In this article
Brokers find clients through six channels: past clients and repeat business, referrals from other professionals, direct outreach to owners, content and search, events, and co-brokerage with other brokers. They get more deals by counting what each channel turns into, from contacts to mandates to closings, and by refusing the mandates that will not close.
That holds whether you sell businesses, buildings, yachts, machinery, freight capacity, insurance or cargoes. The vocabulary changes from one trade to the next (a mandate, a listing, an engagement); the mechanics do not.
Most advice on the subject stops at a list of channels. A list does not tell you how many conversations a closing costs or which channel repays an hour best. The sections below take each channel in turn, then run one illustrative year of a solo broker through the whole funnel. Every figure in that example is invented for the calculation and labelled as such: replace the rates with your own as soon as you have six months of records.
Worked example with illustrative rates, detailed in the funnel and cost sections. Not market statistics.
Which channels bring a broker clients?
Six channels bring a broker clients: past clients, professional referrers, direct outreach to owners, content and search, events, and other brokers through co-brokerage. They differ on four fixed criteria: how warm the contact is when the first conversation happens, how long the channel takes to produce a first closing, what the channel costs in hours and in cash, and how far it can be scaled.
No channel wins on all four. The warmest ones are the cheapest per closing and the hardest to scale; the coldest scale almost without limit and consume the most hours per closing.
| Channel | What it does well | Where it stops | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past clients and repeat business | Trust already exists; shortest path to a signed mandate | Limited by the number of deals already done | Any broker with a closed-deal history |
| Referrals from professionals | The referrer's credibility transfers to you | Slow to build; depends on a few people | Brokers in advisory-heavy trades: business sales, property, insurance |
| Direct outreach to owners | Volume on demand; you choose the targets | Low response; regulated in most countries | New brokers and brokers entering a new niche |
| Content and search | Enquiries arrive already informed, at any hour | Months before the first enquiry; fixed production time | Specialists with a narrow, searchable subject |
| Events | Many conversations in a few days | Travel cost; value depends on follow-up | Trades with a show calendar: yachts, equipment, freight, commodities |
| Co-brokerage | Access to mandates and buyers you do not have | The fee is shared | Any broker with a buyer or a mandate and no counterpart |
Read the table as a portfolio, not a ranking. A broker who relies on one channel has a single point of failure: a referrer retires, a search ranking moves, a show is cancelled.
Why do past clients and repeat business come first?
Past clients come first because they are the only contacts who have already seen you close a deal, so the conversation skips the stage where a stranger decides whether to trust you. In most brokerage trades, an owner who sold once will buy, sell, renew or charter again, and knows other owners in the same position.
How much repeat business exists depends on the trade. A freight or insurance broker lives on it: the same shipper tenders loads every week, the same insured renews every year. A business broker may wait a decade for a founder to sell a second company, and the value of that past client lies mostly in the people the founder introduces.
Keep a list of everyone you closed with, on either side of the deal, with the date, the asset and one fact worth remembering. Contact each person a few times a year with something useful to an owner: a comparable sale, a change in a rule that affects the asset, a buyer looking for something similar. Then ask, in plain words, whether anything is coming up for them or for someone they know.
The limit is arithmetic. A broker with thirty closed deals has, at most, sixty former counterparties. However well the list is worked, it produces a handful of mandates a year, not a full pipeline. In the illustrative year below, past clients give 3 of the 10 closings from only 50 contacts. That still leaves 7 closings to find elsewhere.
How do referrals from professionals work?
Referrals from professionals work because an owner's accountant, lawyer, banker, wealth manager, surveyor or insurer hears about the decision to sell, buy or renew before any broker does, and the owner follows the advice of someone already trusted. The broker's job is to be the name that adviser gives, which means being known for one clear specialty and being safe to recommend.
"Safe to recommend" is the part brokers underestimate. A referrer risks a client relationship worth years of fees for no direct gain. A narrow statement of what you take on, a report back after the first meeting and a referred client who is treated well even when no mandate results all lower that risk.
A professional referral list is small by nature. Twenty to thirty people whom you see or call a few times a year is a full load for a solo broker. The illustrative year assumes 24 referrers at about 5 hours each, 120 hours in all, producing 20 introductions. Those introductions convert far better than any cold contact, at 2 closings out of 20.
