We are in the middle of active due diligence and my leadership team is so distracted by buyer data requests that our quarterly sales are beginning to slip. How do we prevent this performance dip so the buyer does not use it to re-trade our valuation?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A performance dip during due diligence is the most common reason buyers renegotiate the purchase price or back out of deals entirely. When your leadership team focuses on answering buyer questions instead of running the business, operations suffer, sales slow down, and your EBITDA drops.

To prevent this, you must protect your leadership team's bandwidth. Implement a strategic pause on all non-essential corporate initiatives. Stop all long-term internal projects that do not directly impact your current quarterly numbers.

Next, establish a strict division of labor on your Accountability Chart. Appoint a single transaction lead, usually your Integrator or an external investment banker, to act as the primary shield. They are responsible for managing the buyer's data requests and keeping the data room updated.

The rest of your leadership team must remain one hundred percent focused on their weekly operational Rocks and Scorecard targets. Keep running your weekly Level 10 Meetings™ with absolute discipline, and do not let transaction talk derail your operational IDS® sessions. By keeping your operational execution insulated from the noise of the transaction, you maintain your performance, protect your valuation, and show the buyer that your company is a self-sustaining machine.