Arming Your Deal Champion - Strategic Materials for Buyer Approval
Help your buyer's internal deal champion win approval by providing strategic acquisition materials that satisfy investment committees and boards
Most sellers spend months perfecting their pitch to the buyer sitting across the table, never realizing that person isn’t the one who decides whether the deal happens. The real audience (the investment committee, the board, the CFO demanding risk analysis) never meets you, never tours your facility, never feels the passion you bring to your business. They see only documents. And those documents are written by someone else.
Executive Summary
Every strategic acquisition must survive an internal approval gauntlet before closing. Your buyer’s deal champion (the executive who discovered your company, believes in its potential, and advocates for its purchase) must produce formal approval documents that convince skeptical colleagues to commit millions of dollars to acquiring your business. Investment committee memos, board presentations, integration analyses, and risk assessments all demand specific information that deal champions must gather, synthesize, and present compellingly.
In our experience advising middle-market transactions, internal alignment consistently emerges as a critical factor in deal success, yet relatively few acquirers maintain truly streamlined approval processes. This disconnect creates opportunity for prepared sellers. By strategically arming deal champions with materials designed to flow into internal approval documents (rather than forcing champions to extract and reformat information from generic marketing materials) sellers can provide content specifically structured to answer the questions approval bodies ask.
The potential outcomes of this approach include faster approval timelines, fewer deal-killing information gaps, and improved champion credibility. We must be clear about what this approach requires and what it cannot guarantee. Implementation typically demands $35,000-75,000 in advisor fees and management time, with preparation timelines of 4-8 weeks. Even then, great documentation represents a necessary but not sufficient condition for deal success. Market conditions, strategic fit, valuation alignment, and dozens of other factors influence outcomes independent of document quality. What strategic preparation does accomplish is removing unnecessary friction from the approval process and giving your champion better tools for internal advocacy.
This article examines what strategic acquirer approval processes typically require, identifies the specific document elements deal champions must produce, provides frameworks for structuring your CIM, management presentations, and proactive disclosures, and clarifies when this approach works best (and when alternative strategies may serve you better).
Introduction
When a strategic acquirer pursues your company, you naturally focus on impressing the people you meet: the VP of Corporate Development, the divisional president, the M&A team conducting diligence. These individuals matter enormously. They determine whether you advance through each stage of the process. But they’re not the final decision-makers.
Behind every strategic acquisition sits an approval infrastructure: investment committees weighing capital allocation, boards exercising fiduciary duties, integration teams assessing operational feasibility, and finance executives stress-testing deal economics. Your deal champion must satisfy all of these constituencies, typically through formal written documents they create from information you provide.
Here’s the problem: most sellers provide information optimized for external selling rather than internal advocacy. Beautiful CIMs with compelling narrative arcs and glossy management presentations with inspirational vision statements may excite your deal champion initially, but they often fail to provide the specific, structured content that internal approval documents require.
Consider what your deal champion faces. They must produce an investment committee memo demonstrating strategic rationale with quantified synergy projections. They need board materials addressing governance concerns and integration risks. They require financial models with sensitivity analyses and scenario planning. And they must accomplish all this while managing their regular responsibilities (a balancing act that consumes significant weekly hours during active deal processes, on top of existing job demands).
When your materials don’t directly support these requirements, champions must work harder: hunting through documents for buried information, making independent calls to your team for clarification, constructing analyses from scratch that you could have provided. This extra effort creates delays, introduces potential errors, and may reduce champion effectiveness (though we should note that even great materials cannot compensate for weak champion influence or unfavorable internal politics).
The strategic alternative: design your exit materials from the beginning with internal approval requirements in mind. Structure your CIM to provide content that flows directly into investment committee sections. Prepare management presentation materials that address board-level questions. Create proactive disclosure packages that anticipate common approval objections.
A critical caveat before we proceed: this approach works best in relationship-driven transactions with an identified preferred buyer. In competitive auction processes with multiple bidders, different strategies (including more staged disclosure) may better serve your interests. We’ll address these distinctions throughout.
Understanding the Strategic Acquirer Approval Hierarchy
Before you can arm your deal champion effectively, you must understand who they’re selling to and what each approval layer requires. Strategic acquirers typically employ multi-tier approval processes, though these vary significantly based on company size, industry, governance structure, and organizational culture.
The Investment Committee
For most strategic acquirers with revenues exceeding $500 million, the investment committee represents the critical approval gate. In our experience with middle-market transactions, larger companies typically employ more formal investment committee structures than smaller acquirers, with committee composition often including senior executives (the CFO, Chief Strategy Officer, relevant divisional presidents, and sometimes the CEO).
