm.