The list of what a broker does is easy to find and describes the role rather than the work. What an owner actually wants to know, particularly when deciding whether the fee is worth it, is what happens week to week once the instruction is live. Five activities fill that time, they are unevenly distributed across the process, and knowing the shape of it also tells you when to expect quiet periods and when to be concerned about one.
Weeks one to four: preparing and approaching
Producing the material a buyer reads, agreeing what may be disclosed and when, building the approach list and starting to contact it. This is the busiest period and it is largely invisible to the owner, which is why it is also when owners most often worry that nothing is happening. Asking for the approach list and its progress is a fair request.
The middle: screening, and the quiet that is normal
Enquiries arrive unevenly, most are not buyers, and separating them takes conversations that produce no visible progress. There will be quiet weeks and some of them are normal. The way to tell a normal quiet week from a stalled instruction is to ask how many approaches have been made and what the responses were, which is a factual question with a factual answer.
The end: coordinating diligence and holding the timetable
Once there is a buyer, the broker's work becomes chasing: the buyer's advisers, your advisers, and the outstanding items on both sides. This is where an intermediary earns their fee in the eyes of most owners, because somebody whose job it is to chase is the difference between a process that moves and one where everyone waits politely for somebody else. The uneven shape also explains why owners and brokers so often disagree about effort: the busiest period for the broker is the one where the owner sees least, and the period where the owner is most anxious is genuinely quiet for good reasons. Agreeing what will be reported, and how often, at the start removes most of that friction.
Questions people ask about what do business brokers do
How often should a broker report?
Agree it at the start, in writing, along with what the report contains. Approaches made and responses received is a more useful measure than a general sense of interest.
What if nothing is happening?
Ask for the approach list and the responses. If the list is short or the approaches have not been made, that is a specific problem to raise rather than a feeling to sit with.
Do brokers prepare the diligence pack?
They coordinate it and they do not have your records. Assembling the pack remains yours, which is why preparation is worth doing whether or not you engage anybody.