Blue-collar sellers can be a different ballgame. They've often built their business with their own hands over decades, they care deeply about who takes it over, and trust is earned in person - not in a pitch deck. Getting a deal done with a seller like that requires a different approach, from the first conversation through closing. On September 30 from 12-1 ET, Eli Albrecht of Albrecht Law and I are hosting a live webinar built entirely around a real deal we worked on together; one that had all of this, and then some: a large contingent contract still in process at the time of offer, a purchase price where SBA could only cover part of the financing, a retrade that had to be handled without blowing up trust or the timeline… and a closing process with enough moving parts to keep everyone honest. We're going to walk through the whole thing: how we structured the offer, negotiated the key terms, handled the hard conversations, and got it across the finish line. Eli will bring the legal perspective, I'll bring the investor perspective, and together we'll show you what a real deal actually looks like from the inside. If you're buying a business from an owner who built it with their own hands, this one is for you. Register here. Partner Perspective: Chat Joglekar, Baton: After Facilitating 30+ Deals for Others, This Buyer Found One Worth Buying for Himself Brendan Feinberg spent years in banking and M&A evaluating businesses for other buyers. When he decided to buy one himself, he looked at roughly 500 businesses before finding one he wanted to pursue. That business was FloorCare Specialists, an Atlanta company that maintains and refinishes hardwood gym floors. It had $2.7 million in revenue and about $700,000 in EBITDA. FloorCare checked several boxes Brendan had been looking for: The numbers made sense from the start. Brendan wanted a business in a category he understood, with healthy margins and a reasonable price. FloorCare checked those boxes. Its financials had been reviewed, the business was doing about 25% EBITDA margins, and the owner interview answered many of the questions Brendan would normally cover on an initial call. Customers need the service every year. Gym floors require regular maintenance and refinishing, and school districts often sign multi-year contracts. FloorCare services seven of Georgia's ten largest school districts. Brendan had considered a high-margin medical billing business but passed because he wasn't sure what demand would look like several years from now. The market leaves room for an individual operator. Court crews typically work within about a five-hour drive of their home base, which keeps the market relatively local. Brendan estimates that most states have only one to three meaningful players. That creates an opportunity that looks different from a typical roll-up market. The category may be too small to attract significant institutional interest, but a strong operator can still expand geographically by acquiring established businesses in neighboring markets. Brendan is already pursuing that strategy, with another acquisition underway in Florida. The business wasn't dependent on its owner. The crew had been with the company for years and knew how to run the work without the owner involved in every job. "If I didn't show up to work, the guys know what to do." That mattered to Brendan as a first-time owner. He was buying an established operation he could build on, not a business that needed to be rebuilt around him. The deal also lines up with what we're seeing in our 2026 buyer data. In construction, buyers ask about people and staffing more than buyers in other major industries. For FloorCare, the team was a meaningful part of the business's value. In our latest interview, he also talks about how he's using AI to bid on more work, what he changed in his first 30 days, and how he's thinking about expanding across the Southeast. Watch the full video here. After the Acquisition: Phil Wilusz, Head of Claims at WithCoverage: The Insurance Audit That Can Blow Up Your Budget When you acquire a business, you also inherit the information used to calculate its insurance costs. If that information is wrong, the premium in your deal model may be wrong too. Imagine buying a landscaping company and budgeting around its current insurance spend. A few months later, the workers’ compensation audit arrives. Several employees were assigned the wrong class codes, payroll estimates were outdated, and subcontractor costs were never reported correctly. Now the carrier is asking for a large additional payment you didn’t plan for. The problem started before you owned the company, but the bill lands on your desk. And if that audit results in additional premium, a commission-based broker may get paid more, too. WithCoverage’s flat fee doesn’t increase when an audit leads to a bigger bill. You don’t have to worry about us earning more from an expense you didn’t plan for. WithCoverage verifies the business behind the insurance program before ownership changes. We compare payroll, employee roles, revenue, vehicles, locations, and subcontractor costs against what was reported to the carrier. Then we make sure the coverage and pricing reflect the company you’re actually acquiring and the business you plan to build. That can help prevent expensive audit surprises while uncovering opportunities to reduce unnecessary costs. And when the business changes after closing, your insurance information can change with it. With everything organized in one simple platform, you can see your policies, exposures, and renewal information without sorting through spreadsheets, PDFs, or email threads. The result is a more accurate budget, better visibility, and more of the deal’s upside left for you. Plus: M&A Advisor Drew Eckman shares a story about a friend who bought a business and had a van catch fire the very next day - and it only got more interesting from there. It's a great reminder that post-close liquidity isn't just a lender checkbox; it's what gives you the breathing room to handle the things that will happen that no CIM ever warned you about. Full post here. Alex Hines at Clef just launched a live map tracking every ETA event happening across the US - meetups, dinners, and conferences for searchers, independent sponsors, and the broader ecosystem. Right now there are 41 upcoming events in 21 cities, and you can add the whole calendar in one click so new events show up automatically. Check it out here. Question: Hit reply and tell us - Have you bought from a blue-collar seller? What was the hardest part of building trust with them?redacted