Dear Insider,

If you’re thinking about growth through acquisition, or quietly weighing whether now is the right moment to sell, here’s the honest truth: your first step has nothing to do with EBITDA, deal structures, or valuation models. Your first step is people. Specifically, meeting other firm owners.

In the AEC industry, transactions don’t start with numbers; they start with conversations. Buyers need to understand how other principals think, what their goals are, what their firms look like beneath the hood, and how cultural and strategic alignment feels in real life. Sellers need to get a sense of who’s out there, what different buyers value, how they operate, and what a good long-term fit might be for their goals. You cannot learn this from a spreadsheet. You learn it from engagement.

So where do you begin?

Start With the Fundamentals

For many firm owners, the hardest part of the M&A process is simply figuring out where to begin. That’s why PSMJ’s AEC M&A Essentials Workshop exists. It gives you the essential building blocks before you ever enter serious talks:

●    How deals are valued

●    What drives multiples

●    The range of deal structures available

●    What buyers really look for

●    How sellers prepare themselves

●    How to evaluate cultural and strategic fit

●    The mechanics of due diligence and integration

Once you have these fundamentals, you can “get onto the field” with confidence. The workshop precedes the M&A Summit, where leadership from firms across the AEC industry gather to share best practices, discuss market trends, and form new relationships. 

Instead of approaching others cold or walking into conversations blind, you’ll have the language, context, and frameworks needed to ask meaningful questions, compare opportunities, and avoid the missteps that derail so many early-stage discussions.

You can find more information on this workshop here.

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Take the Fundamentals Into the Market

The next step is to meet the active players:

●    CEOs expanding regionally

●    Owners looking for succession solutions

●    PE-backed platforms scanning for add-ons

●    Specialty firms seeking technical depth

●    Owners testing the market quietly and confidentially

These interactions will sharpen your strategy quickly. You’ll see what resonates. You’ll understand which firms are a real fit and which are distractions. 

Acquiring firms that do this consistently outperform those that don’t. They build momentum. They gather intelligence. They begin to attract opportunities instead of chasing them.

Those owners considering selling who do this are better equipped to understand whether that next phone call is the right one for their goals.

PSMJ’s AEC M&A Summit is the best place for this, with the highest concentration of knowledgeable and active M&A professionals. But this kind of networking is also an extension of the bonds formed in this industry at other events like ACEC, AIA, PSMJ’s THRIVE, and many others.

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Want to Learn from the Best?

The most time-consuming—and often most frustrating—part of the M&A process for both buyers and sellers is networking at scale. You are already running a firm. You do not have the time to scan the entire market, attend countless events, build and nurture relationships, track owners’ timelines, or meet multiple potential buyers to understand the differences between them, or identify strategic matches across geography, specialty, size, culture, and risk profile.

But your advisor does.

Even if you have several potential transaction partners, it takes a special kind of expertise to balance requests from each and evaluate them for the best fit. Large M&A transactions or broad acquisition mandates can involve balancing information requests and managing as many as 50 or more potential buyers or sellers in a formal process. This is not something to learn on the fly.

For M&A advisors, this isn’t a side activity. It’s our full-time job. We spend every day talking to owners, understanding their priorities, mapping the landscape, and identifying where strong, healthy, long-term combinations can exist. We dramatically accelerate a process that can otherwise take years. Years that might see markets might cool; economic landscapes shift, competition consolidate, or an industry that changes.

And while the networking is critically valuable, the lion’s share of an advisor’s value is delivered in a different part of the journey: deal expertise

Just as a lawyer adds value by understanding the precise letter of the law, an M&A advisor adds value by understanding every nuance of deal mechanics—valuations, structures, negotiation tactics, due diligence pitfalls, integration sequencing, and how to shape the deal around your strategic goals.

This expertise often makes the difference between:

●  A fair deal and an exceptional one

●  A smooth closing and a collapsed transaction

●  A long-term strategic win and a short-term regret

The best M&A advisor is an educator just as much as they are your expert representative through the process. They will bring their knowledge to every interaction to help you make the best decision for you and your team to meet your goals.

So, Where Should You Begin?

Start by getting educated.
Start by making connections.
Start by seeing how other firm owners think and what the market wants.

And if you want to accelerate that process, avoid costly mistakes, and position yourself for the best possible outcome during the best market this industry has ever seen: partner.

Because the first step isn’t the deal.
The first step is meeting the people who make deals possible.

Are you ready? PSMJ’s M&A Advisory and Ownership Transition practice has helped thousands of AEC firm owners find, structure, and execute their M&A and Ownership strategies with lasting results. Whether you’re looking to expand your firm with an acquisition, plan your exit strategy via internal or external sale, our bespoke approach is built around you and your goals. PSMJ’s award-winning team of experts is here for you every step of the way.

Learn more about PSMJ’s M&A advisory services here.