When to bring in advisors?

April 28, 2026

by a searcher from The Ohio State University - Max M. Fisher College of Business in Chicago, IL, USA

How do people think about bringing in advisors? In what sequence do you generally get 3rd parties working (e.g., QoE complete before you start spending money on legal, etc.)? I am sure it is person- and deal-specific to an extent, but curious how others think about managing their 3rd party deal team.

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Reply by a professional
in New York, NY, USA

This is the order I see a lot of searchers doing. They get a loan broker to help them make sure they qualify for a good SBA Loan and can make a strong offer taken seriously by broker and selle.r They get a Lawyer to help them draft a LOI to get accepted, but the lawyer holds off on doing a lot of billable Legal due diligence. Once the LOI is signed they get the QoE professional to work on the deal. We help with this process and can help get this process done in 2 to 3 weeks for most QoEs under $5M in revenue we can do this for $12K to $20K Click here for exact pricing https://qoeprep.com/pricing Then once the QoE is finalized the searcher will bring in their lawyer for legal due diligence to protect them. email me if you want an introduction to people I have worked with redacted

Reply by a professional
from University of New Brunswick in Toronto, ON, Canada

In my experience, Sequencing the due diligence process saves unnecessary deal costs in case you cannot close the deal. As long as there is sufficient time, doing the Financial Due Diligence and QoE first to make sure the numbers work is the best approach. No amount of Legal Due Diligence can save a buyer if the target company has structural financial issues. Only case where it is useful to do Legal DD before Financial DD is when there are real estate or licensing/regulatory issues involved (such as landlord consent, change of control provisions, environmental assessment /contamination, etc). For example, if a real estate location is critical to the business but the landlord refuses consent to transfer the lease to new owners or imposes onerous terms then no point in proceeding to Financial DD or QoE.

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