M&A Referral Programme for Operators | DealFlowAgent
No formality', description: "A WhatsApp message, a quick email intro, a
A WhatsApp message, a quick email intro, a 'you should talk to these guys' in conversation. That's it. We take it from there.
We treat the owner like we'd want to be treated if we were selling. No pressure, no aggressive pitch, no surprises. They get clarity, options, and the choice to walk at any time.
Up to 20% of our success fee on close. Typical fee: £5,000–£250,000 depending on transaction size. Paid to you personally, no firm structure required, no paperwork on your side beyond a simple intro.
As casual as you want. A WhatsApp message saying 'hey, you should talk to Joe at DealFlowAgent — they helped a friend of mine sell their business' is genuinely enough.
Do I need to do anything else after the intro?
No. Once the introduction is made, we take it from there. You can stay in the loop or step out completely — your call.
What if the owner is just thinking about it and not ready?
That's the most common scenario. We have a calm exploratory conversation, give them a free valuation view, and they decide if and when to move forward. No pressure.
How much will I actually get paid?
On a typical engagement, a referral fee is worth £5,000–£250,000 depending on deal size (roughly £500k valuation at the low end, £100m at the top). We confirm the number with you in writing before the engagement begins.
What if my friend doesn't want to know I referred them?
That's fine. We can keep your name out of the conversation entirely. The fee still gets paid to you on close.
Is there a limit to how many people I can introduce?
No. Some of our best operator partners have introduced 3–5 owners over a couple of years. Refer as many people as you genuinely think we can help.
Founders, ex-operators and well-networked people sit on more sell-side opportunity than any cold outbound team will ever find. The owner who 'mentioned at dinner they were thinking about it'. The peer in your founder group hinting at burnout. The friend whose business is doing £5M and who just turned 60.
Most of those people will never call an M&A firm cold. They'll keep stewing on it. They'll wait until a bad acquirer emails them with a lowball offer. They'll undersell, or they'll never sell at all.
An introduction from someone they trust changes that. You make the intro, we have a calm conversation, and the owner ends up with options. No close, no fee — but when the deal does close, the cheque is real.
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How we work with your organisation
Accountants, lawyers and other professional service providers, buyers, investors and origination firms each have a dedicated referral approach. Explore the page for your organisation.
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Adjacent B2B services occasionally, ask Joe before referring outside these three pillars.
Recent & upcoming features in
A surge of inbound enquiries from our advisor network, prospective clients met at recent events and features in the trade press, including
International Fire & Safety Journal
A surge of inbound enquiries from our advisor network, prospective clients met on the exhibition floor at
in Birmingham, and owners who found us through the trade press.
From the floor · Interschutz, Hannover & The Fire Safety Event, Birmingham 2026
Magazine cover artwork shown is an illustrative mock-up ahead of print. Real tear-sheets will be added once each edition is published.
Backed by institutional investors behind global industry leaders.
We have raised substantial private capital to ensure our advisory platform, proprietary buyer intelligence and client execution team have permanent, long-term balance sheet stability.
Pre-empts how corporate acquirers and private equity analysts will test your working capital, gross margins and customer concentration.
Calculates defensible add-backs, from director compensation adjustments to non-recurring professional fees and personal motor costs, backed by source documentation.
Drafts anonymous teasers and full information memorandums to tier-one corporate finance standards.
A valuation that holds firm
You enter negotiations with an unvarnished, defensible valuation bridge. Buyers cannot exploit messy accounting to chip your price.
More time on buyers, less on spreadsheets
Duncan and our sector specialists do not spend 40 hours building models in spreadsheets. They spend that time qualifying buyer intent, rehearsing your management presentation and running competitive tension between bidders.
Checks statutory books, director filings and sector accreditations, including BAFE, NSI, WRAS and ISO, to ensure zero lapses.
Flags contractor IR35 exposures, intellectual property assignment gaps and key-person bottlenecks before a buyer uncovers them.
Monitors counterparty document engagement, flagging to the partners exactly which chapters and files a buyer\u2019s legal team is scrutinising.
No surprises once a buyer is in diligence
Diligence skeletons are resolved in private before go-to-market. When exclusivity begins, the buyer finds a clean, audit-ready data room, leaving zero room for renegotiation.