Two cautions apply across industries. Paying for a referral is restricted in many regulated fields: real estate, insurance, securities and legal services all have rules on who may receive a share of a fee, and those rules differ by country and by state, so check the rule of your licence before offering anything. And many professionals may not accept a fee at all under their own conduct rules; reciprocity and a well-served client are what they value.
Does direct outreach to owners still work?
Direct outreach to owners still works as a volume channel: a low share of the people contacted reply, the broker chooses exactly whom to contact, and the supply of contacts is practically unlimited. It is the one channel a broker with no history and no network can start on the first day.
The method is the same in every trade. Build a list of owners of the asset you broker from registers and public records (company registers, land records, vessel and aircraft registers, fleet lists, trade directories). Give each owner a specific reason for the contact: a named type of buyer, a recent comparable transaction, a deadline that affects owners of that asset. Then follow up over months: the decision to sell rarely falls on the day of the first letter.
Outreach is also the channel where marketing law applies most directly, and the rules depend on the country and on whether the person contacted is a business or an individual.
- Email, United States. The Federal Trade Commission states in its compliance guide for the CAN-SPAM Act that the law makes no exception for business-to-business email. A commercial message needs accurate header information, a subject line that is not deceptive, a valid physical postal address and a way to opt out, and an opt-out request must be honoured within 10 business days.
- Telephone, United States. The Federal Trade Commission's guide to the Telemarketing Sales Rule states that most phone calls between a telemarketer and a business are exempt from the rule. Calls to individuals are a different matter, and state laws add their own requirements.
- Email and telephone, United Kingdom. The Information Commissioner's Office states that the electronic mail marketing rule of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations does not apply to corporate subscribers, while sole traders and some partnerships are treated as individuals, who can be emailed only with specific consent or under the "soft opt-in". It also states that live marketing calls to businesses must be screened against both the Telephone Preference Service and the Corporate Telephone Preference Service, and that a named business contact's details remain personal data under the UK GDPR, with an absolute right to object to direct marketing.
Many brokers contact private owners of homes, yachts or aircraft, who are individuals and not businesses, and the stricter consumer rules then apply. Other countries have their own regimes. This is general information, not legal advice: read the regulator's guidance for each country you contact before sending the first message, and keep your own do-not-contact list from day one.
What do content and search bring, and how long do they take?
Content and search bring enquiries from owners who have already started asking questions about selling, valuing or financing their asset, which is why those enquiries are better informed than a reply to a cold letter. The channel takes months to produce a first enquiry, and its cost is mostly the fixed time spent writing or recording.
The material that works answers the exact questions an owner types before calling anyone: what the asset is worth and how that is calculated, what the process and its timetable look like, what a broker charges and when, which documents a buyer will ask for.
Two features make this channel different from the others. First, the cost is fixed: 150 hours of production in the illustrative year whether 8 enquiries arrive or 800, so the cost per closing falls every year the material stays accurate and visible. Second, the broker does not choose who enquires: many enquiries concern assets too small, too early or outside the niche, and each still takes time to answer.
Content also serves the other channels. A referrer who wants to check you before giving your name, a past client who forwards your details and an owner who received your letter will all look you up. What they find decides whether the meeting happens.
Are events worth the time?
Events are worth the time when the trade concentrates its owners and buyers in one place, and when the broker books meetings before arriving and follows up within days of leaving.
Boat shows, equipment fairs, freight conferences, commodity weeks and property exhibitions compress dozens of conversations into two or three days. That density is the whole value: 40 real conversations in the illustrative year come from 6 events at about 12 hours each.
Three habits separate a productive event from an expensive one. Write to the owners and brokers you want to see two to three weeks before and fix times. Take notes on each conversation the same evening, with the asset, the timing and the next step. Send the promised follow-up within the week. The 20 hours of follow-up in the example are what turn 40 conversations into 4 meetings.
When does co-brokerage get you more deals?
Co-brokerage gets a broker more deals when the broker holds one side of a transaction and not the other: a mandate without a buyer, or a buyer without a mandate. Working with another broker who holds the missing side closes a deal that neither would have closed alone, for a shared fee.
