The Iceberg vs The Beach Ball: Choosing Your M&A Advisor

Picture two objects floating in water: a massive iceberg and a beach ball.

The iceberg sits stable—90% of its mass hidden below the surface, unmoved by wind or waves. The beach ball floats on top, all visible, all flash, blown around by every gust. This is the perfect metaphor for understanding two very different approaches to M&A advisory—and why that choice matters when you’re planning your business exit.

Most business owners are naturally attracted to advisors with slick presentations and big promises about deal-making prowess. But when it comes time to actually close a transaction and deliver a premium valuation, you need to understand what’s happening below the waterline.

So today, I’m going to show you why the iceberg model delivers premium exits, and how to evaluate whether your advisor has the depth you need.

Let’s break it down.

The 90% below the waterline is where premium valuations are built.

At Deal Leaders, we’re obsessive about the work that happens before we ever approach a single buyer.

This is part of the iceberg’s mass below the surface—the part you don’t see, but that creates all the stability and value. Every financial model needs to be bulletproof. Every revenue assumption needs documentation. Every cost structure needs to be defensible.

We spend weeks—sometimes months—anticipating the questions buyers will ask during due diligence, formulating clear answers, and assembling the documentation to back them up before they’re ever asked.

Before we tell your story to buyers, we research hundreds of potential acquirers, understanding their acquisition strategies and where your business fits their growth plans.

By the time we go to market, we’ve built a comprehensive information package that answers every question a sophisticated buyer will ask. This takes months of work—but it’s what separates a premium exit from an average exit.

Based on this iceberg model, we aim to get premium exits for 100% of the clients we take on.

The 10% above the waterline is what most advisors focus on.

Don’t misunderstand—the visible part matters.

Selling your story effectively to the buyer pool, creating competition among acquirers, and attracting clients in the first place—these all require skill.

But here’s what you need to understand as a business owner: if an advisor only focuses on the 10% above the waterline—the flashy presentations, the confident promises, the “I’ll get you the best deal” rhetoric—they’re operating as a beach ball.

They may look impressive on the surface, but without the mass below the waterline, they have no stability. The first strong wind (a buyer’s tricky question, a regulatory delay, a market shift, a holiday break) can blow the entire deal off course.

Many advisory firms work on 40-50 deals at a time because their business model requires volume to make economics work. This isn’t necessarily wrong—it’s just a different model. But you should understand what it means for you.

Here’s a good example of what we see: We recently reviewed the work of an M&A firm that had tried to sell a large industrial equipment supplier. They had contacted a list of some 60 to 70 potential acquirers—that sounds pretty good, right? However, when we looked more closely, they hadn’t been able to reach about 30 of those prospects! You cannot create deal heat like that—you need the operational capability to have actual conversations with prospective buyers.

DLI consistently reaches over 95% of the prospects on our lists, AND we can go into the system and find feedback from each of those parties, whether they said no or showed interest. That’s the difference between beach ball activity and iceberg thoroughness.

When due diligence gets tough, can they adequately answer questions with sufficient detail and clarity? When buyers push back on valuation, do they have the data to defend it? When negotiations stall, do they have the depth of preparation and credibility to push through?

These are questions worth asking before you engage an advisor.

Why we built our model around thoroughness, not deal-making heroics.

Here’s something that might surprise you: at Deal Leaders, we would never hire someone who’s closed 10-20 deals to run our transactions.

Why? Because experienced deal-makers often want to do things “their way.” They’ve built their own playbook, their own style, their own tactics over the years. But consistency in process matters more than individual deal-making flair.

Here’s an interesting story: When we interviewed Janine, one of our top Deal Executives, she picked up this critical element to how we operate—so she sent us a list of what she believed she needed to UN-learn to be a successful Deal Executive at DLI. She got the job!

We hire for thoroughness, attention to detail, transparency, and the discipline to follow our systematic approach.

Andrew and I have built the systems and culture that deliver the 90% below the waterline—that’s the invisible mass that creates stability. The process we can write down and teach? That’s actually the 10% above the water. But the foundation of our success rate is that our team executes with absolute thoroughness within the culture and systems we’ve built.

The iceberg model requires discipline, process, and the humility to follow a proven system rather than relying on individual deal-making heroics.

And as a business owner, this should matter to you because it means your deal isn’t dependent on one person’s ego or style—it’s supported by a systematic approach that’s been refined over hundreds of transactions.

Questions to ask when evaluating an M&A advisor.

When you’re choosing an advisor for your exit, here are the key questions that will help you understand their approach:

Ask them to walk you through their preparation process. How much time do they spend preparing your business before approaching buyers? What specific work happens in that preparation phase? If they can’t articulate a detailed, systematic process, that’s valuable information.

Understand their capacity. How many active transactions are they managing simultaneously? This isn’t about judging their business model—it’s about understanding how much attention your deal will receive during critical moments.

Ask about their timeline. How long from engagement to going to market? If an advisor wants to approach buyers within weeks of signing you up, ask what preparation work is being skipped and why.

Request examples of their due diligence preparation. Can they show you what a complete information package looks like? How do they anticipate and prepare for buyer questions? 

At DLI, we print examples of our work—real work that has been successful in the market. Come for a coffee, and I can show you what we believe the right quality looks like.

The iceberg approach requires attention to detail that initially seems irrelevant, but later delivers the result. It requires more preparation time. It’s less flashy. But when the inevitable challenges arise in your transaction—and they always do—you’ll understand why that mass below the waterline matters.