Partners focused on terms and cash at completion
Joe and our legal advisers are not chasing administrative paperwork. They focus exclusively on commercial deal structure, share purchase agreement warranties and securing maximum cash at completion.
A senior M&A bench, plus a sector specialist recruited for your industry on every deal.
Nine years in corporate finance, including as an Associate Director in corporate finance at Quantuma and in earlier corporate finance and audit roles.
He has managed teams of M&A advisers, analysts and associates, and works daily with business owners, acquirers and other stakeholders on live acquisition transactions. He leads sell-side advisory for healthcare, building services and facilities management owners in the UK and the US.
Senior Building Services & FM Advisor
Martin Watson is Chairman of both the Fire Industry Association and the British Security Industry Association. He joined DealFlowAgent because owners in these sectors deserve a specialist adviser across valuation, business optimisation and buyer access. He speaks here in a personal capacity, not on behalf of either association.
Industry Partner, Hiring and Leadership
Nick leads FM Talent Partners, the facilities management and real estate leadership search firm, and is a leading specialist in building services and FM management talent. He partners with DealFlowAgent on two-way referrals: helping business owners and acquirers fill the key roles that decide whether a business is sellable, and introducing owners who are thinking about their next chapter to a team that knows their industry and their market. Key-person dependency is one of the two most common reasons a sale collapses, and Nick fixes it at source.
For every engagement we add a sector specialist from your industry to the core team: a 15–25 year operator or advisor with direct relationships in your niche. Recruited per deal so you get the right fit, not a generalist.
Each mandate has a named DealFlowAgent adviser as the point of contact, supported by a sector specialist.
Richard and Sally are internal software tools. They prepare materials, check numbers and review documents for the adviser who leads your sale.
Richard and Sally never contact clients, never message buyers, and never release documents.
We run the process', description:
You mention us in a WhatsApp group, a LinkedIn post, a conversation. The business owner finds us, signs up, and mentions your name.
You make a personal, direct introduction: connecting us specifically to a business owner you know.
On a typical engagement, a referral fee is worth £15,000–£50,000 depending on deal size. We'll always be transparent about the number before you commit to anything.
The difference is simply how the owner reaches us. Most partners use both: the code runs quietly in the background while warm introductions continue as they always have.
Your code is the failsafe, not the rule
Every code carries its own tracking. A visitor who arrives through your code is stamped to you for 90 days, and once they submit a website address the attribution is frozen onto that submission permanently. It does not depend on cookies surviving, on the owner finishing in one sitting, or on anyone remembering where they came from.
We also check the source of every owner by hand before a mandate is signed. If a client of yours reaches us another way and the trail points back to you, we pay you. The tracking is there so you never have to ask.
. It takes five minutes and your code is issued on screen.
Most of our best referral partners started with a single conversation. Book 20 minutes with Joe, no commitment, no pitch. Just a chance to ask everything you need to.
Book a 30-minute discovery call
Prefer to message first? WhatsApp Joe directly.
Joe Lewin, founder of DealFlowAgent, explains how the firm helps owners of building services, facilities management and healthcare businesses run a confidential, competitive sale process with 13,000+ vetted acquirers.
UK or United States only', body:
You must already know the owner
A referral is an introduction between two people who already know each other. Sending us a name you found online, or a contact you have never spoken to, is not a referral and will not be treated as one.
No outbound campaigns in our name
Do not run cold email, cold LinkedIn or mass messaging to source referrals. Do not describe yourself as acting for DealFlowAgent, and do not use our name in outbound messaging. This protects the owner, your reputation and ours.
Accountancy, legal, tax, wealth management and recruitment firms may introduce clients where their own professional and confidentiality obligations allow it. Ask the client first. Nothing here overrides your duties to them.
Business owners talk to us because the introduction came from someone they trust. Four rules keep it that way.
Referrals made outside these rules are declined and no fee is payable. We would rather lose an introduction than have an owner receive a message they did not want.
The founder, in his own words
Introduced through a founders’ network after the JamPot sale. Our sector specialist, Sidd, led the mandate and negotiated the cash element to double the amount first offered.
Over the past four years we have advised on 22 successfully completed transactions. Each entry states the target, the acquirer, the consideration basis and the process. DealFlowAgent acted as sell-side adviser on every mandate listed.
Referral-led mandate, introduced by a former client