What Is Off-Market Sourcing?

Short answer: off-market sourcing is finding and approaching the owners of businesses that are not publicly listed for sale, and starting a conversation about buying. It is also called direct sourcing or proprietary sourcing. It takes more work than buying a publicly listed business, but it is where most of the market is. Marketdata Enterprises estimates in its November 2024 industry report that business brokers handle only about 20% of small business sales. That is an outside estimate, not a Rejigg measurement.

We have run off-market sourcing at scale for about four years: roughly 2.6 million calls to more than 515,000 business owners as of October 2026. This guide covers what off-market sourcing is, the channels buyers use, what the numbers look like, and how a first call becomes a closed deal.

Off-market vs. publicly listed

A publicly listed business is advertised for sale, usually by a broker who runs a process. An off-market business is not advertised. If you want it, you go to the owner, or to the broker quietly representing them.

Here is how the two usually differ.

• Who runs the process. Publicly listed: the broker sets the timeline and decides what is shared and when. Off-market: you and the owner work it out directly.
• Competition. Publicly listed: many buyers get the same package. Off-market: usually little or none.
• What you start with. Publicly listed: a CIM (Confidential Information Memorandum), often with a data room. Off-market: whatever the owner shares, and often no prepared financials.
• The owner. Publicly listed: has talked valuation and process with a professional. Off-market: often new to selling and its vocabulary.
• Speed. Publicly listed: faster and pre-qualified, with a price other buyers have already tested. Off-market: slower, with more upside if you do the work.

Neither is better in every case. Many buyers run both: the listed channel to see a lot of businesses quickly, the off-market channel to find owners nobody else is talking to.

Off-market, proprietary and quiet listings are different things

Three terms get used interchangeably, and they should not be.

• Off-market describes the business: it is not publicly listed for sale.
• Proprietary describes your access: you are the only buyer in the conversation.
• A quiet broker listing is a represented sale the broker markets privately to a short list of buyers. It is off-market, since it is not publicly advertised, but the broker is usually showing it to several buyers at once, so it is not proprietary.

A cold call that reaches a willing owner is both off-market and proprietary. A quiet broker listing is off-market and not proprietary, whatever the email subject line says. Why Rejigg calls itself off-market goes deeper on the distinction.

The five off-market channels

There are five main ways buyers find owners who are not selling. Each trades effort for volume differently.

• Direct outreach. Calls, emails, letters and LinkedIn messages to a targeted list. Highest volume. Needs a list, a dialer and a lot of follow-up.
• In person. Walking into businesses, industry conferences, trade associations. Warm and credible. Slow, and limited to where you can be.
• River guides. CPAs, attorneys, bankers and wealth managers, often paid a finder's fee. Trusted introductions. Irregular flow, and some will suggest the owner hire an advisor first.
• Your own network. Former colleagues, investors, operators in your target industry. Highest trust. Smallest volume.
• Sourcing platforms. Services that call and qualify owners so you start at the conversation. Lowest effort per conversation. You may not be the only buyer.

What direct outreach actually takes

Direct outreach is the channel most buyers mean when they say off-market sourcing. Here is what our calling data shows.

Build a narrow list

Start by narrowing industry, geography and size, then build a list from B2B databases and local business registries. Enrich it for mobile numbers, which reach owners far more often than a front desk does. You will need a CRM and a dialer to keep track of thousands of contacts.

Plan for persistence

One call is not enough. Of the owners we eventually reached, 62% needed more than one attempt, 28% needed more than three, and 13% needed more than five. Give up after one voicemail and you miss roughly six of every ten owners you could have reached.

Connect rates are highest on the first dial, at about 11%, and settle around 5% to 6% after the fifth. Across all our dials, about one in nine connects. That is why we make six to eight calls before resting a contact for three to six months.

Late answers are just as good

An owner who answers on the twelfth call is as likely to be interested as one who answers on the first. About 14% of pickups turn into a positive conversation, and that rate holds steady from the first attempt to the twelfth.

Call in the afternoon

Owners pick up most between noon and 6pm in their own time zone, at about 8% of dials. Answer rates climb through the morning, there is no lunch dead zone, and Friday is the weakest weekday.

