How to tell the difference between a slow seller and a bad one

Hey, it’s Ben!

Yesterday I shared why sellers go quiet and how to follow up without burning the relationship.

Today I want to cover what comes next:

How to tell whether a slow seller is worth staying patient with, and when it's time to cut your losses and move on.👇

Avi is an M&A attorney who closed on a $310K SaaS business in just 4 months after joining Acquisition Ace.

Even with 30+ deals under his belt as an attorney, he needed to learn the buyer side - and the community recorded calls taught him everything he needed to be successful.

👉 Want access to a library of deal breakdowns and a community of experienced buyers? Book a call with our team here.

When patience is worth it

Not all slow sellers are disengaged ones.

Some are simply careful and methodical, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

A seller who’s thought through every detail before agreeing to anything is often one who’ll hold up their end of the deal after closing.

The difference comes down to whether the conversation is still moving, even if it’s moving slowly.

A seller who responds late but thoughtfully, who engages with your questions even after delays, who keeps showing up to the process in some form - that’s someone worth staying patient with.

The pace might be frustrating, but the trajectory is forward.

When it’s time to move on

The sellers worth walking away from look different.

They cancel meetings repeatedly or show up unprepared.

They avoid specific questions about financials and give vague or incomplete answers after multiple follow-ups.

They anchor to valuations that have no grounding in the actual numbers and show no interest in discussing how they arrived at them.

These are signals about what the entire process would look like, and often about what ownership might look like if you did eventually close.

(Inside Acquisition Ace, members learn how to read seller behavior early and make clear-eyed decisions about which deals deserve continued attention. To see how our community can help you with your first acquisition, book a call with our team here.)

The pattern to watch for

The cleanest signal is simple: is this seller making it easier or harder to move forward?

Sellers who want to sell find ways to keep the conversation going.

They return calls, provide information when asked, and show flexibility when reasonable questions come up.

Even when they’re slow, there’s a sense that they’re genuinely engaged in the process.

Sellers who are wasting your time do the opposite.

Every step requires more effort from you than from them, and the further you go, the more that pattern becomes clear.

Learn to recognize that pattern early.

The sooner you identify it, the more time you protect for the deals that actually deserve your attention.

Next week, I’ll share the most underrated tool available to any buyer in a negotiation, and why most first-time buyers don’t have it.

If you’d like to build better deal judgment alongside people who’ve already been through this process, the Acquisition Ace community is a great place to do that.

To see if it’s right for you and your goals…

👉 Book a call with my team here.