Hello SMB Deal Hunters!
I’m excited to share 5 new off-market businesses for sale sourced directly by our team in today's Off The Grid issue.
👇 In Today's Issue:
#1: Towing and Mountain Recovery Company in CO with a Manager Running Daily Operations and $1.2M EBITDA
🔎 Looking for deals in your area? We can source them for you.
This issue is proudly sponsored by SMB Deal Exchange, our new platform for connecting buyers and sellers of off-market businesses.
COMMUNITY WINS
Here’s what one SMB Deal Hunter Pro member shared this past week:

👀 Quick update: 9 Pro members closed deals in September, and another 24 are under LOI heading into Q4.
None of them decided last week. They made the call months ago, sitting right where you are now. On average, our members go from joining to closing in about 8 months, versus 23 for buyers going at it alone.
So if you start now, you could be making offers before the holidays and be the name in this email by next summer.
👉 Book a free 1-on-1 strategy call and we'll build your search together: what you can realistically afford, the deals that fit, and your financing options.
NEW OFF-MARKET DEALS
These deals span the country. For custom-sourced deals in your area, click here.
1/ Towing and Mountain Recovery Company
📍 Location: Colorado
💼 EBITDA: $1,200,000
📊 Revenue: $3,500,000
📅 Established: 2018
💭 My 2 Cents: A regular tow is usually priced by the hookup and the mile, while a recovery (winching a vehicle back up after it has slid off a mountain road) is billed by the hour, and Colorado lets police-ordered heavy-truck recoveries run up to $447 an hour. This company tows everything from passenger cars to heavy trucks and is one of the only operators in its area doing mountain recoveries. The owner is off the trucks, with a manager running most of the day-to-day. It also made an acquisition earlier this year. That said, I'd want monthly revenue since that acquisition closed, because the listed revenue and EBITDA may count only a few months of the acquired company and undercount the combined business. I'd also want the revenue split between Allstate roadside calls (which pay a set rate per call) and recovery work (which pays by the hour). And since recovery pays more per job, I'd want to know how many drivers can run one. That acquisition is also a track record for a buyer: it doubled both the team and the revenue, so growing by buying another operator is already tested here.
2/ Architectural Metal & Roofing Company
📍 Location: Texas
💼 EBITDA: $1,750,000
📊 Revenue: $7,000,000
📅 Established: 1990
💭 My 2 Cents: Most roofers sell to homeowners one job at a time, often after a hailstorm. Architectural metal is a different business: the metal roofing, gutters, and trim are written into a new home's design by the architect, and once construction begins, the home builder hires a specialist like this company, which provides those materials and sends its own crews to install them. It has ongoing contracts with about 10 major builders in the Dallas area. The owner handles expenses, payroll, and crew scheduling, and the team of 28 grows and shrinks with the builders' schedules. I'd want to know how long each builder contract has run and how much of the revenue each builder accounts for. I'd also watch this year's builder volume, given that Dallas-Fort Worth home starts were down about 12% from a year earlier. And I'd want to know how much of the crew works year round versus coming on for a busy stretch, because that decides how much of payroll moves when a builder slows down. This is a business for someone who's better at keeping 10 big accounts happy than at running a marketing budget.
3/ Lawn Maintenance and Snow Removal Company
📍 Location: New York
💼 EBITDA: $500,000
📊 Revenue: $1,800,000
📅 Established: 1991
💭 My 2 Cents: A commercial lot has to be clear when people arrive, because a fall there lands on the owner, so the work gets contracted before the season starts and the contractor is on standby whether it snows twice or twenty times. That is a different purchase from a homeowner calling someone after a storm. Snow is the bigger half here at about $1 million a year, and most of those customers are on three-year agreements. The lawn side runs on seasonal contracts too, with crews on essentially the same routes every week, and the two seasons are opposites, so the same trucks and people work year-round instead of idling half of it. The owner handles estimates, invoicing and payroll, and a crew in place does everything else. I'd want to know how the snow book bills (one price for the season or a charge every time the trucks roll), since one puts a heavy winter on the company and the other on the customer. Next, how many subcontractors a big storm takes beyond the people already on payroll. Then the customer lists for snow and lawn side by side, since a lawn customer not yet buying snow is a property the crews already visit every week and the most natural place to grow. On the financing side, the $1.2 million of mostly paid-off equipment, skid steers, a loader and mowers, gives a buyer's lender real collateral to lend against.
CASE STUDY
Reagan was making $300K a year in corporate tech sales by 27, but he wanted to own something that kept paying him after he stopped selling.
So he joined SMB Deal Hunter Pro and went through 110 businesses before making a single offer.
That offer was for a 36-year-old Dallas plumbing company that had never spent a single dollar on marketing.
