Guest Podcast by Morgan & Westfield: How to Avoid Predatory Buyers
Selling your business doesn’t start as a negotiation. It starts as a test of whether you’re prepared—or exposed.
Founders often enter exit conversations believing interest equals leverage. In reality, many buyers are trained to spot inexperience, manufacture fatigue, and reshape deals long before price is finalized. That dynamic is the focus of a recent podcast conversation on how founders can recognize predatory buyers.
How to Avoid Predatory Buyers
When you decide to sell your business, you’re stepping into a high-stakes environment where the person across the table buys companies for a living. To them, this is repetition. To you, it’s likely the most important financial event of your life.
This conversation pulls back the curtain on the subtle tactics sophisticated buyers use to tilt deals in their favor—often without sellers realizing it’s happening.
What founders need to understand
Predatory buyers rarely look predatory. They push for “direct” conversations without advisors, frame it as faster or more collaborative, and quietly anchor valuation lower than market. They extend diligence timelines, expand data requests, and wait. Over time, sellers get tired. Momentum replaces discipline. Concessions follow.
Another common trap is confusing a high sticker price with a good deal. Earn-outs, vague future payments, and post-close contingencies shift risk back onto the seller. The number looks big, but liquidity and certainty shrink.
The strongest sellers professionalize early. Independent validation of EBITDA, clear control over information flow, and experienced intermediaries who absorb pressure allow founders to stay rational while the process gets emotional. One of the most effective strategies is using a “designated villain”—an advisor who handles hard negotiations so the founder can preserve trust for the post-sale transition.
The role of Candor Advisors
Candor Advisors works with founders before and during liquidity events to help them avoid exactly these outcomes. Their focus is not just on selling businesses, but on preparing them—clarifying the founder’s true objectives, professionalizing financials, identifying risks buyers will exploit, and structuring deals that protect net proceeds, legacy, and optionality. The goal is alignment, not just a closing.
About the podcast and hosts
This episode is part of an ongoing series produced by Morgan and Westfield, a firm known for educating founders on the realities of M&A in the lower middle market. Their work centers on giving business owners practical, experience-based insight into how deals actually unfold—especially where theory and reality diverge.
For founders considering an exit, the takeaway is simple: interest is not protection. Preparation is.
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