Investment committees operate with limited time and competing priorities. Members review materials in advance, often with less than a week between distribution and meeting. They focus on specific questions: Does this fit our strategy? Can we justify the valuation? What are the integration risks? What happens if the deal underperforms?
The investment committee memo (which in our firm’s experience typically ranges from 12-35 pages plus exhibits) serves as the primary decision document. Your deal champion must produce this memo, and its clarity and completeness influence how efficiently the committee can evaluate the opportunity. Memos that answer standard committee questions clearly and preemptively tend to generate fewer follow-up requests, though committee dynamics and individual preferences ultimately drive outcomes.
Board Oversight
Significant acquisitions require board approval, adding another layer to your champion’s advocacy burden. Board involvement thresholds vary: public companies typically require board approval for transactions exceeding materiality thresholds (often 5-10% of enterprise value), while private company boards may have different triggers.
Boards focus on fiduciary concerns: Is this transaction in shareholder interest? Does management have capacity to execute? What are the material risks and how are they mitigated? Directors typically have limited time to review acquisition materials compared to the weeks or months your deal champion has invested in diligence.
Board materials typically summarize investment committee analysis while emphasizing governance-relevant elements: strategic rationale, valuation methodology, integration oversight, and risk management. Directors may have limited industry expertise, requiring clearer explanations of market dynamics and competitive positioning than internal executives need.
Functional Stakeholders
Beyond formal approval bodies, deal champions must satisfy functional stakeholders whose support influences outcomes. The CFO’s team validates financial projections and integration costs. The General Counsel assesses legal risks and regulatory requirements. Divisional operations leaders evaluate integration feasibility. HR examines talent retention and cultural compatibility.
Each stakeholder brings specific concerns that your materials can address proactively. When champions can answer functional questions immediately rather than promising follow-up, deals may maintain better momentum (though approval timelines depend on many factors beyond documentation quality, including stakeholder availability, competing priorities, and organizational dynamics).
Process Variations by Context
We should emphasize that approval processes differ substantially based on several factors:
Company size: Smaller acquirers ($50-200 million revenue) may have streamlined processes with CEO-centric decision-making, while larger companies ($1 billion+) typically have more formal multi-stage approvals with additional governance requirements.
Industry: Technology companies often move faster with higher risk tolerance, while manufacturing and healthcare acquirers typically employ more deliberate processes with extensive regulatory and operational reviews. Financial services acquirers face additional regulatory approval layers.
Public vs. private: Public company acquirers face additional disclosure requirements and shareholder considerations that influence timing and documentation requirements.
Acquisition history: Serial acquirers often have refined processes and clear requirements, while infrequent acquirers may have less predictable approval paths.
Understanding your specific buyer’s approval context (which your M&A advisor can often help illuminate) allows you to tailor your champion support approach appropriately.
Anatomy of Investment Committee Approval Documents
Understanding what investment committee memos typically contain reveals opportunities for strategic seller support. While formats vary by organization, most memos address common sections that your materials can directly inform.
Strategic Rationale Section
Every investment committee memo must articulate why this acquisition advances corporate strategy. Champions need to explain market positioning benefits, capability additions, competitive dynamics addressed, and strategic gap closure achieved.
How sellers can help: Your CIM should include a dedicated section addressing how your company might enhance strategic acquirer positioning. Rather than generic capability descriptions, provide specific language connecting your strengths to typical acquirer strategic priorities. Include market share data, competitive positioning analysis, and capability assessments that champions can adapt for their specific strategic narrative. The more concrete your positioning data, the less champions must estimate or extrapolate.
Financial Analysis Section
Investment committees scrutinize deal economics rigorously. Champions must present historical financial performance, forward projections, synergy quantification, and valuation justification with supporting methodologies.
How sellers can help: Provide financial data in formats that flow directly into acquirer financial models. Include detailed revenue decomposition by customer, product, and geography. Quantify operational metrics that support synergy calculations (cost per transaction, revenue per employee, gross margin by product line).
For synergy analysis specifically, consider providing building blocks rather than conclusions. A simple framework might include:
- Revenue synergy inputs: Customer overlap data, cross-sell penetration rates in comparable situations, pricing differential analysis
- Cost synergy inputs: Duplicate function headcount, facility overlap, system redundancy details, procurement volume data
- Dis-synergy considerations: Customer attrition risk factors, key talent departure scenarios, integration cost estimates
Prepare sensitivity analyses showing performance under various scenarios. The more analytical foundation you provide, the less your champion must construct independently (though ultimate synergy projections remain the buyer’s responsibility and judgment).
