A searcher I know paid someone to call business owners for him.
80 calls.
Meetings booked: zero.
Then he picked up the phone himself.
20 calls. 2 meetings.
0 out of 80 is 0%. 2 out of 20 is 10%.
A quarter of the calls.
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Why the professional cold caller lost
The person he hired was trained to sell.
Get past whoever answers. Pitch. Book the slot.
But a call to an owner isn't a sale. You're not offering them anything. You're asking a stranger about the thing they've spent half their life building.
Nobody answers that for a script.
Last issue I asked: if you owned a small business and a stranger wrote asking to buy it, would you reply?
The one owner who answered said no. He'd sell an investor a slice. Never the whole business.
That's most owners, most days.
Good outreach doesn't change that answer. It makes you the person they remember on the day it changes.
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What actually works
From my own search, and the searchers I talk to:
1. Start by making the calls yourself
You'll learn the difference between "not interested" and "not yet." A script can't hear it.
Hand it off later, once you know what to put in the script.
2. Ask, don't pitch.
Most first emails to owners sound like this:
"We're an investment firm looking to acquire businesses in your sector."
That's a pitch. It gets deleted.
Ask a question instead:
"Have you thought about what happens to the business when you step back?"
And give them an easy way out:
"If the answer's no, just say no and I won't write again."
A no is still a reply. And a no today is a name on your list for next year.
3. They'll look you up before they answer.
Most owners never reply. They still check your website and your LinkedIn.
If your email says "I only buy businesses like yours" and your website says "industry agnostic," you've lost them.
Same words everywhere. No private-equity language.
4. Don't send cold email from your main address.
Buy three or four lookalike domains. Warm each one up for one to two weeks before you send anything. Check them every two weeks, and swap out any that get flagged.
Burn a spare domain, not your name.
5. Judge your worst week, not your best.
Outreach is three jobs: building the list, the first contact, and the follow-up that turns into a relationship.
Fix one a week. Not all three at once.
One big week doesn't make a search. A steady one does.
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Where that leaves me
I'm not doing any of this. Not yet.
Warm introductions only, through people the owners already know. It's slower. I picked it because I’m exploring a new market I have very little experience in.
Five seller calls in a month is the target.
So far: 0 of 5
– Dev
P.S. - The pro made 80 calls. The buyer made 20.
Owners can tell the difference.
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Selling a business? [email protected] - tell me what it does and what it makes.
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