Overview:

Our client is looking for a goal-driven, commercially minded, and highly articulate M&A Business Development Representative (Deal Sourcing) to build a consistent pipeline of conversations with business owners across various industries. This is not a traditional sales role, but rather a business development position focused on identifying owners considering an exit or seeking growth through investment, acquisitions, partnerships, or additional capital. You will initiate credible conversations, understand business needs, qualify opportunities, and create high-quality prospects for the founder to explore. The role requires confidence in speaking with business owners and decision-makers, along with the ability to quickly understand different industries, business models, and commercial situations. This is a high-activity, high-accountability role for someone who enjoys prospecting, handles rejection well, and takes ownership of results.

Schedule: Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM AEST | Fixed Schedule

Responsibilities:

Prospecting & List Building

• Continuously build and maintain a targeted pipeline of business owners
• Research businesses across multiple industries and identify suitable acquisition, investment, or partnership prospects
• Build targeted prospect lists based on agreed criteria
• Identify business owners, founders, managing partners, and other key decision-makers
• Source both on-market opportunities through brokers, business-for-sale platforms, marketplaces, and other public sources, as well as off-market opportunities through direct research and outbound prospecting
• Research relevant information about each business before outreach
• Identify potential conversation angles based on the business, industry, growth stage, or circumstances
• Locate accurate direct contact information wherever possible
• Maintain accurate records of prospect sources, contact details, notes, status, and next actions.
• Continuously improve the quality and relevance of prospect lists.
• Build large and useful lists containing businesses that have a legitimate reason to be contacted

Outbound Business Development

• Initiate conversations with business owners through a primarily phone-first approach
• Make approximately 40–60 outbound calls per day once fully ramped
• Initiate professional conversations with business owners and decision-makers
• Use email and LinkedIn as supporting channels
• Follow up consistently with prospects who have expressed interest or require additional contact
• Navigate receptionists, gatekeepers, and screening processes professionally
• Leave concise and relevant voicemails when appropriate
• Confirm appointments and maintain communication leading up to scheduled meetings
• Adjust communication style based on the business owner's personality, industry, and level of interest
• Maintain consistent activity even when experiencing rejection or a low-connect day

Business Owner Qualification

• Determine whether there is a legitimate opportunity worth advancing
• Conduct an initial, structured but natural conversation to understand the owner's situation.
• Depending on the conversation, you may explore ownership and decision-making, including who owns the business, who is involved in major strategic decisions, and whether the person you are speaking with is the appropriate decision-maker
• Determine whether the owner is considering selling all or part of the business, what prompted the potential exit, whether they are actively exploring options or simply open to a conversation, their preferred timeframe, and whether they have spoken with brokers, buyers, investors, or other parties
• Understand the business’s industry, location, operating history, team size, overall scale, and key factors that make it attractive or differentiated
• Determine whether the owner is looking to expand, pursue acquisitions, raise additional capital, explore strategic partnerships, and identify the key constraints currently limiting growth
• Must be consultative, curious, professional, and credible, focusing on understanding the owner’s situation before advancing the conversation rather than taking an aggressive, scripted, or transactional approach
• Negotiate transactions or provide valuation advice and identify genuine opportunities and get the right conversation in front of the founder

Qualified Appointment Setting

• Schedule qualified meetings directly onto the founder's calendar and confirm the prospect's availability and commitment
• Send reminders before scheduled meetings and follow up with prospects who have not confirmed
• Minimise no-shows through proactive communication, reschedule qualified opportunities when necessary, and ensure the founder has sufficient context before every meeting
• Every booked meeting must include a pre-call brief covering the business name and industry, location, owner or decision-maker details, relevant business facts, reason for the conversation, transaction or growth interest, motivation and timeline, key pain points or opportunities, previous conversations or relevant history, sensitive considerations, and why the prospect agreed to speak with the founder

CRM Ownership & Sales Process Management

• CRM ownership is a non-negotiable responsibility of this role. You must also help establish and maintain a reliable business development operating system
• CRM & Pipeline Management: Set up and maintain the CRM pipeline, including stages, fields, views, reporting, and prospect databases, while keeping records accurate and up to date, logging all interactions and follow-ups, preventing duplicates, building workflows and sequences where appropriate, improving prospecting and qualification processes, and developing useful reporting dashboards
• Proficiency in tools such as GoHighLevel, Notion, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, ZoomInfo, Google Sheets/Excel, and other prospecting and data-enrichment platforms

Daily Reporting & Accountability

• Daily reporting should cover new prospects added, outbound calls, emails and LinkedIn messages sent, decision-makers reached, meaningful conversations, qualified opportunities and meetings booked, follow-ups scheduled, common objections and market feedback, notable opportunities, blockers, and any support or decisions needed from the founder

Market Intelligence & Continuous Improvement

• Identify and communicate useful patterns and insights, including common reasons for selling, acquisition activity by industry, objections, shifts in owner sentiment, emerging growth opportunities, recurring business challenges, strong off-market sectors, effective outreach approaches, and reasons prospects decline conversations

Requirements:

• Strong understanding of how businesses operate, demonstrated through relevant experience in business, entrepreneurship, sales, business development, finance, investment, formal business education, or another field that reflects strong commercial judgment
• You must be able to speak with business owners without sounding like a generic telemarketer
• Demonstrate clear and professional spoken English, strong listening and writing skills, and the confidence to communicate effectively with senior decision-makers
• Comfortable with outbound calling and able to proactively make calls without requiring constant encouragement
• Must be resilient and able to handle rejection professionally and remain persistent when receiving negative responses
• Ability to work independently in a remote environment by managing daily activities, prioritising prospects, following up proactively, identifying and solving problems, seeking help when needed, and meeting deadlines without micromanagement
• Must be highly organised and comfortable using CRM systems, recognising that effective prospecting requires strong CRM discipline to maintain clear and accurate pipeline visibility
• Ability to write professional follow-up emails, LinkedIn messages, prospect notes, pre-call briefs, daily reports, and concise summaries of business-owner conversations

Strongly Preferred Experience:

• At least 1–3+ years of experience in outbound sales, business development, appointment setting, M&A, business brokerage, investment banking, commercial lending, private equity, insurance, real estate, financial services, B2B sales, entrepreneurship, or lead generation are strongly preferred
• Experience dealing directly with business owners, founders, executives, or high-value decision-makers is particularly valuable
• Familiarity with GoHighLevel, Notion, HubSpot or similar CRMs, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, ZoomInfo, data enrichment tools, lead databases, Google Sheets/Excel, and sales sequencing tools is advantageous
• An understanding of business acquisitions, investing, valuation, capital raising, or deal-making is a significant advantage

Independent Contractor Perks:

• Permanent work from home
• Immediate hiring
• Health Insurance Coverage for eligible locations

Note:

Please click the "Apply" button to complete your application, including the assessment questions, technical check, and voice recording. Your hourly pay rate will be established based on your performance in the application process; submissions with all requirements fulfilled will receive priority review.

One application, multiple possibilities: When you apply, our team reviews your background against all current openings, not just this one! If a different role fits your skills, we'll get in touch! We also encourage you to keep exploring our job board and apply directly to any position that excites you.