Client Testimonials: How to Read Reviews Before Hiring an M&A Advisor

By Michael D. Rubin, CEO & Founder · Updated September 2026 · 747 words

Client testimonials are worth reading when you choose an M&A advisor, but only as a starting point: look for reviews from owners of companies like yours that describe a completed sale and what the advisor actually did, then confirm them with references and a list of closed transactions. Praise alone tells you little. Detail and verification tell you a great deal.

Owners usually sell a company once. They cannot learn from their own past sales, so the experience of other owners is the best evidence available. Here is how to use it well.

What separates a useful testimonial from a generic one

A useful testimonial answers the questions you actually have. When reading reviews of any advisor, look for these signals:

• A named owner and company, ideally one you can look up, rather than an anonymous line.
• A completed sale. Comments from people who attended a seminar or enjoyed a meeting say little about getting a deal closed.
• Specifics. How long the sale took, how buyers were found, how the advisor handled due diligence or a tense moment.
• The seller's perspective. Look for owners who sold, not only referral partners, buyers or friends of the firm.
• Consistency across many reviews. One glowing review is an anecdote. A steady pattern over years is evidence.

Themes worth listening for

Across reviews of a good sell-side firm, certain themes should repeat. Owners mention being kept informed without having to chase their advisor. They describe a firm that stayed closely involved through due diligence, when deals most often wobble. They say confidentiality held and employees did not find out early. They talk about competing offers, and about an advisor who explained each one plainly. And they describe the senior person they hired actually doing the work.

If reviews instead mention slow responses, a change of contact after the engagement was signed, or surprises about fees, take note. A single complaint may be unfair; a repeated one is a pattern.

How to verify what you read

Testimonials are marketing, even when every word is true. Check them before they carry any weight in your decision. For a fuller list of what to ask, see the questions to ask an M&A advisor before hiring.

• Read independent reviews as well as the firm's own page. MDR & Associates, for example, holds a 5.0-star rating across 43 Google reviews, which you can read for yourself.
• Ask for two or three references from owners whose companies resembled yours in size and industry, and call them.
• Ask for named closed transactions and look the companies up.
• Where video testimonials exist, watch them; an owner describing the process in their own words is harder to script than a paragraph.
• Ask what share of the firm's engagements close. MDR's success rate is above 90%.

What testimonials cannot tell you

Reviews describe other owners' deals, not yours. They will not tell you what your company is worth, whether the firm has buyers for your industry, or whether it will accept your engagement. A selective firm may decline companies it does not believe it can sell for full value, which is a good sign, but you only learn it by asking.

Use testimonials to build a shortlist, then judge each firm on a real conversation about your business: how it would value the company, which buyers it would approach, who would negotiate and how it is paid.

Questions to put to a reference

When you call a reference, general questions get polite answers. Specific ones get useful answers, and an owner who remembers particular moments in detail usually had an advisor who was present for them. Try these:

• How close did the final price come to the range the advisor first gave you?
• How many buyers turned out to be serious, and how many offers did you receive?
• Who from the firm did you deal with week to week, and who sat in the negotiations?
• What was the hardest moment in the deal, and how was it handled?
• Would you hire the same firm again, and what would you do differently?

Reading ours

MDR & Associates has closed more than 250 transactions for Texas owners since 2008, in manufacturing, home services, distribution, business services and other sectors. You can read what owners said on the testimonials page, see the kind of HD marketing video every company receives on the videos page, and ask for references from sellers whose companies resemble yours. Then contact the firm for a free, confidential discovery meeting.

Where this fitsSell your business in Texas →

Questions owners ask next

Can I speak with an owner who sold through the firm I am considering?

You should ask to. Any established sell-side firm ought to be able to put you in touch with former clients willing to talk, ideally owners whose companies resembled yours in size or industry. Ask them what went wrong as well as what went right; how problems were handled is the most useful part of the call.

Are online reviews of M&A firms reliable?

They are one input. Reviews on an independent platform are harder to curate than quotes on a firm's own site, and a high rating over many reviews means more than a handful. Still, confirm them with references and closed transactions, because some reviewers may be referral partners rather than sellers.