Three different types of professionals will offer to sell your Colorado business. They use overlapping terminology, they all promise a confidential process, and they charge fees in similar ranges. But their actual work, their buyer networks, and — most importantly — the size of business each one serves well are genuinely different.
Business broker
Sweet spot: deals under roughly $2M enterprise value.
How they work: High-volume model. Public listing on BizBuySell / Sunbelt / broker-network sites. Standardized marketing package. Lower fee percentage, but flat process across all listings.
Where they're strong: Restaurants, retail, single-location service businesses, and any category with established transaction volume where individual buyers are the realistic market.
Where they struggle: Confidentiality is structurally hard when the listing is on a public site. Sophisticated buyers (PE, strategic acquirers, family offices) do not source deals from these channels.
Exit advisor / M&A advisor
Sweet spot: owner-operated deals from roughly $1M–$25M enterprise value.
How they work: Curated, confidential outreach to a hand-picked buyer list. Custom marketing package. Deep involvement in preparing the business before market, structuring the deal, and managing diligence. Fee typically success-based with a smaller retainer.
Where they're strong: Any business where the owner cares about confidentiality, employee outcomes, or price precision — and where the buyer universe is large enough to curate but small enough to know by name.
Where they struggle: Very small deals (under ~$1M) where the fee math doesn't work, and very large deals (over $25M) where investment-bank capabilities matter more.
Investment banker
Sweet spot: deals above roughly $25M enterprise value.
How they work: Formal auction process, extensive marketing materials, institutional buyer relationships, deep modeling and fairness-opinion capabilities. Retainer + higher success fee.
Where they're strong: Larger businesses with strategic optionality, cross-border complexity, or genuine competitive tension across institutional buyers.
Where they struggle: Owner-operated businesses below their fee threshold. The economics don't work for either side, and the process is heavier than the deal supports.
The four questions that separate credible from not
- "How many buyers will you actually approach, by name?" A specific number under 25 is a good sign. "Hundreds" or "as many as we can" isn't.
- "Where will my business be listed publicly?" On a confidential process the answer should be "nowhere." If it's "our website, plus BizBuySell, plus…" that's a broker model, not a confidential one.
- "Show me three deals you closed in the last 24 months in my size range." Not "we've done deals" — actual references. If they can't produce them (subject to confidentiality), you're their pilot.
- "What's your fee, and what does it cover?" Success fees typically range 6%–10% for owner-operated deals, with a small retainer. Anyone quoting well below or well above is either desperate or predatory.
What to do next
Figure out honestly where your business sits on the size scale first. Then interview one representative of each type that might fit — and ask each one the four questions above. The right professional for your business will answer all four cleanly.
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