Broker fatigue - lack of proper CIMs

April 22, 2026

by a searcher in Trabuco Canyon, CA, USA

Has anyone else noticed a widening gap between the teasers being sent out and the actual state of the CIMs? I’ve spent the last week digging into several services businesses only to find the growth is entirely tied to a single, non-recurring project. It feels like a lot of noise in the market right now. Are you all finding more success sticking to your specific industry criteria, or are you widening the net just to get more quality conversations going?

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Reply by a searcher
from University of Texas in Folsom, CA, USA

Thanks for flagging Luke. Great question. I actually have data on this I can share if helpful. Our customers have run hundreds of CIM analyses through Searcher OS, so I can share what we’re seeing objectively. About 1 in 4 CIMs (24%) flag customer concentration as a risk. In services businesses specifically, we see the exact pattern you’re describing: growth that looks great on paper until you realize it’s tied to a handful of non-recurring projects. We’ve seen CIMs where 50-95% of prior-year revenue came from just a few large jobs in businesses like commercial electric, construction and tree services. In reality, many CIMs simply don’t disclose customer schedules at all. When the AI flags concentration risk, it’s often because the data is missing, not because it’s bad. That’s the real “lack of proper CIMs” problem. You can’t evaluate what isn’t there. A few other things worth noting from the data: Owner dependency is actually a bigger red flag than concentration. It shows up in 43% of CIMs, with more than a quarter rated high severity. To your question about sticking to specific criteria vs. widening the net: the data suggests sticking. The deals that pass the concentration test tend to have cleaner financials across the board. Widening the net just means seeing more of these same issues at higher volume.

Reply by an investor
from Golden Gate University in Vallejo, CA, USA

In my experience, services businesses are the worst for this. The monthly breakdown almost always tells a different story than the teaser. One thing I started doing early, before going deep on a CIM, is asking whether any single client or project drove more than 20% of revenue in the last 24 months. That one question saves a lot of time. On the criteria question, I've actually found that being more specific gets me better conversations, not fewer. Brokers figure out pretty quickly what you'll move on, and they start sending you the right stuff.

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