By Brett Kaufman. 8 years using relationships to build sales pipelines, from political fundraising to a 7 figure business to running matchmaking for two communities. Over 1,000 introductions facilitated.

The people who could send you a deal this year are already in your contact list. The real question is how many of them have heard from you in the last 90 days.

Picture them. The broker who covered the roll up in your sector two years ago. The M&A attorney who called when her client decided not to sell and said to keep in touch. The CPA with five business owner clients in your target vertical. The family office principal who mentioned he sees direct deal flow.

Forty people. Maybe more. All capable of sending you an off market opportunity this year. All sitting in a contact list sorted alphabetically.

And on any given morning, at least one of them has a reason to hear from you today. A broker just posted a new mandate in your sector. A banker changed firms. A CPA mentioned a client who is starting to think about an exit. Ten minutes this morning is the difference between being the buyer who gets that call this week and the buyer who hears about it after the LOI is signed.

The map you have not drawn

Most operators think of their deal flow network as the brokers they email when they are actively searching. Two or three firms. The ones who come to mind.

That is not the full map.

The full map includes everyone in your phone who has ever sourced, facilitated, advised on, or been adjacent to a deal in your space. That is a different list than the two brokers you email.

It includes:

Brokers covering your target sectors and geographies. M&A bankers who worked on your last raise or an acquisition in your space. Deal lawyers who know which clients are thinking about exits. CPAs who have business owner clients at the stage you buy. Family office principals who co invest or look at direct deals. Operators who have sold and stay connected to the market. Former clients who have referred deals. Referral partners in adjacent industries.

Write that list out and you will likely land somewhere around 40. Then ask how many of them you are touching often enough to stay on their short list. For most people the honest answer is a handful.

The illustrative math

This is illustrative, not a guarantee. But it makes the problem concrete.

Assume 40 people in your contact list each see one relevant off market opportunity per year. Some will see more, some fewer. One is a simple round number.

If you are top of mind with all 40, you could hear about 40 opportunities before they go wide. Some you will pass on. Some will not fit. But you are in the conversation.

Go silent with half of them for a 90 day stretch while you are running a deal. Now you could be hearing about 20. Go silent with 30 of them. You are down to 10.

The opportunities you miss do not show up anywhere. There is no inbox of missed deals. No report showing the off market transactions that closed in your sector while you were heads down. The market cleared without you and the only signal is silence.

That silence is the most expensive thing in your pipeline.

The list you cannot see

Here is what makes this hard to solve with discipline alone.

You know the two brokers you email. You reach out to them when you are searching. But the 40 person map is not a list you hold in your head. It is buried in a contact list that tells you nothing about who could send a deal.

Under B you have the broker who could send you something this month and three people from a conference who never will. They look identical in the list. The contact list does not put her first. It does not flag that she has not heard from you in 80 days. It does not tell you she just posted about a closed deal in your sector and that is your reason to reach out today.

I see this in my own work. I have made over 1,000 introductions running matchmaking for two communities, and the hard part was never knowing people. It was knowing who to reach today, and why. That is the job your contact list cannot do.

What a note actually needs to do

Most attempts to reconnect fail because they are generic. “Checking in. Hope you’re well. Let me know if anything comes across your desk.”

An intermediary gets dozens of those. They delete them.

A note that keeps you on the short list is short and specific. It references something real in their world. It signals that you are paying attention without asking for anything.

The broker who just closed a deal in your sector wants to know you noticed. The M&A attorney who spoke on a panel wants to know you caught it. The CPA who moved to a new firm wants to be congratulated, not solicited.

Two sentences. Specific to something that happened in their world in the last two weeks. No ask. That is the note.

The problem is not knowing what to say. It is knowing when to say it and to whom. Forty relationships, tracked by hand, while running an acquisition, does not hold. The contacts go cold not because you do not care but because nothing keeps them visible.

Building recency across 40 relationships

The operators who keep getting proprietary deal flow have solved this with a system, not with discipline. Here is how I would want that system to work.

First, it knows which contacts are deal sources and which are not. Your dentist is not in the 40. Your sector banker is. The right people come first.

Second, it watches what those 40 people are doing. Closed deals, new mandates, firm changes, panel appearances, published articles. These are the reasons to reach out. A system that surfaces them means you always have a real reason, not a calendar reminder.

Third, it flags the silence before it costs you. You want to know at 45 days that a high value intermediary has not heard from you, not at 90. At 90, whatever was moving is already in someone else’s hands.

That is why I built FRONT OF MIND. It opens on your 10 minutes for today. Each person has one line saying why today: they posted, their company was in the news, a follow up is due, a pipeline deal has been quiet 7 days, or they are going cold. Posts only show if they are confirmed to belong to that person.

Every draft is written like a text, 40 words max. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. Ask Liala out loud, “who do I know that is an M&A advisor,” and get the right people with why. The 40 people who could send you a deal this year stay warm, even when you are deep in a deal.

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Key Takeaways

• Write out everyone in your phone who could send an off market deal this year. Forty is a useful working number.
• The contact list does not put deal sources first or flag relationships going cold.
• Each relationship that goes silent removes one more potential source from your deal flow.
• The note that maintains recency is short, specific, and tied to something real in the other person’s world.
• A system that surfaces deal sources, tracks recency, and drafts the outreach is what turns a contact list into proprietary deal flow.

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FAQ

How many people in my contact list could realistically send me a deal? Count them yourself. For an active buyer, the list is usually brokers covering your target sectors, M&A bankers, deal lawyers, CPAs who work with business owners, family office principals, and operators who have sold and stay connected to the market. Forty is a useful working number. Most of those people have never been stayed in touch with on purpose.

Why do most operators fail to convert network relationships into deal flow? The contact list is not organized for deal origination. It sorts alphabetically. There is no system flagging which relationships are going cold, which intermediaries recently got a new mandate, or who has not heard from you in 90 days. The information exists but the mechanism to use it does not.

What is the right outreach cadence for intermediaries who could send deals? What I tell people: for your highest value intermediaries, a touch every 30 to 45 days is the floor. Under 60 days is strong. At 90 days you are close to dropping off the short list. Adjust for how active each intermediary is in your target sector.

How do I figure out which 40 contacts are worth maintaining for deal flow? Focus on brokers covering your sectors, M&A bankers and lawyers who work with companies in your size range, CPAs with business owner clients, family office principals active in direct deals, and operators who have sold and stay plugged in. Also include former clients and referral partners who know people selling. Most of these names are already in your phone.

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One of your 40 has a reason to hear from you today. Your contacts are encrypted, no one on our team looks at them, and you can export or delete anytime. Start free with your first 25 contacts and see who comes up first. For more on how silence costs you deals before you ever know there was one, see You Didn’t Lose That Deal on Price. You Lost It to Silence.

See how FRONT OF MIND surfaces your 40

See how it works