The listing presentation nobody else is making. And the thing that unsticks a stale one.
You are not buying this. You are deciding whether it is worth mentioning to a client, and whether it does anything to your deal. Both fair questions, so here are the honest answers.
A referral that adds nothing to your workload.
Your buyer already budgeted for diligence and already expects to spend it. Adding a technology and operations read makes their process more thorough, which makes yours look more thorough, and it happens before exclusivity so it costs you no deal clock.
Brokers do not lose deals to buyers who did too much homework. They lose them to a retrade in week six.
An operational surprise found before an LOI is a negotiation. The same surprise found during exclusivity is a renegotiation, an escrow, or a walk. The earlier version protects your commission.
Pre-LOI Screen
Built from the deal file alone. No seller cooperation, no NDA round, nothing on your desk. Five business days, before the clock starts.
Buy-Side Diligence
The full workstream, running in parallel with financial and legal. Ten business days, nothing waits on it.
At listing. Never under contract.
A pre-listing readiness review finds what a buyer’s advisors would find, while there is still time for fixing it to be the answer. Documented process, systems that do not depend on the owner personally, data a new owner can take over. That is what buyers pay a premium for, and it is what raises the number the business goes to market at.
We will not run it on a business already under contract. At that point the same findings hand the buyer a repricing lever, and we are not interested in being the reason your deal reopens.
For the stale listing
Eleven months on the market and another price cut coming. This is the alternative conversation: here is why it is not moving, and here is what fixing it does to the number.
For the seller who is not ready
The owner who is twelve months out and knows the business runs on them personally. Something to give them that is not “call me next year.”
Three steps, none of them yours.
You mention it, or forward the sample
No agreement to sign, no portal to log into, no onboarding call before you can send someone.
They engage us directly
Your client pays us, not you. You are not in the billing, not in the scope, and not responsible for the outcome.
You get the report if they share it
Their call entirely. When they do, it is the operational half of a picture you already have the financial half of.
Before you decide.
Why would a broker refer a technology and operations audit?
Buy-side, the buyer has already budgeted for diligence and a thorough process reflects well on the broker. Sell-side, a pre-listing assessment identifies what would otherwise surface during exclusivity.
Does referring an audit risk killing a deal?
Buy-side work happens before exclusivity and reduces the chance of a late-stage retrade. Sell-side work is only accepted before listing, never once a business is under contract.
Is there a referral fee or agreement?
No agreement, no portal, and no onboarding. Your client engages Onizuka Studio directly and pays us.
What does it do to the timeline?
A Pre-LOI Screen takes five business days and happens before the deal clock starts. Buy-side diligence takes ten business days and runs in parallel.
What can I show a client before referring?
One complete phase from a real report, with every finding and every field filled in, including the one that says leave this alone.
If it does not hold up in front of your client, do not send it.
One complete phase from a real report, every field filled in, including the finding that says leave this alone.