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Broker vs DIY: The Core Tension

When self-serve makes sense and when a professional earns the fee, across deal sizes.

Our three sources flatly disagree on the biggest practical question an owner faces at the door: do you run the sale yourself, or pay someone to run it for you? McDannell says you can and should do it yourself, even on larger deals. Warrillow and Burlingham say selling is not a do-it-yourself project and the CEO should never lead it. The honest answer is that they are describing different businesses. The tension dissolves once you put deal size on the table.

The DIY case: the process is ungated​

McDannell runs a brokerage and still tells you not to need one. Her whole book exists to strip the mystique off a process she thinks others deliberately overcomplicate.

"This might be one of the only books out there from a brokerage firm that is transparently telling you brokers aren't necessary, not even for the larger deals."

McDannell, Get Acquired, Introduction

Her core grievance is access. Brokers will not touch sub-$1M businesses, the industry is barely regulated, and the "broker" title, in her words, is "about as close to car salesmen." So she ungates the seven-step process and hands it to the owner directly.

"Whoever has the grit to grow a business of their own should have access to useful resources to sell it."

McDannell, Get Acquired, Introduction

For an owner-operated business in the hundreds of thousands or low millions, this is correct. No intermediary will run a competitive auction for a deal that small, the buyer pool is mostly individual investors, and a 10% commission on a $600K sale is real money the owner can keep by doing the work.

The specialist case: who, not how​

Warrillow attacks the same question from the opposite end of the size range, where his $1M-to-$50M deals live. He reframes the entire decision as a hire, not a chore.

"Drumming up offers for your company... is a 'who,' rather than a 'how' question."

Warrillow, The Art of Selling Your Business, ch. 13

His logic is leverage. The single biggest driver of price is competitive tension among multiple bidders, and manufacturing that tension while also running the company is a full-time job an owner cannot do well. Burlingham, drawing on Basil Peters, puts it bluntly.

"The CEO should never lead the exit."

Burlingham, Finish Big, ch. 6

Burlingham adds a second reason McDannell barely addresses: the right adviser is a former owner who has exited and knows the emotional and post-deal terrain, not a junior banker. He also matches the tool to the deal, recommending brokers for smaller deals (under roughly $5M sales) and investment bankers above that to run auctions.

Where the line actually falls​

Read together, the disagreement is mostly about scale, and the two camps even agree on the deal sizes where they overlap. Burlingham's broker-vs-banker cutoff and Warrillow's tiered intermediaries (broker up to ~$10M, M&A professional above) both concede that small deals do not warrant a banker, which is exactly McDannell's turf. The fight is really over the middle.

A useful rule: the more bidders your business can realistically attract, the more an intermediary earns the fee, because their value is the auction. An owner-operated micro-business with a handful of individual buyers gains little from a broker and loses 10%. A profitable $8M company that five strategic acquirers would compete for is leaving money on the table without one. Warrillow's whole leverage apparatus, the slow reveal, positioning, the 5-20 Rule, assumes a buyer pool worth orchestrating.

Two cautions cross every deal size. First, even McDannell, the DIY champion, insists on a specialist M&A attorney for the purchase agreement, and Warrillow calls that lawyer your "left tackle" who protects your "blind side." DIY never means doing your own legal work. Second, leverage collapses at the LOI once you sign a no-shop clause, so whoever runs the sale must hold competitive tension right up to that moment. That is precisely the skill an owner running their own deal is least practiced at, and the strongest argument for help as the price climbs.

Further Reading​

Sources: McDannell, Get Acquired Introduction, ch.6; Warrillow, The Art of Selling Your Business ch.13-14; Burlingham, Finish Big ch.6.