Customer Tenure Distribution - What Buyers Actually Look For

When a buyer examines your customer base, they’re not just counting heads or calculating revenue per account. They’re studying the story your customer tenure distribution tells, a narrative that can reveal whether your business maintains both loyal relationships and continued market relevance. Understanding how buyers interpret this data, and when optimizing it makes sense, can help you prepare more effectively for due diligence conversations.

Executive Summary

Customer tenure distribution, the mix of how long your customers have been with you, can provide meaningful signals to acquirers about business health and revenue quality. This metric reveals more than simple retention rates, offering buyers insights into customer loyalty patterns, competitive positioning, and potential growth trajectory.

A balanced tenure distribution often suggests business vitality: established relationships demonstrating sustained value delivery, mid-tenure accounts proving the business model’s sustainability, and recent acquisitions showing continued market relevance. When your customer base skews heavily toward any single tenure band without appropriate context, it may raise questions that buyers will explore during due diligence.

Important context: Customer tenure distribution is one factor among many that influence transaction value, and typically not the most important one. Growth, profitability, customer concentration, market position, and team quality generally matter more. Optimizing tenure distribution only makes sense after addressing these fundamental issues and when your specific situation justifies the investment.

This article examines why tenure distribution matters to many acquirers, what different distribution patterns may signal about your business, and how to present your customer tenure data in ways that address, rather than amplify, buyer questions. We provide frameworks for analyzing your current distribution, guidance on developing context-appropriate benchmarks, and considerations for whether tenure optimization makes sense given your specific exit timeline and business characteristics.

Introduction

Every business owner knows that customer retention matters. High retention rates signal product-market fit, operational excellence, and the kind of sticky relationships that generate predictable revenue streams. But retention rates tell only part of the story, and many acquirers look deeper.

Consider two hypothetical businesses, each with identical 90% annual dollar retention rates (measuring revenue renewal within a 12-month period). Business A has a customer base where 70% of accounts have been with them for over seven years, with minimal new customer acquisition in recent periods. Business B maintains a more balanced distribution: roughly 25% are customers of five or more years, 40% have been around for two to four years, and 35% were acquired within the last two years.

On the surface, both businesses demonstrate strong customer loyalty. But to many buyers, they may represent different risk profiles worth exploring. Business A’s concentration in long-tenured customers, combined with slowing new acquisition, could suggest questions about market stagnation or competitive vulnerability. Business B’s balanced distribution might signal both customer satisfaction and continued market relevance.

This distinction can matter in acquisition contexts. Buyers are investing in future cash flows, and customer tenure distribution provides one window into that future. According to Exit Planning Institute research, customer-related factors, including concentration, retention patterns, and relationship transferability, frequently rank among top due diligence concerns for businesses in the lower middle market.

In our experience advising business owners on exit readiness across approximately 40 engagements over the past five years (primarily B2B services and technology, ranging from $2M-$25M in revenue, noting our sample consists of businesses proactively preparing for exit), customer tenure distribution frequently surfaces during buyer due diligence conversations. Yet many sellers have never analyzed or actively managed this metric. That oversight can leave you unprepared for questions that buyers may raise, and preparation matters in high-stakes negotiations.

Where Tenure Distribution Fits in Valuation Priorities

Before diving into tenure analysis, you need to understand where this metric sits in the hierarchy of factors that actually drive transaction value. Based on our experience in lower middle market deals and conversations with M&A advisors, the primary valuation drivers typically rank as follows:

1. Growth rate and scalability - Historical growth trajectory and future growth potential
2. Profitability and margins - EBITDA margins, gross margin trends, and cash flow quality
3. Customer concentration risk - Revenue dependency on top customers (typically the top 10-20%)
4. Market position and competitive moat - Defensibility, market share, and competitive differentiation
5. Team quality and transferability - Management depth and founder dependency
6. Customer tenure and retention patterns - The focus of this article

This ranking matters because business owners with limited time before exit should prioritize items 1-5 before focusing heavily on tenure distribution. If your growth is stagnant, margins are thin, or 40% of revenue comes from one customer, optimizing tenure distribution won’t materially change your outcome.

Tenure distribution becomes relevant only when your fundamentals are solid and you have sufficient runway (typically 18-24+ months) to meaningfully shift the pattern. For businesses with healthy fundamentals and appropriate timelines, tenure optimization can address buyer concerns and support stronger due diligence conversations, but it’s unlikely to be the difference between a mediocre outcome and a great one.