Risk Assessment Section
Investment committees expect honest risk evaluation with proposed mitigations. Customer concentration, key employee dependency, technology obsolescence, competitive threats, and integration challenges all require assessment.
How sellers can help: Proactively identify and address risks in your materials rather than forcing champions to discover them through diligence. For each significant risk, provide context that enables fair assessment and articulate existing mitigations. This approach demonstrates management sophistication while giving champions language to address committee concerns.
Important caveat: This recommendation applies primarily to negotiated transactions with an identified preferred buyer. In competitive auction situations where multiple bidders are evaluating your company, proactive risk disclosure can backfire (providing ammunition that finance teams use to justify lower valuations or elimination). In auction contexts, consider staged disclosure that provides risk context only after substantive engagement and preliminary valuation alignment.
In our experience with relationship-driven transactions, proactive risk disclosure tends to reduce post-LOI renegotiation frequency compared to situations where similar risks surface unexpectedly during diligence. While we cannot quantify this effect precisely, the logic is straightforward: surprises erode trust and create renegotiation leverage, while proactive disclosure allows champions to preempt concerns.
Integration Planning Section
Strategic acquirers recognize that acquisition success depends on integration execution. Investment committees want confidence that integration is feasible and planned.
How sellers can help: Include integration-relevant information throughout your materials: organizational structure details, technology architecture documentation, operational process descriptions, and key relationship mapping. Where possible, identify integration considerations proactively (which systems require attention, which relationships need transition planning, which processes differ from industry standards).
Building Champion-Ready CIM Content
Your Confidential Information Memorandum serves as the foundational document for deal champion advocacy. Restructuring CIM content to serve internal approval needs (while maintaining external marketing effectiveness) can enhance champion support. Plan 4-8 weeks for comprehensive restructuring, depending on your existing documentation quality and management availability.
Strategic Fit Narrative Framework
Open your CIM with content that champions can adapt for strategic rationale sections. Rather than generic company descriptions, provide:
Market Position Analysis: Quantify your competitive position with specific data. Market share percentages (with methodology), customer relationship tenure, competitive win rates where trackable, and switching cost analysis all support strategic rationale arguments.
Capability Inventory: Catalog specific capabilities that acquirers would value. Technology assets, process expertise, talent concentrations, customer relationships, and geographic presence each represent potential strategic fit elements.
Synergy Indicators: While detailed synergy quantification remains the buyer’s responsibility, you can provide data that enables calculation. Revenue by product line supports cross-sell analysis. Cost structure transparency enables cost synergy identification. Customer overlap data informs revenue synergy potential.
Financial Content Architecture
Structure financial presentations to minimize champion translation effort:
Consistent Metrics: Present metrics in formats strategic acquirers commonly use. EBITDA with clear add-back documentation, revenue by meaningful segments, gross margin analysis, and working capital patterns all follow standard frameworks.
Projection Support: Back projections with detailed assumptions documentation. Revenue drivers, pricing trajectories, cost escalation factors, and capacity constraints should all be explicit rather than embedded in opaque models.
Scenario Analysis: Include base, upside, and downside scenarios with clear assumption differences. Investment committees universally stress-test projections; providing your own analysis demonstrates management rigor while establishing reasonable ranges.
Risk Transparency Approach
Address risks proactively rather than defensively, keeping in mind the auction versus negotiated transaction distinction:
Customer Concentration: If significant concentration exists, contextualize it. Relationship tenure, contract protection, switching cost analysis, and diversification trajectory all support balanced assessment.
Key Person Dependencies: Identify critical talent and describe retention mechanisms. Transition willingness, succession development, and knowledge documentation status help champions address retention concerns.
Competitive Threats: Acknowledge competitive dynamics honestly while emphasizing sustainable advantages. Champions lose credibility presenting sanitized competitive pictures that diligence reveals as incomplete.
Management Presentation as Board Material Source
Management presentations often provide content that feeds board-level approval documents. Structure yours to serve this purpose explicitly.
Executive Summary Construction
Open presentations with content suitable for board summary inclusion:
One-Page Strategic Overview: Create a single slide that captures strategic rationale, key financial metrics, and primary value drivers in board-appropriate language. Champions frequently adapt this slide directly for board decks.
