Why Adaptability Beats 'Perfection' in Deal Negotiations

Welcome back to the Mid Market Insider!

Today, we’re discussing why adaptability eats 'perfection' in deal negotiations and how you can use it to your advantage.

Selling isn’t about standing your ground and proving certainty in your business; it’s about showing adaptability.

Many business owners anticipate offers without understanding what buyers truly want.

The ones that sell smoothly and at a premium take the time to ask questions, listen, and make practical adjustments.

Sometimes it’s documenting processes, clarifying revenue streams, or diversifying customer concentration.

Other times, it’s small operational changes that reduce friction or increase predictability.

You don’t need to fix everything… just the areas that matter most to the buyer and significantly reduce risk.

Adaptability signals two things:

1. Partnership

2. Confidence.

It shows buyers that the business is resilient, predictable, and investable. When buyers see systems that function without owner-dependency, it builds trust.

Being responsive to their needs isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s preparation, and it directly influences your ability to close successfully.

Selling is a process, or in other words… it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

By aligning with buyer expectations, documenting operations, and reducing uncertainties, you create a business that is both understandable and attractive.

Flexibility combined with discipline creates confidence and drives deals forward.

Smooth exits happen not because everything is perfect, but because the business shows repeatability, predictability, and readiness.

The businesses that adapt sell faster, more efficiently, and at better terms.

Reader Question of The Week

For context, this is a recent section I’ve decided to add. After receiving many questions in my day-to-day as the co-founder of Four Pillars, I wanted to share the most common ones in my newsletter in hopes that it’s valuable to you in some way.

If you have a question you want answered in a future newsletter, please reply directly to this email and I’ll do my best to answer it. Now, onto this week’s question:👇

Q: “How do I prepare my team for an eventual sale without spooking them?”

This advice is similar to what I would offer for other questions, but the first step is to give your employees more responsibility and autonomy.

If they start operating on their own, that is the best preparation they could have!

That’s all for today’s newsletter! Thanks for reading!

📅 Next Week:

Next week, I’ll be diving into why the name on your diploma isn’t everything and my story about how I started college at Georgia Tech, transferred to Mizzou, and what that decision taught me about brand, fit, and real-world preparation.

The lessons I learned from that experience still shape how I think about business and hiring today.

Keep building,
Nick

P.S. If you’re serious about preparing your business for a future sale, I’ve built a free community to help you do exactly that.

It’s called Pre-Sale Prep and inside, I share the same frameworks we use when buying and growing companies.