Most people never make a move because they think they need half a million in the bank to acquire a real business. They don't. The SBA 7(a) program finances up to 90% of a business acquisition. On a $2M deal, your out of pocket is $200K. On a $1M deal, $100K. The average SBA acquisition loan right now is $1.17M. The median is $775K. These are not private equity transactions. These are service businesses changing hands every week. Here is what the bank actually wants to see. Relevant experience. A credit score above 680. A deal that cash flows enough to cover the debt and pay you. They do not need you to be rich. They need you to not be a liability. Community banks approve 72% of SBA applications. Big national banks approve 49%. Choosing the right lender is the difference between funded and denied. Most buyers go straight to a big bank, get denied, and assume they do not qualify. They did qualify. They just walked into the wrong building. The capital is not the barrier. The system is the barrier. Most people never learn the system. Comment FINANCE and I will send you the SBA deal structure breakdown I walk clients through on every acquisition.

McKinsey calls it the Great Ownership Transfer. By 2035, roughly 6 million small businesses will need new owners. $5 trillion in enterprise value. Here is the part nobody is talking about. 92% of small business exits happen through closure. Not a sale. Not a transfer. The owner locks the door and walks away. Only 5% are completed sales. Profitable, cash flowing businesses with employees, customers, and decades of reputation are disappearing every day because the owner did not know selling was an option or did not think anyone would want what they built. Chase surveyed 1,000 small business owners last month. Nearly half plan to retire within 10 years. The majority do not have a succession plan. I see it in real time. A client looked at a service business last month doing $180K in SDE. Owner was 67. Been "thinking about retiring" for three years. No broker. No listing. No CIM. He assumed no one would pay real money for a company that small. That deal would not show up on BizBuySell. It would not show up in a broker search. It would not show up anywhere unless someone picked up the phone. The best deals in 2026 are not listed. They are sitting in the hands of owners who are one health scare away from closing a business that could have made someone else wealthy. You need a sourcing system that goes direct to owner. Not a listings subscription. Not a broker relationship. A repeatable process for finding owners who are ready but have not taken the first step. Comment SOURCING and I will send you the off market deal sourcing playbook I use with every client.

My first acquisition looked perfect on paper. The P&L was clean. The broker was confident. The monthly payment worked. The P&L was manipulated. I did not catch it until I was already in. I lost five figures on that deal. That mistake is why I run every client's numbers the way I do now. And right now, the mistakes I am seeing are worse. The SBA raised its minimum credit score from 155 to 165. The max on a small 7(a) dropped from $500K to $350K. Upfront guaranty fees are back. These are hard filters. Your application gets rejected before a human ever reads it if you do not clear them. On top of that, sellers are getting aggressive. I watched a client walk into a deal last month on a service business doing $180K in SDE. Seller wanted 4.2x. Two years ago that trades at 3x. The broker said "the market has shifted." The market did not shift. The seller's expectations shifted because he knows buyers have cheaper money. My client almost paid it. The monthly payment "worked" on paper. That is the trap. A deal that works on a spreadsheet is not the same as a deal that builds wealth. Here is the rule I give every client right now. Run your numbers at today's rates. Then run them again at 2 points higher. If it only works because rates are low, you are buying a rate. Not a business. Comment CHECKLIST and I will send you the 2026 SBA deal checklist I use with every client.

Everyone is celebrating right now. Rates came down. Monthly payments look better. Deals that didn't work 18 months ago suddenly pencil out. And that is exactly when buyers start making expensive mistakes. Here is what is actually happening. Sellers see the same headlines you do. They know more buyers are entering the market. They know financing is easier. So they are raising their asking prices and getting more aggressive at the negotiation table. I watched a client last month walk into a deal on a service business doing $180K in SDE. The seller wanted 4.2x. Two years ago that business would have traded at 3x all day. The seller's broker told my client "the market has shifted." The market did not shift. The seller's expectations shifted because he knows buyers have cheaper money right now. My client almost paid it. The monthly payment "worked" on paper. That is the trap. A deal that works on a spreadsheet is not the same as a deal that builds wealth. If you overpay by $150K because your monthly note "fits," you just volunteered to work the first two years for free. Here is the rule I give every client right now. Run your numbers at today's rates. Then run them again at 2 points higher. If the deal still works at the higher rate, it is a real deal. If it only works because rates are low, you are buying a rate, not a business. The best buyers in this market are not celebrating lower rates. They are using them as leverage to negotiate better terms while sellers think they have the upper hand. Comment RATES below and I will send you the deal stress test template I use with every client before we submit an offer.

He cares about three things. None of them are on your spreadsheet. Is my team going to be okay. Is the thing I built going to survive. Is this person going to respect what I spent my life creating. I have been on both sides of this table. The first business I ever bought, I showed up with a valuation model. I talked about multiples and debt service. The seller sat there with his arms crossed and said almost nothing for 45 minutes. I lost that deal. The second time, I walked in with one question. "How did you get started?" He talked for 20 minutes. And somewhere in that story, he told me everything I needed to structure the entire deal. The seller note closed in a single phone call. The price dropped 15% without me asking. The transition went from 12 months to 6. Same buyer. Different approach. Completely different outcome. The buyers who close are not running the best models. They are the ones who understand that the person across the table is not selling a business. He is closing a chapter. Comment SELLER below and I will send you the first call framework I use before I ever open a spreadsheet.