Every buyer of a recruitment business is really buying a group of people and the relationships they hold. Lose them and you have bought an office lease and a database.
Founders know this better than anyone, which is why the question of when to tell the team is the one that keeps them up at night. Tell them too early and you unsettle everyone over a deal that may never happen. Tell them too late and they feel they have been sold without being asked.
There is no perfect moment, but there is a right order
Your senior people should hear it from you, before anyone else, with enough time to ask hard questions. The wider team should hear it on the day it becomes real, with a clear answer to the only question that matters to them: what does this mean for me?
Give them something to say yes to
Good people do not stay because they are told to. They stay because the next chapter looks better than the last one. More backing. Better tools. A clearer route up. Somebody to call when a client problem is bigger than the branch. If a buyer cannot describe that future in plain words, your best consultants will notice before you do.
Keep the leaders leading
Nothing reassures a team faster than seeing the person they trust still making the decisions. That is why, across our deals, the people who built the businesses have stayed at the centre of them. At Magnus Search, leaders who came with the acquisitions now run regions and sales for the whole business. At Tessero, every office kept its own leadership.
Then keep your word
Retention is not won in the announcement email. It is won in the months after, every time a promise made during the deal is kept. Consistency is the whole strategy.
If you are thinking about a sale, start planning for your people now. They are the business. Any buyer worth talking to will tell you the same.
Thinking about what comes next?
Every conversation starts with Nick Gordon, our founder. It is confidential, it commits you to nothing, and the best ones happen while the business is still performing.