Warning: Rant below.

Recently a broker took my call, refused to give me info on some of the businesses I inquired about, and steered me towards diligencing a specific business that was "the hottest one he has hitting the market right now." I played along, negotiated a CA and received the confidential info.

When I submitted the first round of diligence questions the broker called me immediately and said "Your list of questions is beautiful" and "I don't give out financials" and "we can do diligence questions till we're blue in the face but if you're not the right buyer this will just be a waste of time" (how else am I supposed get comfortable enough to transact?). He had also previously said "buyers have to be fearless in this game" and a few condescending statements to try to gain the upper hand in our conversation. Fed up, I said "the only thing I'd say is: you might not be doing your duty for your client if you're going to turn away a qualified buyer who is just asking diligence questions." He grumbled something angrily and hung up and never made contact again. Good riddance.

I later contacted another broker at the same firm who happened to mention (unprompted) that the first broker had listed that business (the biggest one he's moving) more than once and it hadn't sold... So, turns out the guy is out there literally trying to find a naive buyer who he can manipulate into buying a business no one wants, but happens to represent the biggest commission he could make across his set of businesses.

This second broker was much nicer and didn't deploy a "used car salesman" skillset to get me to look at what he wanted. Thank goodness.


Some brokers will pull out all the stops to steer you towards a bad deal. Always be tough and don't accept what you didn't ask for.