How Acquiring Minds Guests Actually Found Their Deals
We classified every Acquiring Minds deal by sourcing channel: broker, BizBuySell, proprietary outreach, referral, family. The patterns are more interesting than you'd think.
Overview
Every acquisition entrepreneur obsesses over the same question: where do I find a deal? The best answer is usually "from someone you already know," but that doesn’t help if you don’t already know anybody.
We classified every Acquiring Minds guest by how they sourced their deal. Below is the breakdown: broker deals, BizBuySell deals, off-market proprietary deals, referrals, direct outreach, and family transitions. Each has a different profile — not just in deal size, but in which lender ends up financing them.
Deal Sourcing Breakdown
Count, percentage, median deal size, SBA verification rate, and top lender per source.
| Source | Deals↓ | % of Total | Median Deal | SBA Verified | Top Lender |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unspecified | 174 | 33.3% | $2.0M | 60.9% | JPMorgan Chase Bank |
| Business Broker | 109 | 20.8% | $1.6M | 68.8% | Wells Fargo Bank |
| BizBuySell | 78 | 14.9% | $1.4M | 55.1% | Wells Fargo Bank |
| Proprietary / Off-Market | 52 | 9.9% | $5.4M | 69.2% | The Huntington National Bank |
| Other | 50 | 9.6% | $2.0M | 64.0% | Wells Fargo Bank |
| Referral / Network | 30 | 5.7% | $2.2M | 83.3% | The Huntington National Bank |
| Direct Outreach | 26 | 5.0% | $846K | 57.7% | The Huntington National Bank |
| Family | 4 | 0.8% | $2.0M | 75.0% | JPMorgan Chase Bank |
See which lenders offer better pricing
LenderHawk shows real spreads from 2,500+ lenders, based on real SBA lending data.
Search Lenders →Deal Sourcing Distribution
The broker + BizBuySell + proprietary channels account for more than half of the disclosed deals.
What the Data Shows
Proprietary deals are bigger. Off-market deals sourced through direct outreach or network relationships tend to be significantly larger than broker-listed deals. The median proprietary deal is more than 3x the median BizBuySell deal. That’s because brokers focus on small listings where their 10-15% fee is still manageable; proprietary outreach targets larger businesses where the relationship matters more than the listing.
Broker-sourced deals have high SBA verification rates. When a deal goes through a broker, both the buyer and seller are more formal about paperwork, which means more complete SBA filings. Referral and family deals often have lower match rates — they happen quickly, sometimes informally, and occasionally with non-SBA financing.
Banks specialize by sourcing channel. Wells Fargo shows up disproportionately on broker-sourced deals. Huntington and Byline appear more often on proprietary deals. This isn’t random. Specialty acquisition banks build broker relationships differently from relationship banks that chase bigger, off-market opportunities.
Find the Right Lender for Your Source
Different lenders specialize in different sourcing channels. Compare the banks that are most active for your deal type.
See Top Acquisition Lenders →Data & Methodology
Source: real SBA lending data, publicly available from sba.gov. Over 1,000,000+ loan approvals analyzed.
Spread methodology: Spread over Prime Rate, calculated from loan approval data. Deal-count-weighted averages are used for lender rankings. This is one component of total cost — fees, terms, and prepayment penalties also matter.
Minimum threshold: Lenders must have at least 10 qualifying deals to appear in named rankings.
Limitations: Data reflects loan approvals, not final terms. Some loans may have been modified after approval. Spread estimates are based on available fields and may not capture all fee structures.
See our full methodology for details.
Frequently Asked Questions
What counts as "proprietary" vs "direct outreach"?
Proprietary means the seller wasn't actively listing the business — the buyer found them through networking, off-market relationships, or industry contacts. Direct outreach is more specifically a cold email/letter/call campaign. Both are off-market, but proprietary usually implies an existing warm relationship.
Why is ~33% of the data "unspecified"?
Some episodes don't talk about the sourcing channel explicitly. The guest might mention their deal size and lender but skip how they found the business. We don't guess — if it's not in the episode, we mark it unspecified.