Why Customer Tenure Distribution Matters to Buyers

Acquirers who examine customer tenure distribution are typically trying to answer two questions: Are your existing customers likely to remain after the acquisition? And is your business still winning new customers in a competitive market?

The Dual Concern Framework

Every acquisition involves inherent risks around customer transition. Buyers worry about customer concentration, whether too much revenue depends on too few accounts, but many also consider tenure concentration. A customer base dominated by long-tenured accounts, combined with declining new customer acquisition, may suggest the business has lost competitive edge. A customer base dominated by new accounts might raise questions about whether the business can actually retain the customers it wins.

The concern isn’t concentration in any single tenure band per se, it’s concentration that seems inappropriate for the business context. A two-year-old SaaS company naturally has most customers in the 0-2 year band. A 20-year-old professional services firm with most customers in the 10+ year band might be perfectly healthy if it’s also consistently acquiring new clients.

When buyers see representation across tenure bands that seems appropriate for the business model and life stage, they often gain confidence that:

Customer loyalty has been demonstrated over time. Long-tenured customers suggest that your product or service delivers sustained value. These relationships have survived competitive pressures, economic cycles, and the natural friction that causes customers to reevaluate vendor relationships.

Market relevance appears current. Recent customer acquisition suggests that your value proposition still resonates in today’s competitive landscape. You’re actively winning business against current alternatives, not solely coasting on relationships established years ago.

Revenue sources span multiple cohorts. Distribution across tenure bands means your revenue stream doesn’t depend entirely on relationships that might be reaching natural end-of-life or on new relationships that haven’t yet proven their staying power.

What Different Distribution Patterns May Signal

The shape of your customer tenure distribution tells a story that buyers will interpret, accurately or not, based on their experience and concerns. Understanding these interpretations helps you prepare for due diligence conversations and, where appropriate, shape the narrative around your distribution.

Tenure distribution patterns are typically symptoms of underlying business dynamics rather than causes of buyer concerns. Buyers are really trying to understand the root causes, market position, competitive dynamics, sales capability, that produce these patterns.

Heavy Long-Tenure Concentration with Slowing Acquisition

When 60% or more of your customer base has been with you for five-plus years and new customer acquisition has materially slowed (noting that some industries like industrial manufacturing or specialized professional services naturally skew toward longer tenures), buyers may think about several possibilities:

• Market saturation or declining market relevance
• Sales and marketing capability that has atrophied over time
• Potential founder-dependent relationships that may not transfer
• Revenue concentration risk if legacy customers eventually churn
• Competitive pressure from newer market entrants

The concern is not the long tenure itself, that actually demonstrates retention capability. The concern is long tenure combined with inability or unwillingness to acquire new customers. A business with 60% of customers in the 7+ year band is healthy if it’s also consistently acquiring new customers. It’s potentially problematic only if new acquisition has stopped or significantly declined.

Buyers evaluating this pattern typically ask more questions about go-to-market capability and may think about deal structures that hedge customer retention risk.

Heavy New-Customer Concentration

When recent acquisitions dominate your customer base and long-tenured customers are scarce, buyers may think about different questions:

• Potential product-market fit issues that haven’t fully manifested
• High customer acquisition costs that may not be sustainable
• Retention challenges that will emerge as customers mature
• Business model instability or recent pivots
• Whether early cohorts show acceptable retention rates

This pattern often triggers intensive due diligence around customer acquisition costs, payback periods, and cohort-level retention analysis. Buyers want to understand whether recent customers are likely to become long-term customers.

Concentration at Both Ends (Barbell Pattern)

Some businesses show strong representation among very long-tenured and very new customers, with a hollowed-out middle. This pattern may suggest:

• A business model transition or strategic pivot
• Legacy customers from a previous business phase
• Recent successful marketing push or product launch
• Inconsistent go-to-market execution over time

Buyers encountering barbell distributions typically dig deeply into the story behind each segment, looking for coherence that explains the pattern.

Balanced Distribution

A distribution with meaningful representation across tenure bands, appropriate for the business’s age and model, may signal to many buyers:

• Consistent customer acquisition over time
• Retention driving natural tenure accumulation
• Market relevance sustained across multiple periods
• Business model stability and execution consistency

Businesses with contextually appropriate tenure distributions typically face fewer intrusive due diligence questions around customer risk and can spend more time discussing growth opportunities.

