Business consultants wear many hats when assisting their clients. They can help in a number of ways including new business development, commercialization efforts, IT projects and strategic developments. One of the most critical areas for any growing middle market company is searching for acquisitions.

Quality business consultants can play an important role in the acquisition search process. There are a number of ways that business consultants can add value to the process. Firstly, they can focus on generating deal flow. There is a need for a full time focus on generating a pipeline of deal flow. Due to the low probability of signing up any one deal, you need to have a lot of deal flow in the pipeline. A good business consultant can ensure that there are a multitude of opportunities to choose from. Secondly, a business consultant can project the image of your company in a strong way, building your credibility in the M&A market.

Seller’s brokers are looking for financially strong, fast moving and decisive companies when choosing a buyer for their clients. A business consultant who understands the art of corporate communication can present your company in a very strong and credible light. This can result in your business becoming a preferred buyer in your industry. Thirdly, the fact that your business consultant is leading the acquisition search process conveys that you are very serious about doing acquisitions.

Most seller’s brokers understand that if a company is paying an outside consultant on a monthly basis, then they are very serious about M&A. Finally, most business consultants with M&A backgrounds have valuable expertise pertaining to valuation, deal structure and capital sourcing. Having a business consultant on your team with this range of expertise is a huge advantage because they understand how the deal should be put together in order for it to be accretive to you and financeable by a lender. Too often, deals are agreed upon without too little of these later stage considerations factored in.