Days 1 to 10: Stabilize
Confirm payroll, banking, insurance, vendor access, customer communication, system permissions, and the seller transition calendar. Meet key employees individually and explain what will remain stable.
Create a daily cash view and an open-commitments list. Small missed obligations can damage trust faster than a large strategic mistake.
Days 11 to 30: Listen and Map
Map the customer journey, sales pipeline, service delivery, billing, collections, purchasing, and reporting. Ask employees where work stalls and which promises depend on undocumented knowledge.
Do not confuse seller habits with required processes. Observe several complete cycles before deciding what should change.
Days 31 to 60: Install Control
Establish a weekly operating scorecard, meeting rhythm, approval limits, close calendar, pipeline review, and accountability owners. Resolve access and segregation-of-duties gaps discovered at closing.
Prioritize retention risks, margin leaks, collections, scheduling, and quality failures before growth initiatives.
Days 61 to 100: Improve Deliberately
Choose a small number of initiatives with owners, baselines, targets, and dates. Examples include improving lead response, reducing rework, correcting pricing, documenting a critical workflow, or recruiting a missing manager.
Publish the priorities and stop lower-value projects. Integration fails when every observation becomes an initiative.
Buyer Checklist
- Secure cash, payroll, insurance, and system access
- Meet key employees and customers
- Document seller transition commitments
- Build a weekly scorecard
- Map critical workflows
- Resolve control gaps
- Launch only a few measured improvements
Frequently Asked Questions
Should a buyer make immediate changes?
Make immediate changes where cash, compliance, safety, customers, or access are at risk. Otherwise, learn the operating reality before redesigning healthy processes.
What should the seller do after closing?
The transition agreement should assign introductions, knowledge transfer, training, availability, authority limits, and completion dates.
What is the most important first report?
A reliable short-term cash view paired with an open-commitments list gives the buyer early control over obligations and risk.
This guide is educational and does not replace transaction-specific legal, tax, accounting, lending, insurance, or valuation advice from qualified professionals.