I'm putting my HVAC service company on the market next month. The broker keeps telling me the listing intro is everything , that buyers decide in the first few seconds whether to keep reading. But everything I draft sounds like every other boring listing. How do I actually write an intro that hooks buyers right away without sounding like a used car ad? What has worked for people here?
Business For Sale
How to write an intro that hooks buyers right away
Lead with the number that matters most to a buyer, not the one that makes you feel good. For a service business that's usually recurring revenue or contract backlog. If you have 40 maintenance contracts locked in, that's a better opener than 'founded in 1998'.
I looked at a lot of listings when I was buying. The worst intRos were the ones that wasted my time with the owner's life story. I don't care why you started the company. I care whether it makes money without you standing in the truck all day.
Not sure its that simple. Some buyers do respond to a real human story if it's short. The trick is attaching the story to a business point. One sentence about the origin, one sentence about why that means the business is stable now. Then move on.
Right. Story is fine as a hook if it's doing work. 'Started with one van, now at twelve techs and 70% recurring' is a hook. 'I always loved helping people' is not.
What are you currently leading with? Hard to give feedback without seeing the draft.
Currently it's something like 'Established HVAC company serving the metro for over 25 years, with a strong reputation and growth potential.' I know. It's awful. That's why I'm here.
Yeah that reads like a template. Reputation and growth potential don't mean anything because every listing says that. Replace them with specifics. How many techs, what's the average ticket, what's the customer count, how many jobs per month. Concrete beats adjectives every time.
Also think about who the buyer is. A competitor buying you mostly cares about customer list and techs. A financial buyer cares about cash flow and owner hours. Your intro should probably hint at which kind of buyer you want. If you're open to either, say the business is not dependent on you, because that's the thing that frustrates both types
Hire a copywriter who has done M&A deal books. Worth the money. The intro is not the place to Save a few hundred bucks.
I disagree on hiring out. Buyers smell generic copy a mile away, and a professional writer who doesn't know HVAC will just make it a nicer version of 'serving the metro for 25 years.' Write it yourself, then have someone who has never seen your business read it and tell you what the company actually does. If they can't, rewrite.
The hook doesn't have to be a sentence. Sometimes the cleanest intro is just a short list right at the top: 12 tehcs, 70% recurring, X months average contract length, semi-absentee owner. Buyers skim. Give them bullets.
That's basically what I was getting at. Buyers are pattern-matching. Your job is to show them the pattern quickly.
The buyer-type point is interesting. I assumed I wanted a competitor to buy it because they'd value the customer list. But my techs are the real reason customers stay. So maybe a buyer who can keep the team intact matters more than I thought.
Then that's your hook. Something like 'the team is the business' and then prove it with retention numbers. That's a real story, not a template.
I still think saying 'hooked buyers' is overrated. A serious buyer reads the financials, not the intro. The intro just filters out tire-kickers and gets the right person to ask for the CIM.
That's fair. The intro is a filter, not a seduction. But a good filter is still worth writing carefully.