Developing Context-Appropriate Benchmarks

Before you can assess your customer tenure distribution, you need benchmarks that make sense for your specific situation. Universal benchmarks are problematic because appropriate distributions vary dramatically by industry, customer acquisition model, and business maturity.

Why Universal Benchmarks Don’t Work

Consider the differences:

• A 3-year-old SaaS company naturally has most customers in the 0-3 year band, that’s not a warning sign, it’s arithmetic
• A 25-year-old manufacturing business serving long-term industrial contracts might appropriately have 50%+ of customers in the 10+ year band
• A project-based consulting firm with episodic engagements shows different patterns than a subscription business with recurring revenue
• A business that recently pivoted its model will show a barbell distribution that reflects strategy, not dysfunction

Rather than applying universal percentages, develop context-specific benchmarks through these approaches:

Analyze Comparable Peers

Identify 3-5 businesses similar to yours in model, market, and maturity. Through industry associations, trade publications, case studies, or conversations with advisors who work in your space, gather what information you can about typical tenure patterns. Even directional understanding helps contextualize your own distribution.

Review Your Historical Trends

Your own 3-5 year trend is often more informative than external benchmarks. If your distribution has shifted significantly, more concentration in long-tenured accounts, declining new acquisition rates, that trend tells a story that matters more than whether you hit some external benchmark.

Consider Your Business Model

High switching costs, subscription pricing, and deep integration typically support longer average tenures. Project-based work, competitive markets, and low switching costs typically show shorter average tenures. What’s appropriate for your model?

Consult Segment-Specific Research

Industry associations and M&A advisory firms sometimes publish data on customer metrics by segment. The SBA’s Office of Advocacy and trade-specific research organizations occasionally provide relevant data. While imperfect, this is more useful than invented universal benchmarks.

Building Your Tenure Analysis

With context-appropriate benchmarks in mind, categorize every customer relationship by origination date, then segment them into tenure bands relevant to your business. Common frameworks include:

For each band, calculate both customer count and revenue contribution. Significant divergence between these measures often reveals concentration risks that count-based analysis alone might obscure.

Revenue-Weighted Analysis

Customer count distribution tells only part of the story. Examine revenue-weighted tenure distribution, which often reveals different patterns.

Consider a business with customers distributed evenly across tenure bands by count. If a small number of legacy customers generate disproportionate revenue while many new customers collectively contribute modest revenue, the revenue-weighted distribution tells a different story than the count-based analysis.

Creating parallel analyses, one based on customer count and one based on revenue contribution, and examining where they diverge often surfaces concentration patterns worth understanding and addressing.

Cohort Retention Analysis

Tenure distribution provides a snapshot, but cohort analysis reveals the underlying dynamics. By tracking retention rates for customers acquired in specific periods, you can identify whether your current distribution reflects consistent performance or masks troubling trends.

If customers acquired three years ago show 85% retention while customers acquired one year ago show only 65% retention at comparable points in their lifecycle, your current distribution may look healthier than your forward trajectory suggests. Sophisticated buyers conducting thorough due diligence often discover these patterns, it’s generally better to understand them yourself and control the narrative.

Different Buyer Types, Different Priorities

Not all buyers weight tenure distribution equally. Understanding which buyer types are most likely for your business helps you calibrate how much to emphasize tenure optimization.

Strategic Buyers

Strategic acquirers, typically larger companies in your industry or adjacent markets, primarily care about customer transferability and whether acquiring your customers helps them reach new segments or cross-sell additional products. They may be less concerned about tenure distribution per se and more focused on whether key relationships will survive the transition and integration.

Financial Buyers

Private equity firms and other financial buyers typically focus more on revenue stability and predictable cash flows. They’re likely to examine tenure distribution as a risk indicator, particularly looking for concentration patterns that could affect post-acquisition revenue stability. They may apply more rigorous cohort analysis and stress-test assumptions about future retention.

Individual Buyers and Search Funds

Smaller buyers acquiring a single business often lack the resources for deep tenure analysis. They may focus more on overall retention rates and customer concentration than on detailed distribution patterns. Sophisticated individual buyers or search fund operators may dig deeper.

