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What Broke in This $1.9M Plumbing Deal?
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Jack Carr
August 04, 2025
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Today, I’m sharing a breakdown of my conversation with Jameson Wildwood, an operator who bought Sweetwater Plumbing in North Carolina for $1.9 million—and ran into quite a few setbacks during negotiations and after taking over.
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A Big Acquisition With Big Challenges
Buying a plumbing company for $1.9M sounded like a big win. But for Jameson Wildwood, the real lessons started after the LOI was signed.
The deal looked solid on paper. Sweetwater Plumbing had a healthy backlog of new construction work, long-time employees, and a clean brand in a growing North Carolina market.
But once Jameson got inside, he found himself navigating hidden costs, pressure tactics, and a business that ran entirely from the seller’s head. What followed was a fast education in small business acquisition—paid for in stress, time, and cash.
Here’s what stood out.
1. The Seller Was Playing for Every Last Dollar
Jameson didn’t expect a friendly handoff—but he also didn’t expect the seller to nickel-and-dime him on $500 fees inside a $1.9M deal.
“He wanted me to pay his lawyer’s escrow fee for something I didn’t even need,” Jameson said.
“There was always something. Always a small extra. And it wasn’t just once—it was every negotiation.”
After the deal closed, the seller’s own broker admitted that the seller’s mindset the whole time was: “Let me see how much I can get out of this deal.”
2. The Broker Played Good Cop, Bad Cop
There were two brokers working the deal. One would act friendly, while the other applied pressure to move forward.
They pushed past Jameson’s hesitation with lines like “Come on, Jameson, it’s time to step up to the plate.”
“I was hemming and hawing over why something was taking a week to negotiate,” he said.
“And instead of solving the issue, they just pushed harder.”
Jameson later realized their incentives were never aligned with his. They weren’t looking for a fair deal. They were looking for a close.
3. The Whole Deal Felt Like a Water Slide
As things got messier, Jameson didn’t feel like he was in control. He felt like he was already halfway down the water slide, unable to climb back up.
“There was a lot of pressure to keep rolling,” he said. “Not just from them—but from myself too.”
He was worried about missing revenue. The business supposedly had $680K in SDE. Every delay felt like it cost him weeks of lost earnings. The brokers used that logic against him: “You’re going to miss out on income if you don’t close.”
In reality, he should’ve hit the brakes.
4. The Structure Changed—But the Price Didn’t
Late in the process, the SBA required the deal to shift from an asset sale to a stock sale so the seller could stay on with 5% equity (due to licensing rules).
That’s a massive structural shift—and Jameson barely renegotiated.
“I dropped the price from $2M to $1.9M and called it even,” he said.
“I should’ve slowed down and re-evaluated everything—working capital, price, protections.”
It was a missed opportunity to rebalance risk in a deal that had already started to tilt against him.
5. The Seller Note Had Weak Protections
Jameson tied uncollected accounts receivable to the seller note—but nothing else.
So when three truck transmissions failed in the first two months, there was nothing he could do.
“I should’ve tied trucks, inventory, and warranties to the seller note too,” he said.
“Instead, I ate those costs.”
Even the A/R clawback triggered drama. When Jameson tried to deduct just $5,000 from the note, the seller pushed back so hard, he dropped it to avoid a legal headache.
6. He Skipped a Full QofE—and Regretted It
Jameson has an MBA and felt confident reviewing the books himself. He checked a few months of P&Ls and matched them against bank statements. It all looked fine.
“The cash accounting matched what was hitting the bank,” he said. “But still—I should’ve gotten a formal QofE.”
He later realized a QofE Lite might have helped him catch operational red flags and created leverage to restructure the deal.
7. The Books Were Misleading
The seller categorized all labor as OpEx—even direct labor from installers. That distorted gross margins and made performance look better than it was.
“I would’ve accounted for things very differently,” Jameson said.
“It made it hard to get a real apples-to-apples comparison.”
He only realized after close how much rework was needed just to understand the true profitability of the business.
Takeaway: Jameson didn’t buy a turnkey business. He bought a fixer-upper with trucks that broke down, books that needed rebuilding, and a seller who squeezed the deal to the last dollar.
But he held on, figured it out, and turned it into a launchpad for real growth.
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