Brokers decide in twenty seconds. This tells you what they see.
A broker with a live listing and eight interested buyers searches your name. What comes back either gets you the CIM or gets you skipped, and nobody tells you which one happened. The Buyer Credibility Assessment scores 42 publicly observable signals the way a broker, a seller and an SBA lender actually screen a buyer, then hands you the fix list in the order that costs you the most deals.
Fit. Funds. Follow-through.
Those are the three things brokers say they screen on in the first few minutes. Not your thesis. Not your enthusiasm. Three questions, answered before you ever get a call back.
Fit
Is there a published buy box specific enough to screen a listing against in ten seconds? If a broker has to email you to find out what you buy, he forwards the deal to someone whose range he already knows.
Funds
Is there any stated capital position? This is the first question asked and the most common reason a conversation ends at the first email. A buyer with no visible funding posture is assumed to have none.
Follow-through
Is there a written process, a responsiveness commitment, an advisory bench already retained? Brokers reward speed, because slow buyers cost them closings.
The most common finding is not a bad presence. It is an invisible one. A LinkedIn headline that still names a corporate role. Nothing that says you are buying a business. A broker concludes you are an employee browsing, which is the single most common time-waster in his inbox, and he moves on. You never hear from him, so you never learn the listing existed.
One report, five parts. Plus two things that are not a report.
Every finding cites the evidence that produced it, so you can see exactly what a broker sees and go fix it.
1. Buyer Credibility Index
The score and the full 42-signal scorecard across four bands: discoverability and identity, buyer credibility, differentiating strengths, and authority, conversion and risk. Dated as your baseline.
2. Buyer Readiness Report
What a broker, seller or lender sees in the first twenty seconds, and what happens next.
3. Strength Assessment
What you already have that your competition does not, and are not saying. Most buyers score unclaimed across most of this band, including strong ones. That is the finding, not a failure.
4. Trust Gap Analysis
Every gap ranked by what it costs you in deals. Three parts each: what was observed, what it costs, what closes it.
5. Personalized Roadmap
A sequenced 90-day plan, ordered by cost-per-deal rather than by ease.
6. Async recorded video walkthrough
Twelve to fifteen minutes. I screen-share your actual presence and narrate what a broker sees, in order, out loud. This is the part people quote back to me.
7. Cohort benchmark
Your score against an anonymized set of buyers in the same deal-size band. It answers the only question you actually have, which is whether you are behind.
The first ten assessments are the baseline set. If you are one of them, you are establishing the benchmark every buyer after you is measured against, and you receive your own benchmark free once the set is complete.
Five of the 42 signals are outside what any report can fix.
Your actual capital position. Real proof of funds. A retained advisory bench. Genuine conflicts in your record.
The report names them as work you have to do yourself, and points you at who does it. Publishing a capital position is not the same as having one, and any vendor who blurs that line is going to blur others.
That section stays in every report. It is the most useful page in the document.
Founding rate for the first ten buyers.
Delivered in five business days. The full amount credits toward any Buyer Credibility OS tier if you enroll within 30 days.
Founding rate
You are the baseline cohort. Your assessment helps build the benchmark, and you get your own benchmark free once the set is complete.
- Buyer Credibility Index, all 42 signals
- Buyer Readiness Report
- Strength Assessment
- Trust Gap Analysis
- Personalized 90-day Roadmap
- Async recorded video walkthrough, 12 to 15 minutes
- Cohort benchmark, free once the baseline set is complete
- Full $497 credits toward any tier within 30 days
Ten founding slots in total, not ten a month. When they are gone the price is $997 and it does not go back.
Standard
The same assessment once the founding cohort is filled, with the cohort benchmark included from day one.
- Everything in the founding rate
- Cohort benchmark included immediately
- Delivered in five business days
- Full $997 credits toward any tier within 30 days
Why the price moves: at $497 I cannot hire help and the reports get slower. At $997 they stay fast and they stay good.