Roll-Up Acquirers

Buyers executing a roll-up strategy across multiple similar businesses may have developed specific tenure distribution benchmarks from their portfolio and apply these more rigorously to new acquisitions.

Tailoring your preparation based on the most likely buyer type for your business helps focus your effort where it matters most.

Presenting Tenure Data to Address Buyer Questions

How you present customer tenure distribution can influence buyer perception. The goal isn’t to obscure unfavorable patterns, honest presentation is lower-risk than spin, but to provide context that helps buyers interpret your distribution accurately.

The Narrative Framework

Every tenure distribution tells a story. Your job is to make sure buyers understand the right story. Good tenure narratives address four elements:

Origin: How did your current distribution develop? What business decisions, market conditions, and strategic choices shaped the pattern?

Trajectory: Is your distribution stable, improving, or deteriorating? Where were you three years ago, and where are you trending?

Causation: What drives retention in your long-tenured accounts? What drives acquisition of new customers? Are these factors sustainable under new ownership?

Comparability: How does your distribution compare to your own historical trends and to patterns typical for your business model?

Addressing Common Buyer Questions

Different distribution patterns trigger different questions. Prepare to address the specific questions your distribution is likely to generate:

For heavy long-tenure concentration with slowing acquisition: Be prepared to explain your new customer acquisition strategy, demonstrate recent competitive wins, and show evidence that legacy relationships extend beyond founder connections to broader organizational ties that will survive ownership transition.

For heavy new-customer concentration: Focus on cohort-level retention metrics, customer acquisition costs and payback periods, and evidence that early customers are progressing toward long-term relationships.

For barbell distributions: Prepare a coherent narrative explaining the pattern, distinguish between legacy business segments and current strategy, and demonstrate that middle-tenure gaps reflect intentional transition rather than execution failure.

Supporting Documentation

Strong tenure distribution presentations include supporting documentation:

• Customer origination dates and relationship timelines
• Cohort retention analysis by acquisition period
• Revenue concentration by tenure band
• Customer satisfaction or NPS data segmented by tenure
• Contract renewal rates and expansion revenue by tenure
• Customer acquisition metrics demonstrating market relevance
• Evidence of relationships extending beyond founder connections

When Tenure Optimization Makes Sense

Tenure distribution optimization takes substantial investment and only makes sense in specific circumstances. Before committing resources, honestly assess whether optimization is justified, and whether alternative uses of your time and capital might generate better returns.

Decision Framework

Tenure distribution optimization typically makes sense when:

1. Your timeline provides sufficient runway. Given typical customer acquisition cycles and the need to demonstrate sustained acquisition, tenure optimization generally takes 18-36 months before meaningful results appear. If you’re within 12-18 months of exit, focus on other priorities.

2. Your current distribution shows material deviation from your context-appropriate benchmarks. If your distribution is already reasonable for your business model and maturity, optimization yields diminishing returns.

3. Your fundamentals are solid. If growth is stagnant, margins are thin, or customer concentration is severe, address those issues first. Tenure optimization is secondary to fixing fundamental business challenges.

4. You have leadership capacity to drive new initiatives without harming current operations. Revitalizing sales and marketing or launching new customer success programs takes sustained attention. If this diverts focus from serving existing customers or maintaining quality, the net effect could be negative.

5. The likely cost justifies the expected impact. Estimate the investment needed for your optimization strategy and compare to a realistic estimate of value uplift. Be conservative in estimating impact.

Comparing Tenure Optimization to Alternatives

Before pursuing tenure optimization, consider whether alternative uses of resources might generate better returns:

Alternative 1: Customer Concentration Reduction

• When superior: Customer concentration exceeds 30% in top 5 accounts
• When inferior: Concentration already diversified, tenure is the binding constraint
• Economic comparison: Concentration fixes typically deliver 2-3x higher valuation impact than tenure optimization
• Key tradeoff: Immediate risk reduction vs. longer-term positioning

Alternative 2: Margin Improvement Initiatives

• When superior: EBITDA margins below industry benchmarks, identifiable efficiency opportunities
• When inferior: Margins already healthy, growth is the priority
• Economic comparison: Margin improvements flow directly to EBITDA and multiply via transaction multiples
• Key tradeoff: Current profitability vs. future revenue positioning