Investment Thesis Statement: Articulate the core logic for acquisition in 2-3 sentences. Why does this company enhance acquirer value? Champions need crisp language for board narrative framing.
Question Anticipation Framework
Boards ask predictable questions. Structure presentation content to address them:
“Why this company?” Provide clear differentiation from alternatives: what makes your company preferable to competitors or organic development options.
“Why now?” Articulate timing logic: what market conditions, competitive dynamics, or company-specific factors make current acquisition attractive.
“What could go wrong?” Address integration risks, market risks, and execution risks with specific mitigation approaches.
“What happens if it underperforms?” Provide downside scenario analysis and strategic optionality in adverse conditions.
Visual Asset Development
Board presentations rely heavily on visual synthesis. Provide charts, diagrams, and frameworks that champions can adapt:
Market Position Maps: Visual competitive positioning frameworks that communicate market dynamics quickly.
Financial Trajectory Charts: Clear visualizations of historical performance and projected growth.
Integration Roadmaps: High-level timeline graphics showing major integration milestones and dependencies.
Alternative Approaches and Their Trade-offs
While this article advocates for champion-focused material preparation in appropriate contexts, we should analyze alternative approaches and when each works better.
Minimal Disclosure Strategy: Some sellers prefer providing only information explicitly requested, preserving negotiating flexibility and avoiding potential over-disclosure. This approach often works better in competitive auction processes where multiple bidders reduce dependency on any single champion’s effectiveness. When three or more qualified buyers compete, you maintain leverage without needing to maximize any individual champion’s advocacy power.
When to choose this approach: Competitive processes with multiple bidders, early-stage exploration before commitment to a specific buyer, situations where strategic acquirer’s internal champion has limited influence.
Advisor-Mediated Communication: Rather than providing champion-ready materials, some sellers rely entirely on M&A advisors to translate and transmit information. This maintains seller distance and preserves confidentiality but may slow response times and introduce translation errors.
When to choose this approach: Highly sensitive competitive situations, when seller management lacks M&A experience, when maintaining negotiating distance is strategically important.
Sequential Disclosure: Some sellers prefer staged information release, providing basic materials initially and detailed champion-support content only after LOI signing. This protects sensitive information but may create friction during the champion’s early internal advocacy when enthusiasm is highest.
When to choose this approach: Competitive auctions where early-stage disclosure creates risk, when proprietary information provides significant competitive advantage, when multiple potential buyers require parallel process management.
Resource-Constrained Approach: Not every seller can invest $35,000-75,000 and 4-8 weeks in comprehensive material preparation. For sellers with limited resources or compressed timelines, a hybrid approach (focusing champion-ready content on the three or four most critical approval concerns) may provide most of the benefit at lower cost.
When to choose this approach: Limited advisory budget, compressed transaction timeline, smaller transaction sizes where full preparation cost exceeds proportional benefit.
The champion-support approach works best when you have identified a preferred buyer and want to accelerate their process (a situation common in relationship-driven strategic transactions but less applicable in broad auction processes). Before investing significantly, assess whether your transaction context matches the approach.
Failure Modes and Risk Mitigation
Intellectual honesty requires examining how this approach can fail and what triggers each failure mode.
Failure Mode 1: Over-Disclosure Damages Negotiating Position
When sellers provide too much detail early, finance teams and diligence personnel may identify issues that become elimination criteria or price reduction justifications.
Trigger conditions: Competitive auction situations, buyers with aggressive finance cultures, disclosure of risks without adequate mitigation context.
Estimated probability: 20-30% in competitive situations, lower in negotiated transactions.
Consequences: Early elimination or significant price reduction (potentially $100,000+ impact on deal value).
Mitigation: Stage disclosure carefully. In competitive processes, reserve detailed risk disclosure for later stages when buyer commitment is stronger. Ensure risk disclosures always include mitigation context.
Failure Mode 2: Champion Lacks Internal Influence
Even great materials cannot compensate for a champion who lacks organizational authority or political capital to drive approval.
Trigger conditions: Champion is junior relative to deal size, champion is politically isolated within organization, champion is managing competing priorities that reduce advocacy capacity.
Estimated probability: 25-35% in middle-market transactions, based on our experience.
Consequences: Great preparation yields no improved outcomes; investment in materials is wasted.
Mitigation: Before investing heavily in champion-ready materials, assess your champion’s actual influence. Questions to explore with your advisor: What is the champion’s track record on previous acquisitions? Where does the champion sit in the approval hierarchy? Does the champion have competing priorities that may divide attention?