Ten assessments a month, and that is a real number
I take ten a month. Not ten total, ten in any given month, and it is a capacity limit rather than a sales tactic. The recorded walkthrough is me on camera reading your presence out loud, in order, the way a broker would. That part cannot be handed to anyone else, and it is the part people say is worth the money.
When the month fills, the next available date is the first of the following month and you will be told that before you pay, not after. If waiting does not work for you, say so on the form and I will tell you honestly whether a slot is likely to open.
Where it goes next
The assessment is the front door to the Buyer Credibility OS, a three-tier build that closes the gaps the report finds: a buyer credibility microsite, a scored business fit assessment that replaces your contact form, search and AI-search visibility, a CRM wired to it, and an acquisition intelligence toolkit that tears down a CIM and preps you for the broker call.
Every finding in your report is mapped to the tier that closes it, or marked as yours to own. No pitch required. Ask about the OS when you have read the report.
Five business days, and almost none of them are yours.
Day 0
You pay and fill in a short intake: name, LinkedIn, any site you own, your buy box and target deal size. Two minutes.
Days 1 to 3
I assess all 42 signals from public sources only, exactly the way a broker would, and record the walkthrough.
Day 5
Report and walkthrough delivered. Your baseline is logged and dated.
Day 90
If you enroll, the index is re-run against that baseline. Movement in the strength band is the number that matters.
Before you buy
Is this a background check on me?
No. Every signal is publicly observable, the kind of thing a broker sees in a twenty-second name search. No private records, no credit data, no compiling personal information. If it is not something a broker could find in twenty seconds, it is not in the report.
I am still employed and searching quietly. Does this work?
Yes, and the report accounts for it. Deliberate discretion is scored on its own terms. A buyer under a non-compete can still publish a buy box, a capital position and a transition promise without naming an employer or a target. The gap is real, the reason is legitimate, and the fix is a discretion-compatible presence rather than a louder one.
Will this get me proof of funds or an advisory bench?
No, and the report says so directly. Five signals are outside what any report or website creates. It tells you which ones and what they actually require.
I have not bought a business before. Is it worth it?
That is the most common case and the report is built for it. No prior deal is the hardest gap in the index, and there is a whole band devoted to the operator credentials you do have and are not stating. Concrete numbers are what a seller uses to picture you in their chair.
What if the report says I am in good shape?
Then you get a short report and you keep your money for the search. Padding findings to look thorough is the same failure as missing them.
I have been on your side of this.
Not as a consultant studying the market. As someone who went looking for a business to buy.
I spent twenty years building systems inside banks and regulated businesses. Then my team was cut and replaced with outside vendors, and I decided I was done building something valuable for people who could delete it in a meeting I was not invited to.
So I started looking at buying a business. I read the listings. I talked to brokers. I learned what it feels like to send a serious inquiry and get nothing back, and to never find out whether it was the deal, the timing, or me.
What I noticed is that the screening happens before anyone tells you it is happening. A broker forms a view of you in about twenty seconds, from whatever comes back when he types your name. Nobody sends you that verdict. You just stop hearing from people, and you assume the market is slow.
I also watched how differently the room treats a woman who says she is buying a business. Not usually hostile. Just a half-second longer before someone takes it seriously, and a few more questions about funding than the man in the same conversation gets asked. It is small every time and it compounds across a search.
That is the problem I actually know how to fix. Not the deal side. There are attorneys and lenders and quality-of-earnings firms for that, and I will tell you when you need one. What I know is how to make what someone is already good at impossible to miss in the twenty seconds before anyone gives her a real look.
I have spent two decades doing exactly that for enterprise businesses, where the customer decides in seconds whether a business is worth trusting with their money. Same problem. Different room.
What that means for this assessment
I am not going to pad the findings to justify the price. If your presence is in good shape you will get a short report and keep your money for the search.
I am not going to tell you a website solves your capital position, because it does not, and five of the 42 signals say so directly.
I will not take a piece of your deal. No equity, no success fee, no percentage of a purchase price. What you buy is yours.
Find out what the broker and seller can see.
Five business days. $497 while the founding cohort is open, and the full amount credits toward the build if you go further.