I recently found a deal I was genuinely excited about, and I received a truly excellent CIM. To my delight, it included three years of P&L, three years of balance sheet, employee roster with titles, tenure, and salaries, and the seller's EBITDA add-back schedule. Rare and appreciated. But there were a couple of line items in the P&L that gave me pause, so I responded with a few specific, direct questions. What I got back was an FAQ document. Pre-written. Generic. No direct answers to what I actually asked. That response clarified something I've been thinking about for a while: information asymmetry isn't just a data problem. It's a trust problem. And it seems to be getting worse. I'm operating in good faith. So are the vast majority of buyers in this community. We're not expecting perfection. We know we're buying a business that needs work. Many of us are going to put in our own labor post-close. But a canned FAQ in response to a specific question doesn't just fail to answer, it signals that the process is designed to get an LOI before a buyer has enough information to make a reasonable offer. To the brokers and sellers reading this: we're all trying to solve the same problem - transitioning a business to a new owner at a fair price and supporting employees and customers through the change. Candor costs you nothing. A buyer who asks good questions before LOI is a buyer who closes. Has anyone else run into this? PS: Yes, I know, “not all brokers”. Duly noted.