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.

Good M&A advisor seller follow up for an owner who is not ready to sell starts with the exact reason he gave you, not with the engagement letter he did not sign. Sort it into a type, send short notes tied to it on a steady rhythm, and be the most recent advisor in his phone when his trigger arrives.

You know the meeting. You spent two weeks on a value range. The owner liked it. He liked you. Then he leaned back and said, “Let me get through next year. Call me after the busy season.” You said you would. Five months later he has not heard from you, and you have twelve other owners who said some version of the same thing.

I am not an M&A advisor. My background is fundraising and matchmaking, where the job is the same: remember what a person told you and come back with it at the right moment. Here is how I would run the not yet file.

Why do sellers who said not yet sign with someone else?

Because the trigger arrives on his schedule, not yours, and he calls whoever comes to mind first. That might be you. It might be the name his CPA mentioned last week.

The data says most owners are early, not unwilling. In an Exit Factor survey of 1,104 US small business owners, run by Researchscape in August and September 2026, 47 percent said it feels too early to think about an exit and only 15 percent had a formal, written exit plan. The same survey asked what would make them start planning: 45 percent said a health issue or scare, 35 percent a specific age or milestone, 32 percent burnout.

Now look at the other end. In the IBBA and M&A Source Market Pulse for Q2 2026, 60 to 90 percent of sellers had done less than a year of exit planning, or none. So the owner who says “not yet” today can be ready inside a year, and he will not send you a memo when it happens.

What kind of not yet did you hear?

Every not yet has a type, and each type needs a different follow up. This is the table I would keep, one row per owner, filled in within an hour of the meeting.

Type of not yet	What he said	What he is really waiting for	What to send next
Timeline	“After the busy season” or “once the contract renews”	A known date or event	A note right after that date asking how it went
Number gap	“I need it to be worth more”	EBITDA growth or a better market	Comparable closings in his sector, quarterly
Successor	“My son might want it”	A family decision	A question about the son, never about the sale
Identity	“I don’t know what I would do”	A picture of life after	An intro to an owner who already sold
Gatekeeper	“My CPA says wait for the tax year”	His advisor’s sign off	A touch with the advisor, with his permission

The middle column is the one that gets lost. Write his sentence word for word, with the date. In fundraising I logged what every donor told me after every call, and that habit, not charisma, is what raised $3M. A year from now, “Did the county contract renew?” is a real reason to call. “Just checking in” is not.

How often should an M&A advisor follow up with a seller not ready to sell?

Often enough that you stay recent, rarely enough that every note carries something. Here is a rule of thumb timeline. Adjust it to the owner.

1. Within 24 hours. Recap what he told you, in his words, and say you will stay in touch. No attachment.
2. Week 2. Send one useful thing tied to his type: a closing in his sector, an article on his industry, a name worth knowing.
3. Month 3. Ask about his stated reason. The contract, the son, the busy season.
4. Every quarter after. One short touch with a real reason. A post of his, news about his company, a market shift in his niche.
5. Month 12. Offer an updated read on value. You already did the work once. A refreshed range is the most specific thing you can send, and nobody else has it.
6. Any time something changes. A new hire, a lost customer, a partner retiring, a competitor selling. That is a reason to suggest coffee.

What should the follow up text actually say?

Short, specific, and about him. These are illustrative, so swap in his details.

Hope the busy season wrapped well. You said the county renewal was the big one. Did it land?

Saw a fleet services business in Ohio trade last month. Similar size to yours. Happy to share what I know about the terms if useful.

A year since we sat down. Your margins have probably moved. Want me to rerun the range? No agenda, just a market read.

None of them ask whether he is ready. They do not need to.

Who hears that he is ready before you do?

His CPA, his attorney and his wealth manager, often before he says it out loud. Those advisors are part of your seller file, not a separate list. If the owner told you his CPA wants to wait, stay in touch with the CPA too, with the owner’s permission and without sharing anything he told you in confidence.

The way brokers become the name those advisors hand a client is covered in how business brokers get more seller referrals from CPAs and attorneys. Keep both relationships warm and you hear about the turn twice.

Why does the not yet file break?

Because it is a bench, and benches go stale one quiet name at a time. Brokers know this from the buyer side, which is why keeping a buyer list warm between listings is its own discipline. The seller side is the same problem with a longer clock.

Illustrative math: say you pitched 40 owners in the last two years and 30 said some form of not yet. Each needs a touch every few weeks at first, then quarterly, each tied to a different reason, while you run live engagements. That is well over a hundred specific notes a year, each depending on a sentence you wrote down months ago. By memory, the notes slip at month 4.

Buyers chase the same owners from the other chair. Searchers are told to run an 18 month cadence with owners who are not ready to sell. If a buyer stays closer to the owner than you do, the owner may sell direct and never hire anyone. For the full picture of the relationships a broker runs, see the business broker relationship playbook.

Ten minutes a day

That is why I built FRONT OF MIND. It opens on your 10 minutes for today, and each owner on the list comes with one line saying why today. He posted. His company was in the news. A follow up you promised is due. He is going cold. Posts are only shown when they are confirmed to belong to that person.

After the meeting, use Capture: say his name and the sentence he told you out loud, and it is filed. Every draft is a text style message, 40 words max, written in your voice. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them, and you can export or delete anytime. It runs in your phone’s browser and can be saved to your home screen.

Start free with your first 25 contacts and see which owner comes up first.

See how it works