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.

A search fund network audit scores every owner, broker, advisor and investor you know on fit, warmth and what they have actually sent you, then keeps the top 50 as your core list. Each of those 50 gets a next reason and a next date, so your weekly outreach goes where deals come from.

Here is the scene. You are month nine. Your outreach tool says you have sent 4,000 emails. Your phone has 600 contacts from the search. Your investors ask where the deal flow is coming from, and the honest answer is that you do not know which 50 people matter. That is the problem this audit fixes.

Two pages already cover the neighbors. Where search deals come from in general is in deal sourcing for searchers. Finding relationships that already died is in how to audit your network for dead relationships. This page is narrower: the scoring sheet a searcher uses to pick the 50.

Why does a searcher need a network audit at all?

A searcher needs an audit because the search produces far more relationships than one person can keep warm. In the IESE and Stanford International Search Funds 2024 study, the average searcher explored more than 3,000 businesses, had personal conversations with 159 owners, and signed about four LOIs before acquiring.

159 owner conversations is a lot of people to remember. Add brokers, CPAs, lenders, investors and other searchers, and you are well past what memory can run.

The same study found searchers once again ranked proprietary search, meaning direct contact with owners through their personal network, investor network and outreach, as the predominant source of deal flow. Your network is the main channel. It deserves a real review, not a guess.

What goes in a search fund network audit template?

The template has nine columns: who they are, what type of relationship it is, when you last really talked, what they have given you, three scores, the next reason and the next date. Here is the template. Copy it into a spreadsheet, one row per person.

Name	Type	Last real touch	What they gave you	Fit (0 to 3)	Warmth (0 to 3)	Reach (0 to 3)	Next reason	Next date
Owner, HVAC, Columbus	Owner said not now	Mar 2026	Shared rough revenue, said 2027	3	2	1	His second truck yard opened	Nov 4
Broker, Midwest firm	Broker	Jun 2026	Sent two teasers, one fit	2	2	3	Your narrowed buy box	Nov 6
CPA, regional firm	Advisor	Never after intro	Nothing yet	2	1	3	Year end planning season with her owner clients	Nov 10
Investor, family office	Investor	Sep 2026	Two owner intros	1	3	3	Update plus one specific ask	Nov 12

The rows are illustrative. Your names go there.

What the scores mean:

• Fit. How close they are to your buy box. An owner in your niche is a 3. A generalist broker who sells in your region is a 2.
• Warmth. Would they take your call this week? A 3 replies the same day. A 0 would not remember you.
• Reach. How many deals they could plausibly see. An owner is one company. A busy broker or CPA sees many.

Add the three scores. The maximum is 9.

How do you score and cut to 50?

You score fast, sort by total, and cut at 50, then check the mix. Spend no more than 30 seconds a row. The point is a ranking, not a perfect number.

Here is how I would run the afternoon:

1. Pull everyone into one sheet. Phone contacts, outreach tool replies, broker emails, conference cards, investor intros. One row each.
2. Fill “last real touch.” A real touch is a conversation, not an email they never answered.
3. Fill “what they gave you.” A teaser, an intro, a number, a “call me next year.” Blank is allowed. It is information.
4. Score fit, warmth and reach. Thirty seconds each.
5. Sort by total and draw a line at 50.
6. Check the mix. A healthy top 50 usually has owners who said not now, a group of brokers, a few advisors, and your most active investors. If it is all brokers, your proprietary channel is thin.
7. Write a next reason and a next date for every row above the line. No reason, no date, no spot on the list.

Step 7 is the whole audit. A score without a next date is a report. A next date with a real reason is a pipeline.

What do you do with the people below the line?

You keep them. People below the line are not deleted, they are on a slower cadence. Touch them when something real happens in their world, and promote anyone whose score changes. An owner who was a 4 last spring may be an 8 after his partner retires.

Watch especially for high warmth, low fit rows. Those are often your best connectors. A searcher peer who does not share your niche may know three owners who do.

When should you run it?

Run a full audit at the start of the search and again every year, with a quick recency check every quarter. Run one right away at month 12 if you have no signed LOI. The IESE and Stanford study found that nearly 40 percent of searchers who had not signed an LOI in their first 12 months did not acquire a business.

That is the moment an audit pays the most. If your search is already stuck, the 30 day version is in how to restart a stalled search.

Why does the audit stop working in week three?

The audit stops working because the sheet is static and your search is not. By week three, ten of the 50 have new news, five have a next date that passed during diligence, and nobody told you.

Illustrative math: 50 people on a 60 day cadence is about six touches a week, each with a fresh reason. That is not hard to send. It is hard to research while you are reading a quality of earnings report.

Ten minutes a day, all 50 covered

That is the part I built FRONT OF MIND to do. It opens on your 10 minutes for today, and each person has one line saying why today: they posted, their company was in the news, a follow up is due, you met at an event weeks ago and never followed up, they are going cold.

Every draft is a text style message, 40 words max. Nothing sends without your tap, and it learns from your edits. Ask Liala out loud, “who do I know that is a CPA in Ohio,” and get the right people with why. It runs in your phone’s browser and saves to your home screen. Your contacts are encrypted. No one on our team looks at them, and you can export or delete anytime.

For the broker part of the list at scale, read how searchers keep 200 brokers warm without a VA.

Start free with your first 25 contacts and see which of your 50 comes up first.

See how it works