Failure Mode 3: Organizational Dynamics Override Documentation Quality
Internal politics, competing budget priorities, or strategic priority shifts can freeze acquisitions regardless of preparation quality.
Trigger conditions: Acquirer faces unexpected financial pressure, competing acquisition opportunities emerge, key decision-makers change roles, strategic priorities shift.
Estimated probability: 15-25% based on macroeconomic conditions and acquirer stability.
Consequences: Deal dies despite champion support and quality materials.
Mitigation: Limited—these factors are largely outside seller control. Maintain optionality by not over-investing in any single buyer relationship. Continue market presence to identify alternative acquirers.
Failure Mode 4: Information Flow Breaks Down
Champions may not use provided materials as intended, may misinterpret content, or may face approval body questions that materials don’t address.
Trigger conditions: Poor communication between seller and champion, materials don’t match organization’s specific format requirements, unexpected questions arise during approval process.
Estimated probability: 20-30%, reducible with strong advisor involvement.
Consequences: Delays, information gaps, reduced champion effectiveness.
Mitigation: Maintain close communication with champions through your advisor. Establish rapid response protocols for clarification requests. Offer to brief champion directly on complex technical or operational matters.
Proactive Disclosure Strategy for Approval Facilitation
Beyond formal documents, thoughtful sellers in negotiated transactions provide proactive disclosures that address approval body concerns before they arise.
Diligence Readiness Documentation
Prepare materials that demonstrate diligence readiness:
Organized Data Room Architecture: Structure your data room to align with typical diligence request lists. When champions can demonstrate clean, organized documentation, they project management quality to approval bodies.
Preemptive Disclosure Memos: For complex or potentially concerning areas, prepare explanatory memos that provide context beyond raw documents. Champions can share these materials directly with stakeholders who raise specific concerns.
Regulatory and Compliance Clarity
Approval bodies worry about regulatory surprises. Provide clarity proactively:
Regulatory Landscape Summary: Document applicable regulatory frameworks and your compliance status. Include recent audit results, regulatory correspondence history, and pending matters.
Antitrust Considerations: If relevant, provide market share data and competitive analysis that supports antitrust clearance arguments.
Integration Facilitation Materials
Help champions demonstrate integration feasibility:
Technology Architecture Documentation: Provide system documentation that enables integration assessment. APIs, data structures, and technology stack details all support technical diligence.
Organizational Structure Detail: Clear organization charts with role descriptions enable integration planning and talent retention assessment.
Process Documentation: Standard operating procedures and workflow documentation demonstrate operational maturity while supporting integration planning.
When This Approach Falls Short
Even great champion support cannot overcome certain fundamental obstacles:
Strategic misfit: If the acquisition doesn’t genuinely advance acquirer strategy, no amount of documentation quality will create fit that doesn’t exist.
Valuation gaps: When seller expectations significantly exceed what buyer analysis supports, champion-ready materials may accelerate the “no” rather than change it.
Internal politics: Deal champions sometimes lose internal battles for reasons unrelated to deal merit: budget competition, executive rivalry, or strategic priority shifts.
Market timing: Economic downturns, acquirer stock price declines, or industry disruptions can freeze acquisition activity regardless of individual deal attractiveness.
Integration capacity: Acquirers with ongoing integrations may lack bandwidth for additional transactions, making champion advocacy timing-dependent.
Champion credibility exhaustion: Champions who have advocated for deals that underperformed may face skepticism regardless of current deal quality.
Understanding these limitations helps calibrate expectations. Champion support materials improve your odds in contested situations but cannot guarantee outcomes in a complex organizational decision process. This approach represents one meaningful lever among many, not a silver bullet.
Champion Communication and Support Protocols
Beyond materials, consider how you interact with your deal champion to support their internal advocacy.
Responsiveness Framework
Champions face pressure from internal stakeholders requesting additional information. Your responsiveness influences their effectiveness:
Response Time Commitments: Establish and honor rapid response commitments for champion inquiries: ideally within 24 hours for standard questions, same-day for urgent matters. Delays force champions to stall internal processes, potentially eroding their credibility.
Clarification Availability: Ensure your team is available for clarification calls when champions encounter questions from approval body members. Real-time support helps prevent response delays.
Information Flow Management
Coordinate information release to support champion narrative control:
Staged Disclosure: Align disclosure timing with internal approval process stages. Overwhelming champions with comprehensive documentation before they’re ready may undermine absorption.
Update Communication: Alert champions to material developments before they surface through other channels. Surprises can damage champion credibility with approval bodies.
