The seller has a broker. The broker gets paid when the deal closes. You should have someone in your corner who works for you and gets paid the same whether the deal happens or not.
Most first-time buyers walk into a deal focused on the equipment list, the asking price, and the building. Those things matter — but they're not the business.
What you're actually buying is cash flow: a set of customers who keep paying, employees who keep showing up, and systems that keep producing work whether the owner is in the building or not. The hard part of evaluating an acquisition isn't reading the spec sheet on a CNC mill. It's figuring out what's left when the seller walks away.
That's the work we do.
Every deal is different. The questions usually aren't.
SDE stress-testing — which add-backs are legitimate, which are wishful thinking, what the business actually earns under new ownership.
Who the top customers are, how long they've been around, what it would take for them to leave, and what that means for the price you should pay.
What happens to this business on the Monday morning after the seller is gone. The thinner the management layer, the more you need to plan for it.
Maintenance records, utilization, what's actually relevant to the work the shop does, and whether you're buying room to grow or a capacity ceiling.
Who the key employees are, what it would cost to lose them, and whether the team will stay through a transition.
Whether the property is part of the deal, how the lease lines up with your financing, and what hidden costs the building is carrying.
SBA 7(a) mechanics, seller financing terms, escrow and indemnification, working capital adjustments — the parts of the contract where buyers get hurt.
You walk away with a written analysis: what the numbers are really saying, the questions you should be asking the seller, and an honest recommendation on whether the deal makes sense at the price.
Most of the people involved in a small business sale — the broker, the lender, the seller's accountant — get paid more if the deal closes. That's not a knock on them — it's just the way it's always been done.
Gimbal isn't built that way. We're paid a flat fee by the buyer, scoped to the work, whether the deal closes, gets renegotiated, or falls apart. That's the point. It's hard to get an honest answer about whether to walk away from someone who has a reason to want you to stay.
Whether you find us yourself or a broker introduces us, we work for the buyer — not the broker. That distinction is the whole reason buyer-side advisory works.
The earlier the better, but there's no wrong time.
When a listing has caught your eye and you want a real read on the financials before you put a number on paper. This is when an outside set of eyes is worth the most — you haven't committed to anything, and walking away costs you nothing. A lot of times this starts as a fifteen-minute phone call after you've sent us a link to the listing. No charge to talk through whether it's worth digging into together.
When you've signed an LOI and the seller has handed over the financials. Three years of tax returns, P&Ls, equipment lists — this is where the deal gets real, and it's where most buyers are out of their depth.
When you're days from signing and you want a final read on the deal structure, the working capital adjustment, the lease, or the seller's transition commitment.
First-90-days operational support — getting the financials clean, understanding what you actually have on your hands, and building the plan for the year ahead. This is where a one-time engagement becomes an ongoing relationship.
Every engagement starts with a conversation. No fee, no commitment.
If we move forward, scope and fee are agreed up front in writing. Most pre-acquisition diligence engagements are flat-fee, completed in two to four weeks, and produce a written analysis you can use. For ongoing operational advisory after the close, we work on retainer.
We're paid by you, never by the broker, and never on contingency. That's the only structure that lets us tell you what we actually think.
Whether you've got a signed LOI or you're just looking at a listing on BizBuySell, the right time to talk is before you've committed. No fee for the first call.
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