The trade-off is plain. In the illustrative year, 16 opportunities shared by other brokers lead to 1 closing at half the usual fee, $15,000 against $30,000. It also takes only 48 prospecting hours for that closing, fewer than any channel except past clients, because the other broker did the sourcing. Half a fee for that little time is a sound trade as long as it does not replace mandates of your own.
Co-brokerage runs on reputation. Brokers send opportunities to colleagues who answer quickly, protect the other broker's client, and settle the division of the fee in writing before the first introduction. That written division names each broker's share, the event that makes the fee due, and who collects it.
Where one client payment has to be divided between co-brokers, a referrer or a team, a payment router is one way to carry out the agreed division. Shaka is one such router: each party's share is set as a percentage of the deal and can be signed by each recipient before the client pays, the client pays once, and every party is paid their share at the same moment, in one transaction, without Shaka holding the funds. It divides a payment between up to 20 recipients; it does not find the client or decide the split.
What does the funnel look like from contacts to mandates to closings?
A broker's funnel has four counts: contacts made, meetings held with a qualified owner, mandates signed, and closings. In the illustrative year, 1,006 contacts become 50 meetings, 19 mandates and 10 closings, and the conversion at each stage differs sharply from one channel to the next.
The assumptions are these, all illustrative. A solo broker earns an average fee of $30,000 per closing, or $15,000 on a co-brokered closing where the fee is shared equally. A "contact" is the channel's first step: a call, an introduction, a letter, an enquiry, a conversation, a shared opportunity.
| Channel | Contacts | Meetings, then mandates | Closings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past clients | 50 | 10, then 5 | 3 |
| Professional referrals | 20 | 8, then 4 | 2 |
| Direct outreach | 800 | 16, then 4 | 2 |
| Content and search | 80 | 8, then 2 | 1 |
| Events | 40 | 4, then 2 | 1 |
| Co-brokerage | 16 | 4, then 2 | 1 |
| Total | 1,006 | 50, then 19 | 10 |
Three readings matter. Direct outreach supplies 80% of the contacts and 20% of the closings: it takes 400 contacts to produce one closing, against 10 introductions from a professional and about 17 calls to past clients. Across all channels, 38% of meetings end in a signed mandate. And only 10 of 19 mandates close, a little over half.
What does each channel cost in hours and cash?
Each channel costs hours of prospecting and some cash, and in the illustrative year the six channels together take 818 hours and $29,000 to produce $285,000 in fees. Past clients cost the least per closing on both measures; content costs the most in hours and events cost almost as much in cash.
Prospecting hours cover everything before a mandate is signed: the fixed time a channel needs (seeing referrers, producing content, attending events), the time per contact, and 3 hours for each meeting including preparation and follow-up. Cash covers data and postage, content production, tickets and travel, meals with clients and referrers, and association dues.
| Channel | Prospecting hours | Cash cost | Fees earned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past clients | 80 | $2,000 | $90,000 |
| Professional referrals | 144 | $3,000 | $60,000 |
| Direct outreach | 248 | $6,000 | $60,000 |
| Content and search | 194 | $9,000 | $30,000 |
| Events | 104 | $8,000 | $30,000 |
| Co-brokerage | 48 | $1,000 | $15,000 |
| Total | 818 | $29,000 | $285,000 |
Dividing fees, net of the cash spent, by the hours spent gives one number per channel that can be compared directly.
Fees earned minus cash cost, divided by prospecting hours. Excludes the hours spent servicing mandates after signature. Illustrative figures, not market data.
The chart does not say to drop the channels at the bottom. Past clients return ten times what content returns per hour, and a broker cannot spend more hours there: the list is finite. The lower channels are where extra hours can still be placed, and they are how the top two channels get refilled, since every closing from outreach or content becomes a past client and often a referrer.
How many contacts do you need to reach an income target?
The number of contacts needed for an income target is found by working backwards: the target plus marketing cost gives the fees required, the fees divided by the average fee give the closings, and each conversion rate then gives the mandates, meetings and contacts. With the illustrative rates, a target of $250,000 after marketing cost requires 10 closings, 19 mandates, 50 meetings and about 1,000 contacts.
- Set the fees requiredAdd the marketing budget to the target: $250,000 plus $29,000 is $279,000 in fees.
- Convert fees into closingsDivide by the average fee: $279,000 over $30,000 is 9.3, so 10 closings. With one of them co-brokered at $15,000, the year brings $285,000 in fees and $256,000 after marketing cost.