Expect volume

Across our whole operation, it takes about 1,340 unique owners called to produce one LOI. A buyer calling a tight, targeted list and telling their own story can do better. We have seen it as low as about 500 owners per LOI. Either way, off-market sourcing is a numbers game.

Winning the owner once they pick up

Owners choose a buyer they trust over one with industry experience. In our calls, three things matter most.

1. Credibility. Who you are, what you have run, and why you will take care of what they built.
2. Specific interest. Why this business, not just any business in their industry.
3. Financial readiness. Proof you can close: capital, lender conversations, investors lined up.

Most of these owners are approaching retirement, and most want to sell the whole business. They are choosing a successor, not only an exit package. Keeping the team and treating employees well carries real weight. Questions that get honest answers from owners covers how to run those first conversations.

The offer structure matters too. In our LOI data as of October 2026, the typical LOI pays about 75% of the price in cash at close, 97% include some cash at close, and 58% include seller financing.

From first call to closed deal

A good first call usually leads somewhere. Six in ten first calls that run 30 minutes or longer end with an agreed next step, and about one in twenty becomes an LOI. The path from there has four steps.

1. Second call or site visit. Valuation, SBA eligibility, structure, and whatever you need to understand the business.
2. Data request. Three years of P&Ls, balance sheet, tax returns, and customer and supplier lists.
3. LOI. If the owner signs, they agree to the high-level structure. Most LOIs on Rejigg are signed within a week of submission.
4. Diligence. Confirmatory work before close, usually about 90 days from a signed LOI.

Not every LOI gets there. For LOIs submitted on Rejigg before 2026, 36% were signed, 34% of signed LOIs closed, and the median deal took 99 days from LOI to close. Price expectations also come down along the way. As of October 2026, the median asking price on Rejigg is about 5.0x earnings, and deals that closed cleared at a median of about 3.4x, with a median enterprise value of about $1.5 million. How to finance a business acquisition covers the options that make those structures work.

Doing it yourself vs. using a sourcing platform

Running your own outreach makes sense when your thesis is narrow, you have time, and you will invest in the list, tools and follow-up. You get proprietary conversations and learn your industry quickly.

A sourcing platform makes sense when you would rather spend your time on owners who have already said yes. On Rejigg, our team does the calling. We contact about 12,000 businesses a month and add roughly 190 new businesses to the platform each month as of October 2026. Owners we have called, qualified and profiled are open to every vetted Rejigg buyer. Brokers can also share represented businesses here, and those carry a brokered label so you know who your counterpart is.

Put an unbrokered Rejigg conversation in your off-market bucket, not your broker bucket. We do the calling, but once you are talking, the owner sets the price, shares their own numbers and decides how fast to move, just as with an owner you reached yourself. If you want introductions only you receive, Rejigg Concierge runs the outreach against your buy box. Many buyers do both: their own outreach in a narrow niche, plus a platform for wider coverage.

Start where the conversation starts

Rejigg profiles owners we found and called ourselves, so you can skip the dialing and start with the first conversation. Browse off-market businesses or create a free buyer account and set alerts for your buy box.

Frequently asked questions

Is off-market sourcing worth the effort?

It is if you want businesses without a bidding war. Off-market sourcing means more work educating owners and organizing information. In exchange you get direct access to the owner and little or no competition, and you reach the large share of businesses that never get publicly listed.

How many owners do I need to contact to get a deal?

At Rejigg's scale, off-market sourcing takes about 1,340 unique owners called per LOI. A focused buyer with a tight list and a personal story can get closer to 500. Then plan for only some LOIs to close, since roughly a third of signed LOIs on Rejigg reached closing.

Do I need industry experience to buy an off-market business?

No. In Rejigg's calls, owners weigh credibility, specific interest in their business, and proof you can close more heavily than industry experience. Most are choosing a successor for a business they built, so how you plan to treat the team often matters more than your résumé.

Are off-market businesses cheaper?

Not automatically. Owners without an advisor often start high because nobody has tested their number. Off-market deals on Rejigg have closed well below the median asking price, usually after the buyer and a lender walked the owner through how the business is valued.

What is the difference between off-market and proprietary?

Off-market means the business is not publicly listed for sale. Proprietary means you are the only buyer talking to the owner. Off-market sourcing through your own outreach is usually both. A business on a sourcing platform is off-market but open to other buyers on that platform.