The first serious call between an SME owner and a professional buyer is rarely about closing a deal. It’s about signal.
In 45–60 minutes, the buyer forms an initial view: is this a business worth time, and is this an owner worth engaging with?
As a lead buyer, I treat that first conversation as a screen — not only of the company, but of expectations, realism and readiness. Well-prepared owners don’t try to “sell”. They help the process move forward. Poorly prepared ones often shut it down without realising it.
This article explains how advisors and brokers can prepare an owner for that first call so it feels structured, calm and credible — rather than emotional, chaotic or defensive.
From an owner’s perspective, the first call often feels informal: “Let’s just talk and see if there’s interest.”
From a professional buyer’s perspective, it’s anything but casual.
That first conversation answers three core questions:
Is the business broadly within scope?
Are the owner’s expectations grounded in reality?
Does this look like a process we can move through predictably?
If the answer to any of these is clearly “no”, many buyers won’t argue. They’ll simply disengage politely.
The purpose of preparation is not to script the owner. It’s to avoid unforced errors that make a buyer lose confidence early.
Advisors often focus on documents, teasers and numbers. That matters. But before the first serious buyer call, the human preparation is just as important.
Your role is to help the owner:
understand what the call is for (and what it is not);
know which topics to handle confidently, and which to park;
stay aligned with the documents already shared;
avoid emotional promises or defensive reactions.
Think of it as a mini-rehearsal, not a pitch training.
The first thing to clarify with the owner is the frame.
It is not a valuation negotiation.
It is not the moment to justify a “dream price”.
It is not the place to reveal every detail of the business.
It is not a commitment from either side.
Owners who treat it as a price battle usually raise red flags immediately.
A mutual check of seriousness and fit.
A chance to show that the business is understandable and coherent.
A test of whether the owner can engage calmly in a structured process.
Once the owner understands this, the tone of the call usually improves on its own.
Before the call, ask the owner to prepare a two-minute explanation of the business — no slides, no jargon.
The description should answer three basic questions:
What do we do?
(In plain language, not industry buzzwords.)
For whom?
(Type of customers, B2B/B2C, concentration if relevant.)
How do we make money?
(Main revenue drivers, not accounting detail.)
This sounds obvious, but many owners drift into history, anecdotes or side projects. A professional buyer listens for clarity, not storytelling.
If the owner cannot explain the business simply, it raises doubts about how transferable it really is.
The second preparation block is numbers. Not a model. Just the basics.
The owner should be comfortable stating, without hesitation:
approximate revenue range;
approximate EBITDA range;
margin level;
existence of bank debt or leasing (high-level);
whether results are stable, growing or volatile.
Two important rules to reinforce:
No embellishment.
Over-optimistic phrasing (“next year will be much better”) weakens trust.
No contradictions.
What the owner says must align with the teaser and financials already shared.
If documents say €1.2m EBITDA and the owner casually says “around €2m”, the buyer will notice immediately.
Admitting uncertainty is fine. Sounding inconsistent is not.
Buyers always listen closely to why the owner is considering a transaction.
Help the owner articulate this in one or two sentences:
succession / retirement timing;
desire to de-risk personal wealth;
lack of internal successor;
need for a partner to take the business further.
What matters is not the reason itself, but how it is expressed.
Red flags include:
blaming everyone else (market, staff, family);
suggesting urgency without explanation;
implying that selling is a favour to the buyer.
A clear, calm motive signals maturity and reduces perceived risk.
One of the fastest ways to lose a buyer is a mismatch between what is said and what is written.
Before the call, review with the owner:
teaser highlights;
basic financial figures;
ownership structure;
any known weaknesses already visible in the numbers.
If there are areas where data is incomplete or sensitive (for example, detailed customer lists or specific employee names), agree on how to pause properly.
Good answers sound like:
“We’ve looked at this internally, but I’d prefer to confirm the numbers before commenting.”
“That’s something we can share in the next step, once we see mutual interest.”
What matters is that the pause feels intentional, not evasive.
Every business has topics that are uncomfortable or premature for a first call.
Beforehand, help the owner identify:
questions they should not answer in detail yet;
topics that require preparation or legal review;
areas where speculation would be dangerous.
Examples:
exact customer-level profitability;
individual employee compensation;
unresolved tax or legal topics.
The goal is not secrecy. It’s sequencing. Professional buyers respect boundaries when they are communicated calmly.
From my side of the table, the owners who leave the best first impression are not those with perfect answers.
They are the ones who:
speak clearly and consistently;
understand their own numbers at a high level;
don’t oversell or defend;
acknowledge uncertainty without panic;
show willingness to move through a structured process.
That signals that later stages — diligence, negotiation, closing — are likely to be manageable.
A well-prepared first call usually ends with:
clarity on next steps;
a short list of follow-up questions;
alignment on whether it makes sense to continue.
A poorly prepared one often ends politely — and then goes nowhere.
For advisors and brokers, the difference is rarely intelligence or valuation. It’s preparation discipline.
If you regularly bring owners into first conversations with professional buyers, it’s worth treating preparation as a checklist, not an afterthought. A short rehearsal — covering expectations, core numbers and sensitive areas — can change the entire trajectory of a process.
If you’d like more practical notes on how buy-side conversations actually work in SME transactions, you can subscribe to the weekly field notes on my site — short, experience-based insights focused on process, not theory.