Champion Credibility Protection
Your champion’s reputation is invested in advocating for your acquisition. Protect it:
Consistency Discipline: Ensure all communications from your organization align with materials champions have presented. Contradictions force champions into difficult explanations.
Issue Notification: Alert champions immediately to any emerging issues. They should hear problems from you first, with context and proposed responses, rather than discovering them through diligence.
Cost and Timeline Realism
Before implementing this approach, understand the true investment required:
Direct Costs
Additional advisor time for specialized materials: $15,000-35,000 beyond standard engagement, depending on material complexity and revision cycles.
Management time for detailed interviews: 40-80 hours across leadership team, valued at $20,000-40,000 in opportunity cost.
Data room preparation: $5,000-10,000 for organization and supplemental documentation.
Total direct investment: $35,000-75,000 typical range.
Timeline Requirements
Best case (high-quality existing documentation): 3-4 weeks.
Typical case (moderate existing documentation): 5-8 weeks.
Worst case (significant new analysis required): 10-14 weeks.
Key Timeline Dependencies
- Quality of existing financial documentation and systems
- Management team availability for interviews and review
- Advisor capacity for restructuring and drafting
- Number of revision cycles required for quality assurance
ROI Considerations
This investment makes sense when:
- Transaction value exceeds $5 million (making $50,000 investment proportional)
- You have identified a preferred buyer worth accelerating
- Champion appears to have genuine influence in approval process
- Relationship-driven rather than auction transaction context
This investment may not make sense when:
- Competitive auction with multiple bidders
- Transaction value below $3 million
- Champion influence is uncertain
- Timeline constraints prevent adequate preparation
Actionable Takeaways
Transform your exit preparation by implementing these champion support strategies:
Assess your transaction context first. Is this a relationship-driven transaction with an identified preferred buyer, or a competitive auction? Champion-ready materials matter more in the former; staged disclosure strategies may serve you better in the latter.
Evaluate your champion’s influence. Before investing significantly, work with your advisor to assess whether your champion has the organizational authority and political capital to drive approval. Great materials cannot compensate for weak champion positioning.
Restructure your CIM with investment committee section alignment in mind. Include strategic rationale content, financial analysis in standard formats, proactive risk assessment (with appropriate staging based on transaction context), and integration-relevant information. Plan 5-8 weeks for comprehensive restructuring.
Develop your management presentation as board material source. Create executive summary content suitable for board adaptation, anticipate standard board questions, and provide adaptable visual assets.
Budget appropriately. Expect $35,000-75,000 in total investment for comprehensive champion-ready preparation, including advisor fees and management opportunity cost.
Prepare proactive disclosure packages for negotiated transactions, addressing common approval concerns. Regulatory clarity, integration documentation, and preemptive explanatory memos can reduce approval friction (but stage sensitive disclosures appropriately in competitive situations).
Establish champion support protocols including response time commitments, clarification availability, and information flow coordination that protect champion credibility and maintain deal momentum.
Audit your current materials from champion perspective. Ask: If I had to produce an investment committee memo from these materials, what would be missing? What would require reformatting? What questions would remain unanswered?
Conclusion
The most important audience for your exit likely never meets you. Investment committee members, board directors, and functional stakeholders who ultimately approve your acquisition see only documents (documents your deal champion must produce under time pressure with competing priorities).
Thoughtful sellers recognize this dynamic and, in appropriate transaction contexts, design exit materials specifically to support internal advocacy. By understanding approval body requirements, structuring content to flow into standard investment committee sections, and providing proactive disclosures that address common concerns, you may help transform your champion from information hunter to more effective advocate.
This approach is not appropriate for every situation. Competitive auctions, resource constraints, and uncertain champion influence all suggest alternative strategies. And even in ideal circumstances, this approach can fail: champions lose political battles, organizations shift priorities, and market conditions intervene regardless of documentation quality.
When the approach fits your context, the investment in champion-ready materials (typically $35,000-75,000 over 5-8 weeks) may accelerate approval timelines, reduce information gap risks, and support champion credibility. We should maintain appropriate humility: documentation quality is one factor among many in complex acquisition decisions. The effort you invest in understanding and supporting internal approval processes represents a bet on improving your odds, not a guarantee of outcomes.
Your deal champion chose to advocate for your acquisition. Providing them with thoughtfully prepared materials respects that commitment and gives them better tools for the internal case they must make. In a process with many variables outside your control, this represents one meaningful lever you can influence.