As I often say about my personal life “There’s never a dull moment around here.” Maybe that’s a big of an overshare for rAVe readers. Regardless, it’s true not only of my personal life but my professional one as well. I recently wrote about seeing the signs in advance of one of my biggest dealer partners preparing for a buyout. As you might recall, my uncertainty stemmed from not knowing who was buying them: one of my friends, one of my foes (yes, I have some), or another, still-secret third thing.

But it turned out well for everyone.

Fast forward to now. The pace of consolidation in my corner of the tech world is, if anything, accelerating. I’ve spent the last couple of months crafting and locking in marketing plans for my biggest retail partners as we head into Q4: the biggest selling season of the year. One of my biggest partners has been unusually taciturn lately. They’ve gone from constant, near-daily contact to much slower to respond.

Well, as I write this, it’s the first week of November. If we’re doing anything for Black Friday long weekend, we’re cutting it awfully close. So just last week, I reminded my contacts at one of the biggest dealers that time was short and I needed their official approval to launch my campaigns. Right towards EOD Friday I get a text from the Number Two guy at the company:

“Hi Lee, sorry for the delay. My apologies, but we’re instituting a spending freeze effective immediately for all vendors. I don’t have many details at this time, but you can talk to [the owner]”

NOT how I wanted to end my day/start my weekend. What does this mean?

Well, in the short term, all the marketing programs I had cooked up for them for Q4 are out the window. In the long term? I. Don’t. Know. And the owner, whom I’ve know for years, and worked hand-in-hand with as he’s taken his company from regional to national, isn’t getting back to me.

I know exactly what’s happening. I’ve seen it before, and my sixth sense has been telling me this for a while. Am I being poached? Has another vendor swooped in and made a bunch of promises? I doubt it, and I’ll tell you why: These clients are serious business people, but they’re also good people. If someone else was offering a better deal I’m 100% confident they’d call a meeting with my national director and me. They’d sit down, lay their cards on the table and ask us what we can do to beat the other guys.

No, this is in preparation for a buyout. They’re being bought. And the owner isn’t getting back to me because he’s under NDA and can’t tell me. Even if he can’t tell me anything, that tells me enough. What I don’t know is the same as it is every time this happens: bought by WHOM?

I’ll find out soon enough, regardless. But in the words of the philosopher Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part.