Alternative 3: Sell Now Without Optimization

• When superior: Strong market conditions, adequate current valuation, limited optimization runway
• When inferior: Clear optimization opportunity with sufficient timeline and resources
• Economic comparison: Immediate liquidity vs. uncertain future premium
• Key tradeoff: Certainty vs. potential upside

ROI Framework for Optimization Decisions

Before committing to tenure optimization, build a realistic ROI analysis. Here’s an example framework:

Example: $5M revenue business with heavy legacy concentration

Investment needed (18 months):

• Sales leadership hire: $150K annually ($225K over 18 months)
• Marketing spend: $75K annually ($112K over 18 months)
• Systems and tools: $25K
• Owner/leadership time opportunity cost: $50K
• Total investment: $412K

Potential impact:

• Improved revenue mix might reduce buyer discount: 5-10%
• On 4x EBITDA multiple with $750K EBITDA: $150-300K additional value
• Less transaction costs at 85% net: $127-255K net benefit

Analysis:

• Base case ROI: -$157K to -$285K (negative)
• Takes >15% buyer discount reduction to break even
• High uncertainty given execution risks

This example shows why tenure optimization often doesn’t pencil out economically. The investment is certain while the valuation impact is speculative and dependent on buyer perception, market conditions, and successful execution.

Implementation Costs and Risks

Before pursuing customer tenure distribution optimization, understand the full cost including both direct expenses and hidden costs:

Direct costs for revitalizing sales and marketing capabilities in a business where these have atrophied typically include:

• Sales leadership hiring: $100-150K annually
• Marketing spend: $50-100K annually
• Systems and tools: $25-50K
• Direct total over 18 months: $250-450K

Hidden costs often overlooked:

• Founder/leadership time diverted from current operations: 10-20 hours weekly
• Opportunity cost of capital deployed to optimization vs. other uses
• Risk of customer service disruption during transition
• Potential existing customer churn if attention diverts
• Failed implementation risk (30-40% based on typical sales transformation success rates)

Realistic timeline:

• Hiring experienced leadership: 3-6 months to find and onboard
• Strategy development and alignment: 2-3 months
• Pipeline development and customer acquisition: 6-12 months before meaningful new revenue
• Total timeline: 12-18+ months before distribution metrics shift materially

Plan for 18-24 months if hiring proves difficult or new customer acquisition cycles extend longer than expected. Market disruptions or leadership turnover can extend timelines further.

Failure Modes and Risk Mitigation

Tenure optimization efforts carry meaningful risks that you should understand before committing resources.

Failure Mode 1: New Customer Acquisition Efforts Fail

Trigger conditions: Weak product-market fit in current environment, inadequate sales capability building, unrealistic pipeline expectations

Probability: 30-40% based on typical sales hiring and transformation success rates

Consequences: Wasted investment of $200-400K+, potentially worse tenure distribution if existing resources were diverted, delayed exit timeline

Mitigation strategies:

• Start with small pilots before full commitment
• Set clear 90-day milestones with go/no-go decision points
• Maintain exit timeline flexibility
• Consider fractional sales leadership before full-time hire

Failure Mode 2: Existing Customer Churn During Optimization

Trigger conditions: Leadership attention diverted from current customer success, service quality decline, relationship neglect

Probability: 15-25% in businesses with high-touch customer relationships

Consequences: Net negative impact on customer base quality and revenue, damaged tenure distribution (losing long-tenured accounts), reduced business value

Mitigation strategies:

• Make sure dedicated customer success capacity before launching acquisition initiatives
• For high-touch service businesses where founder manages key accounts, consider whether optimization is appropriate at all
• Monitor customer satisfaction metrics weekly during transition
• Set up early warning systems for at-risk accounts

Failure Mode 3: Market Timing Deteriorates

Trigger conditions: Economic downturn, industry consolidation, buyer market softening, interest rate changes affecting deal financing

Probability: Historically, 20-30% chance of significant market shift over any 18-month period

Consequences: Optimization investment doesn’t generate returns because of overall valuation compression, extended timeline waiting for market recovery

Mitigation strategies:

• Maintain flexibility to accelerate exit timeline if market conditions are favorable
• Use conservative ROI assumptions that account for market risk
• Monitor M&A market conditions quarterly
• Have contingency plan for exiting without completing optimization

Strategies for Over-Concentrated Distributions

When optimization makes sense per the framework above, consider these approaches based on your specific pattern.

