Article by:
Rachel Lugo
Originally published at stellaandmain.com/blog-buyer-tricks
My owner dependency post covers why it matters. This one covers how buyers actually probe for it — often before you even know they're seriously interested.
By the time a buyer is sitting across from you in formal due diligence, they've usually already formed a view on whether your business depends on you. The probing starts earlier — in casual conversations, in how they interact with your team, sometimes before you've even met them.
Four tactics come up consistently: watching how a last-minute schedule change ripples through your calendar, asking your team the same "vision" question they asked you, talking to your best customers about why they actually do business with you, and mystery-shopping your own front door to see whether a new customer ever reaches a person instead of a process.
None of these require a formal due diligence process. They're things a buyer can observe or test on their own — before an NDA, before financials, sometimes before a serious conversation.
Read the full breakdown of all four tricks — and exactly how to be ready for each one — on the Stella and Main blog: stellaandmain.com/blog-buyer-tricks
