Acquisition & Agency Guides
34 in-depth playbooks for dealmakers sourcing acquisitions and agencies prospecting local trades clients.
For acquisition buyers
Solo searchers, search funds, roll-up operators, and passive investors.
First-time & solo buyers
Solo Acquirers
Leaving the W2 track? First-time buyers learning to source, qualify, and close a boring business without paying broker fees.
How to Buy Your First Boring Business (Without a Broker)
12 min read
The $500K SDE Search: A Realistic Roadmap for Solo Buyers
10 min read
Search funds & micro-PE
Search Funds & Micro-PE
Infrastructure, pipeline discipline, and sourcing systems for searchers and sub-$10M funds that can't rely on investment banks.
Deal Sourcing Infrastructure for Search Funds Under $10M
11 min read
Building a Proprietary Pipeline When You Can't Afford PitchBook
9 min read
Off-market dealmakers
Off-Market Playbook
How to find sellers before they list. Direct outreach, signal-based targeting, and the mechanics of proprietary deal flow.
Off-Market Deal Sourcing: The Complete Playbook for Local Service Businesses
14 min read
Why the Best HVAC & Plumbing Operators Never List on BizBuySell
8 min read
Signal-based buyers
Owner Neglect Signals
Spot tired owners early using digital footprints, review patterns, and operational neglect — DealRaw's core edge.
The Owner Neglect Score: How to Spot Tired Sellers Before Competitors
10 min read
7 Digital Signals That a Business Owner Is Ready to Sell
9 min read
Roll-up operators
Home Services Rollups
HVAC, plumbing, landscaping rollups: geographic clustering, tuck-in math, and sourcing at scale in fragmented trades.
Home Services Rollups: How to Source HVAC and Plumbing Targets at Scale
13 min read
Geographic Density: Why Buyers Who Cluster Markets Win
8 min read
Passive income investors
Passive Asset Buyers
Laundromats, self-storage, and car washes — mom-and-pop operators, cap rate thinking, and off-market asset sourcing.
Buying Laundromats Off-Market: What Brokers Won't Tell You
11 min read
Self-Storage Acquisition: Finding Mom-and-Pop Operators Before REITs
10 min read
Brokers & advisors
Brokers & Advisors
Business brokers and M&A advisors building proprietary inventory for clients without recycling the same BizBuySell listings.
How Business Brokers Build Proprietary Inventory (Without Recycling BizBuySell)
10 min read
Data-Driven Buyer Matchmaking for Local Service Businesses
8 min read
First-time & solo buyers
SBA 7(a) Acquisition Financing
How solo buyers finance their first HVAC or plumbing acquisition with SBA 7(a) loans — eligibility, down payment, timeline, and lender selection.
Search funds & micro-PE
Raising Search Fund Capital
LP targeting, pitch structure, and fundraising timeline for self-funded and traditional searchers raising their first search fund.
Roll-up operators
Post-Close Integration
The first 90 days after acquiring a trades business — payroll, customer communication, owner transition, and systems migration.
Passive income investors
Car Wash Investing
Off-market car wash acquisition — tunnel vs. self-serve economics, water reclamation, and finding mom-and-pop operators before consolidators.
Brokers & advisors
Valuing Trades Businesses
SDE multiples, add-backs, and valuation frameworks for brokers and buyers pricing HVAC, plumbing, and home-service companies under $5M.
Off-market dealmakers
Due Diligence for Trades
The complete QoE checklist for boring-business acquisitions — licenses, fleet, customer contracts, and red flags brokers miss.
For agencies & freelancers
SEO, GMB, web design, PPC, and outreach — find local businesses that need your services.
SEO agencies & freelancers
SEO Agency Lead Gen
Find local service businesses with no website, stale SEO, and high owner neglect — your ideal SEO retainer clients.
GMB specialists
Google Business Profile
Target operators with unclaimed, outdated, or neglected GMB listings — the fastest path to a $500/mo optimization retainer.
Web designers & developers
Web Design Client Prospecting
Source businesses with no website or a 2015 WordPress site — high-intent web design and rebuild prospects in any US metro.
Social media freelancers
Social Media Management
Find local trades businesses with dormant Facebook pages and zero Instagram — perfect SMM retainer prospects.
Local marketing agencies
Local Marketing Agencies
Build a pipeline of HVAC, plumbing, and home-service clients who need full-stack local marketing — not enterprise SaaS.
Outbound & SDR freelancers
Cold Outreach for Agencies
Cold email and cold call playbooks for agencies selling websites, SEO, and GMB to boring-business owners.
Reputation management agencies
Reputation & Reviews
Find businesses with declining review velocity, unanswered reviews, and reputation gaps — sell review management.
PPC & Google Ads agencies
Google Ads & PPC
Target profitable local operators running zero paid ads — PPC setup and management retainers for trades businesses.
Content marketers
Content for Trades
Blog, video, and local content packages for HVAC, plumbing, and landscaping — find operators with zero content presence.
White-label resellers
White-Label & Resellers
Agencies reselling SEO, websites, and GMB to local businesses — volume prospecting without Apollo or ZoomInfo.
SEO agencies & freelancers
Local SEO Pricing & Packaging
How to price local SEO retainers for trades clients — tier structures, deliverables, and anchoring against competitor agencies.
GMB specialists
GMB Audit as a Service
Sell one-time Google Business Profile audits ($297–$497) as a foot-in-the-door offer that converts to monthly optimization retainers.
Web designers & developers
Website Maintenance MRR
Turn one-time web design projects into $99–$299/mo maintenance revenue — hosting, updates, security, and upsell paths for trades clients.
PPC & Google Ads agencies
Google Ads Audits for Trades
Free and paid PPC audit offers that win $1,500/mo management contracts with HVAC, plumbing, and roofing operators.