A prompt that builds your deal financing structure in minutes

Happy Thursday!

Finding a good business and knowing what it’s worth are two things.

And figuring out how to actually pay for it - with as little of your own money as possible - is the part that stops most people cold.

Deal structure is where a lot of first-time buyers get stuck, often because modeling out different financing scenarios used to require real financial fluency, hours in a spreadsheet, and a solid understanding of SBA regulations.

In 2026, it’s a totally different story.

Leann bought a $1.3M sign company after joining Acquisition Ace, and her son now runs operations.

She went from program manager to business owner in less than a year.

👉 Want the foundation and knowledge to confidently pursue your first acquisition? Book a call with our team here.

The prompt I use for deal structuring

“You’re an SBA loan and creative financing expert using my proven acquisition financing strategies.

Context: SBA 7(a) loans can finance up to 90% of purchase price with 10% buyer injection. Seller notes of 10%+ on full standby for the life of the loan (typically 10 years) can count as buyer injection, enabling down to a 5% cash requirement. I prefer structures that minimize my cash while maximizing cash flow.

For this business with [asking price] and [cash flow], create three financing structures:

1. Maximum SBA leverage: 90% SBA loan, 10% seller note on full standby.

2. Traditional structure: 90% SBA + 10% cash down.

3. Creative structure with private investor covering down payment for equity stake.

For each structure, show my total cash required, monthly debt service at current SBA rates (8–10%), net monthly cash flow after debt payments, first-year cash-on-cash return, and specific implementation steps (including what to tell the lender and seller).”

Why this is useful

The output gives you a side-by-side comparison of three complete options with all the figures you need to evaluate them containing cash in, monthly payments out, net cash flow, and return on investment.

More importantly, it gives you implementation steps on what to actually say to a lender or seller when proposing each structure.

That alone saves significant time for anyone who hasn’t navigated these conversations before.

(Inside Acquisition Ace, members learn how to present deal structures like these to lenders and sellers, and how to negotiate the terms that make each one work. If that sounds like something you’d like to learn in our community, book a call with our team here.)

What this looks like on a real deal

When I ran this prompt on an HVAC business with a $1.5M asking price and $440K in annual cash flow, the output included three fully built-out structures:

The maximum leverage structure required $75K in personal cash - achieved through an SBA loan combined with a seller note on full standby - and projected a cash-on-cash return above 300%.

The standard structure required $150K down and projected a return around 150%.

The creative structure involved bringing in a private investor to cover the down payment in exchange for a 20% equity stake, leaving 80% ownership and a projected return above 230% on my portion.

Each came with monthly debt service calculations, net cash flow projections, and a step-by-step implementation roadmap.

Take the projections as directional rather than guaranteed (they assume no additional hires and stable performance) but as a framework for thinking through your options before you’re sitting across from a lender, this is genuinely valuable.

The tools are there

But one thing they can’t do is replace the judgment, the relationship-building, and the work of actually finding the right deal in the first place.

That part’s still on you.

If you’d like help developing that judgment alongside people who’ve already done it, the Acquisition Ace community is a great place to start.

To see if it could be helpful for you, too…

👉 Book a call with my team here.