Do I legally need a broker?
No. Owners sell businesses without one. A broker who earns a fee does it by building a market of real buyers and by defending structure through diligence, not by uploading a listing and waiting. That is the distinction drawn in broker-education material such as Brett Cenkus’s public M&A broker series, and it is the standard we use on this desk.
What is the Main Street risk?
Under roughly $2 million of enterprise value, a common path is a public business-for-sale listing, the “list and sit” pattern associated with sites such as BizBuySell. Some small sales close that way. MSP buyers who care about MRR quality, cyber, and assignable contracts usually will not do their best work from a public teaser with no process behind it.
What does an M&A advisor add?
A competitive process, a financial model a buyer can test, a CIM, and someone in the diligence weeds when the quality-of-earnings report comes back short. That work has a cost. It fits when there is a company to sell, not only a job to hand over.
Where does IBBR sit?
Charles Berry runs an MSP-fluent boutique brokerage for the Southeast, with the office in Melbourne, focused on IT services firms of about 10 to 300 people. Central Florida and the Space Coast are corridors inside that market. We prepare a file, run a confidential buyer path, and stay through LOI and diligence. We do not describe the practice as an investment bank, and we do not take every Main Street category.
When do you refer the work out?
A larger private-equity auction, a platform process, or a company well above our size band should go to a partner built for that scale. We would rather make the introduction than stretch the engagement.
How are you paid?
The fee is written down before you sign an engagement. Success-fee structures are common in this work. This page is not a rate card, and a fee is not a promise that the price will rise by more than the fee.
Will you guarantee a multiple?
No. The only multiples on this website are third-party published ranges, sourced in the MSP Valuation Primer, with a disclaimer. Your result depends on quality, process, and structure.