- Convert closings into mandatesIf 10 of every 19 mandates close, 10 closings need 19 signed mandates.
- Convert mandates into meetingsIf 38% of meetings end in a mandate, 19 mandates need 50 meetings, about one a week.
- Convert meetings into contacts, channel by channelEach channel has its own rate, so the mix decides the total: 50 past clients, 20 introductions, 800 outreach contacts, 80 enquiries, 40 event conversations and 16 shared opportunities, 1,006 in all.
- Shift the calendar by the sales cycleIf a contact takes 3 months to become a mandate and a mandate takes 6 months to close, a closing in month 12 comes from a contact made in month 3.
The last step is where income plans fail. With a nine-month cycle, the prospecting done in the final quarter of a year pays in the following year, and a broker who stops prospecting during a busy period creates an empty quarter nine months later. The weekly number to protect is therefore the contact count: about 16 outreach contacts and one past-client call a week in the example.
The same sum shows the hours. Prospecting takes 818 hours. If each mandate takes 60 hours to service after signature, 19 mandates take 1,140 hours. The total is 1,958 hours, a full working year, for fees of about $146 per hour worked.
How do you qualify a mandate before spending time on it?
A mandate is qualified by estimating two things before signing: the probability that it closes on the terms the owner expects, and the hours it will consume. The fee multiplied by that probability, divided by the hours, gives an expected fee per hour that can be compared with what the broker earns on average.
In the illustrative year, 9 mandates out of 19 do not close, and at 60 hours each they absorb 540 hours, almost half the hours spent servicing mandates. Under a success fee, those hours earn nothing.
Take two mandates offered the same week. The first carries a $30,000 fee, an owner with a clear reason to sell, a price in line with comparable sales and an exclusive agreement: at an estimated 60% chance of closing and 60 hours of work, the expected fee is $18,000, or $300 per hour. The second carries a $45,000 fee, a price well above comparables and no exclusivity: at an estimated 15% chance and the same 60 hours, the expected fee is $6,750, or $112.50 per hour. The larger fee is the weaker mandate, below the $146 per hour the broker averages across the year.
The probability comes from a short set of questions, asked at the first meeting.
- Motive and timing. Why sell, and why now? An owner with a date (retirement, a partner leaving, a replacement asset on order) closes far more often than one testing the market.
- Price. Does the owner's figure sit within reach of recent comparable transactions, and will the owner look at them with you?
- Authority. Is the person signing the sole decision-maker? Co-owners, family members, lenders and boards who have not agreed are a common reason a deal stops late.
- Readiness. Are the documents a buyer will ask for available: title or registration, accounts, maintenance and survey records, contracts?
- Terms of the mandate. Is it exclusive, for how long, and what happens to your fee if the owner sells to someone you introduced after it ends?
- Fit. Is the asset in the niche where you already hold buyers and comparables?
A weak score can also lead to different terms instead of a refusal: a lower asking price agreed in writing, exclusivity, or a shorter term with a review date.
Where should a broker put the next hour?
The next hour goes to the warmest channel that still has unused capacity, and to a colder one only when the warmer ones are fully worked. Which channel that is depends on the broker's history, the trade and how soon income is needed.
- No closed deals yet. Past clients and referrers do not exist. Direct outreach and co-brokerage are the channels available on day one: outreach to build your own mandates, co-brokerage to earn part of a fee and a first set of closed-deal references while you do.
- A history of deals, an irregular pipeline. The past-client list is almost always under-worked. Schedule it first, then build the referrer list to twenty or thirty names before adding hours to cold channels.
- A full calendar, too few closings. The problem is not finding clients. Measure the share of mandates that close and tighten qualification before adding any contacts.
- A narrow specialty. Content repays a specialist best, because the questions owners ask are few and specific, and the same material serves referrers and events.
- A trade with a show calendar. Choose two or three events, book meetings in advance.
- Income needed within months. Only past clients, co-brokerage and referrals are short enough. Content and new outreach lists pay later.
Whatever the mix, keep four counts per channel every month: contacts, meetings, mandates, closings, with the hours and cash spent. After six months the illustrative rates used here can be thrown away and replaced by your own, and the question of where the next hour goes becomes a division.
