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.

Between acquisitions, a holdco should keep three lists moving: the owners you are courting, the intermediaries who send you deals, and your capital. Spend the 90 days after a close touching every live owner once, sharpening your buy box with brokers, and getting at least one owner conversation to the valuation stage, so the next deal is already in motion before integration ends.

The third company closed five weeks ago. You have a new controller to hire, a payroll system to migrate, and a general manager who needs you on site two days a week. The first two companies still call you every time something breaks.

The owner pipeline you spent a year building has not heard from you since the LOI. Nobody told it to wait.

I have watched this happen to good operators. They meet the right people, have real conversations, then disappear for six months inside diligence or integration. By the time they resurface, someone else has the relationship. It is the reason I built FRONT OF MIND.

Your next close is already a year away

Run the math backward. In the IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse for Q2 2026, lower middle market deals averaged 11 to 12 months from engagement to close. Main Street deals averaged six to 10 months.

That means the company you close next fall is a conversation you need to be having this month. If you go dark for the 90 days of integration and then restart, you are not 90 days behind. You are 90 days behind plus the time it takes to get warm again with people who assumed you stopped buying.

The serial acquirers who close on a steady rhythm are not sourcing faster. They never stopped. That is the whole trick.

The thank you notes and the day 90 texts to the people on the deal you just closed are covered in who to thank after the close. This page is about everyone else: the pipeline for the deal after that.

The three lists that go cold during integration

The way I see it, every acquirer’s network sorts into the same three lists.

1. The owners you are courting. This is the list that matters most and decays fastest. The owner who said “talk to me after my daughter graduates.” The founder who liked your hold forever pitch but wanted to see you close one more. The competitor of your new company who called to ask who bought it. Each of these is a long courtship with a date attached, and integration buries the date. See the 18 month seller for the cadence on one owner. A holdco has dozens running at once.

2. The intermediaries. Brokers, bankers, the CPAs and estate attorneys who meet owners at the moment they start thinking about selling. They watched you close. Now they need to know you are still buying, and what.

3. Your capital. Investors, lenders, the family office that passed on this deal but asked to see the next one. Capital that hears from you only when you need a check is capital that takes longer to say yes.

Days 1 to 30: touch every live owner once

Here is how I would run the 90 days. Do not pitch. Do not mention the close unless it is relevant to them. Give each owner a reason that is about them, and keep it short.

Say your owner list has 60 names. Sixty touches in 30 days is two a day. That fits between integration calls.

Saw the county approved your expansion. Congrats. Still thinking about our conversation in the spring. Coffee when things calm down on your end?

For the owner who is a competitor or neighbor of the company you just bought, the close is the reason.

You probably heard we bought Miller Supply. Would value your read on the market sometime. No agenda, just respect what you have built across town.

Here is what I tell people: triage as you go. Some owners have moved: sold to someone else, retired, changed their mind. Mark them. The list you end the month with is smaller and truer than the one you started with.

Days 31 to 60: give brokers a sharper buy box

Integration teaches you things your buy box did not know. You now know what an add on to this company would look like: the service line you want, the geography that fits your routes, the size your team can absorb. That is new information, and new information is the best reason to call a broker.

Five weeks into the Miller deal. We now know exactly what fits next: industrial distribution, $1M to $3M EBITDA, within two hours of Dayton. Happy to move fast on the right one.

Brokers keep buyer lists, and the buyers who close and say specifically what they want stay near the top. Recency beats reputation, even for a buyer who just proved they can close. A holdco with three closes and 90 days of silence looks, to a busy broker, like a holdco that is full.

This is also the month to send capital a short update. Three lines: what closed, what you learned, what you are looking at next. Ask the family office that passed what they would need to see to come in on the next one.

Days 61 to 90: get one owner to the numbers

By day 90 you want at least one owner conversation past coffee: financials shared, a site visit booked, a valuation range discussed. Not an LOI. Just a deal that is genuinely moving, so that when integration settles you are not starting at zero.

Look at who replied in month one. The owners who wrote back with more than a thank you are the ones leaning in. Book them in person.

Good to catch up last month. I’ll be in Springfield on the 14th seeing our team. Would love to see the shop if you have an hour.

Your portfolio is a sourcing team

This is the edge I think holdcos underuse most. A first time buyer does not have it. Your general managers, sales teams, customers and suppliers talk to competitors, retiring owners and struggling peers every week. Most of them have no idea you want to hear about it.

Ask your operators one question a month: who in our market is tired, and who has no successor? Then do something with the answer within a week, or they stop telling you.

Tom mentioned Hal at Ridgeline is thinking about retiring. Any chance you could introduce us? Happy to buy you both lunch.

Why the plan breaks in week three

None of this is hard. I have never seen anyone fail at it for lack of knowing what to do. It breaks because the owner list lives in four places: a spreadsheet from your last search, your phone, a broker’s email from February, and your memory of a dinner where someone mentioned their dad wanted out. During integration, nobody is checking any of them.

The work is not the texting. It is knowing, every morning, which five owners are due, what each one told you last time, and which broker has not heard from you in 60 days.

Ten minutes a day, while you integrate

FRONT OF MIND keeps those lists for you. It opens on your 10 minutes for today, and each person has a one line reason why today: a follow up due with the owner who said call me after the summer, a broker going cold, a pipeline deal quiet 7+ days, an owner’s company in the news. Every draft is a text style message, 40 words max, it learns from your edits, and nothing sends without your tap.

Ask Liala out loud, “who do I know that owns a distribution company near Dayton,” and get the right people with the reason why. 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 which owner comes up first.

See how it works