For Heavy Long-Tenure Concentration with Slowing Acquisition

Revitalize sales and marketing capabilities. This is often among the most challenging business transformations and frequently takes longer than anticipated, particularly in businesses where these capabilities have been dormant for years. Be prepared to explain to buyers why these capabilities atrophied and whether the renewed focus will continue post-acquisition.

Critical warning: Sales and marketing revitalization may not be appropriate for businesses where founder attention is critical to current customer retention. Make sure adequate customer success coverage exists before pursuing new acquisition initiatives. If you can’t staff customer success independently, the risk of existing customer churn may outweigh the benefit of new acquisition.

Document relationship transferability. For legacy accounts, make sure relationships extend beyond founder connections to broader organizational ties. Involve other team members in key customer interactions. Document contract terms, renewal dates, and key decision-makers beyond your primary contacts. Some founder-dependent relationships may not fully transfer to new ownership, and this is a legitimate concern. Plan conservatively and be prepared to disclose concentration in truly founder-dependent relationships.

Reactivate dormant acquisition channels. Channels that historically drove new customer acquisition may still be viable. Before building new capabilities, investigate whether past success is repeatable with modest investment.

For Heavy New-Customer Concentration

Track and communicate cohort metrics. Showing that recent cohorts are retaining at rates comparable to (or better than) historical cohorts directly addresses buyer concerns about retention sustainability.

Develop expansion revenue strategies. Customers who grow their spending over time demonstrate deeper engagement and higher switching costs. Track and document expansion patterns.

Investigate and address early churn. If new customers are leaving before reaching medium-tenure bands, identify and fix the underlying causes. This is both good business practice and important for buyer conversations.

Actionable Takeaways

Preparing your customer tenure distribution for buyer conversations takes systematic attention. Here’s a prioritized framework:

Immediate actions (next 30 days):

• Build complete tenure analysis using both customer count and revenue weighting
• Identify which distribution pattern your business exhibits
• Calculate cohort retention rates for the last four annual acquisition cohorts
• Document the story behind your current distribution

Near-term priorities (next 90 days):

• Develop context-appropriate benchmarks by researching comparable businesses
• Review your 3-year distribution trends, is the pattern improving or deteriorating?
• Identify the top three questions your distribution is likely to trigger with buyers
• Prepare thoughtful responses and supporting documentation for each question

Strategic initiatives (if timeline and circumstances warrant, 18+ months before exit):

• Assess whether tenure optimization is justified per the decision framework
• Compare optimization ROI to alternative uses of resources
• Make sure customer success coverage before launching any acquisition initiatives
• If proceeding, implement appropriate strategies with realistic timelines and clear milestones
• Build customer relationship documentation demonstrating transferability

Pre-transaction preparation:

• Update all tenure analyses with current data
• Prepare management presentation materials addressing tenure distribution
• Brief key team members on tenure-related due diligence questions
• Assemble supporting documentation for data room

Conclusion

Customer tenure distribution provides one lens through which buyers assess business quality and transition risk. This metric can reveal customer loyalty patterns and market relevance, factors that contribute to buyers’ confidence in revenue durability under new ownership.

Understanding your current distribution pattern, the story it tells, and how buyers might interpret that story provides useful preparation for exit conversations. Understanding these dynamics early in your exit planning timeline lets you determine whether optimization makes sense for your specific situation.

Maintain perspective on where tenure distribution sits in the hierarchy of value drivers. Growth, profitability, customer concentration, market position, and team quality typically matter more than tenure distribution patterns. Address fundamental business challenges before considering tenure optimization. If your fundamentals are solid and your timeline permits, addressing tenure distribution can strengthen your position, but be realistic about the investment required and the risks involved.

A contextually appropriate customer base, one that shows both retention capability and continued market relevance, appropriate for your business model and maturity, generally supports stronger buyer conversations. Deep-rooted relationships prove your ability to deliver sustained value. Recent customer acquisition proves continued market relevance. The combination provides confidence in future performance.

We encourage business owners with exit ambitions to conduct tenure distribution analysis as part of their exit readiness assessment, not as the primary focus, but as one input among many. The insights you gain will inform both your preparation priorities and your eventual buyer conversations, contributing to your overall readiness for a successful transaction.