And even though he's not a plumber, we helped him structure the deal so the company could keep running legally from day one.
A year after buying it, he's grown from 2 crews to 5, with the business on pace to go from $1.5M to $2.15M in revenue.
So how does a tech salesman go from joining Pro to a signed offer in just 41 days?
And for our audio-only listeners, jump in and listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!
4/ Commercial Landscaping and Tree Transplant Company
📍 Location: Florida
💼 EBITDA: $800,000
📊 Revenue: $2,000,000
📅 Established: 1995
💭 My 2 Cents: A company moving a mature tree typically has no plant to buy, because the tree already belongs to the customer who needs it dug up and replanted somewhere else. That leaves a bill that is mostly labor, fuel and a rented crane, which is how this company keeps about 60% margins on its large tree transplant work. The regular landscaping earns less per job but comes back on a schedule, so one half covers the overhead every month while the other produces the big tickets. The owner handles operations but rarely works in the field, and revenue has nearly tripled in the last two years. The first thing I'd pin down is how much of that revenue is transplant work versus landscaping, since growth built on big one-off jobs has to be won again next year while one built on accounts does not. The second is how much of the field work goes to subcontractors and crane operators hired per job, because a crew of four probably means extra hands come in on the big ones. Then how many crane days it rented last year, since that number tells a buyer when owning one would pay for itself. What’s interesting is the recent growth came entirely from word of mouth, and a website and the first advertising are on the way now, so a buyer is taking over just as this company starts marketing itself for the first time.
5/ Health, Wellness, and Fitness Center
📍 Location: Washington
💼 EBITDA: $200,000
📊 Revenue: $480,000
📅 Established: 2022
💭 My 2 Cents: A gym membership sells access to a room. A coaching program sells a place on a schedule with someone expecting you, which is why it gets sold on a contract and priced well above a membership. Demand for it is at record levels, with about a third of health club members doing small-group training and nearly a quarter working with a personal trainer. This center sells exactly that, on 3, 6 and 9-month contracts that clients consistently renew, with a manager and trainers on staff while the owner still teaches classes and runs operations. The owner's own client list is where I'd start: how many active clients train with her directly, since one-on-one coaching is where she wants to spend her time next (ideally still here). Then the share of contracts priced as a monthly fee versus a prepaid bundle of sessions, because a bundle already paid for is coaching a buyer has to deliver with no money coming in against it, and members now average 21 sessions a year against 28 in 2019, so those bundles burn down slowly. Renewal rates by contract length come next, along with how long the average client has stayed. The quieter advantage is how little capital this type of gym ties up. Growth is another coach on the schedule rather than another building, and a floor of racks, barbells and plates has none of the motors and consoles a 24-hour club has to keep replacing.
COMMUNITY PERKS
• Ready to buy and operate a $1M+ business? Partner with my team and get expert support at every step.
• Want to invest passively in SMB acquisitions? Get access to investment opportunities.
• Get a personal introduction to my preferred SBA 7(a) lender, non-SBA lenders, Quality of Earnings providers, or legal counsel
• Raising capital for your deal? I’ll connect you with investors from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.
• Interested in selling your business? I’ll help you connect with buyers from the SMB Deal Hunter Community.
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Chris spent his career at companies like Microsoft and SAP, and his last 4 years as a CEO still answering to a board.
By the end, his job had become what he calls a "keep the lights on" role… cut costs, don't invest, don't expand.
And as he puts it: "I'm not a 22-year-old who has 40 years … to pursue [this]. It's 10 years or less."
He didn't want to spend those years on someone else's vision.
So he joined SMB Deal Hunter Pro and spent the next 11 months searching, and vetting dozens of deals.
He came close twice: a machine shop he lost on price, and a $9M-a-year construction company he walked away from.
The one that finally fit was 2 franchise territories.
He'd had franchise brokers pitching him from the start, but didn't feel confident going it alone.
With our help, he and his partner signed a $925K deal for 2 territories of Pirtek.
Pirtek replaces the hydraulic hoses on heavy equipment used in farming, mining, forestry and construction.
Today, he's hiring his team for a November launch, with $350K to $400K a year in profit projected after year one.
THAT’S A WRAP
See you tomorrow!

-Helen Guo
Find Me On Twitter
Find Me On LinkedIn
P.S. I'd love your feedback. Tap the poll below or reply to this email.
How was today's newsletter?
Disclaimer
This publication is a newsletter only and the information provided herein is the opinion of our editors and writers only. Any transaction or opportunity of any kind is provided for information only; SMB Deal Hunter does not verify nor confirm information. SMB Deal Hunter is not making any offer to readers to participate in any transaction or opportunity described herein.


