Protect your information, qualify the buyer, separate the price from what you’d actually keep, and set the next conversation on your terms before the buyer’s momentum narrows your options.
What the checklist covers
Free owner field guide
Inside the field guide
Use the checklist to record the facts you have and the questions you still need answered.
Immediate actions, a record of the approach, and clear limits on casual commitments or information sharing.
A four-level information ladder, release rules, confidentiality questions, and data-room discipline.
Questions about decision authority, capital, financing, transaction form, timing, and expected owner involvement.
A worksheet for headline value, debt, costs, tax assumptions, deferred value, likely usable capital, and personal requirements.
A time-boxed action sequence, professional roster, owner red lines, and agenda for the next buyer conversation.
How to use it
Preserve communications, stop informal sharing, acknowledge interest, and identify the right professional point of contact.
Understand the buyer, create the information ladder, and write down what the owner and family require.
Price, structure, what you’d keep, confidentiality, and the questions that need answers next.
Important boundary
This guide does not evaluate a buyer, interpret a document, value a company, estimate a definitive tax result, or recommend whether to proceed. Use qualified legal, tax, valuation, transaction, banking, insurance, and financial professionals for conclusions that depend on your facts.
Primary references