Industrial Revenue Growth:
Diagnostics, Sales Execution, and Advisory
Ed Marsh works with private equity sponsors, their portfolio companies, and privately-held industrial manufacturers to find out why organic growth has stalled and to fix it.
Every engagement is a project plus advisory: sized to the question, with a clear deliverable. Below is what Ed does, who it's for, and how you work with him.
Three buyers. The same revenue question.
Ed works with lower and middle-middle-market industrial firms: $25M–$250M in revenue, roughly $2.5M–$30M EBITDA, manufacturing and manufacturing-adjacent, CONUS, often with veteran leadership.
Lower and middle-middle-market funds investing in CONUS industrial manufacturers, often with a habit of sharing resources across the portfolio. The buying team is the managing partner or director, the principal, the operating partner, and the portco CEO.
- IRR target in jeopardy from the duration and magnitude of organic growth
- Bolt-ons that underperform from a revenue perspective
- A portco where EBITDA growth is inadequate and new-logo growth has stalled
- Unreliable forecasts; uncertainty about whether sales leadership is strong enough
- High sales turnover and a poor track record on sales hires
- Boards and lenders getting uncomfortable; unsure whether to fund sales-team growth
- Diligence that never tested the existing team’s ability to execute the thesis
CEOs and CFOs of PE-held industrial manufacturers, typically more than halfway through the hold (three or more years past the transaction, with an exit in view), often facing sales-leader churn. The sponsor and board are part of the buying team.
- EBITDA growth is inadequate and the cause isn’t clear; different things have been tried
- Organic growth (new logos) has stalled; forecasts aren’t reliable
- The board is questioning the sales leader; sales turnover is high
- Inbound lead flow is falling and marketing is less effective
- Thin sales methodology, training, process and artifacts: “coordination, not management”
- Marketing built for 2015, not today; messaging about what the company makes, not the outcomes
Owner-led and family-held industrial manufacturers in the same $25M–$250M CONUS range: no sponsor, but the same revenue-growth questions and the same need for rigor.
- Organic growth has plateaued and the real constraint isn’t obvious
- The current sales team’s actual capability is unknown
- Sales hiring has been hit-or-miss with no repeatable process
- Marketing that once drove growth has stopped working
- No named, defined sales process or methodology to lean on
And who it isn't for
Honest fit checkEd's work depends on a willingness to act on what the diagnostic finds. It isn't the right call when:
It's a sequence, not a menu of unrelated services.
Every engagement follows the same logic. You diagnose first, so you build on evidence, not opinion, and advisory wraps the work so the gains hold.
- Sales Force Evaluation
- ORE Diagnostic
- Quality of Sales
- Sales Recruiting & Hiring
- Sales Process & Methodology
- Execution & coaching
- Independent board seat
- Strategic advisory
- Long-term value & IP
Evidence → Action → Durability
Ed Marsh's methodology: diagnose before you build, advise so it holds
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Step 01 · Diagnose
Find the real constraint
Sales Force Evaluation, the ORE Diagnostic, and Quality of Sales produce empirical answers on people, process, and strategy, before anyone spends money fixing the wrong thing.
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Step 02 · Build
Fix what the diagnostic found
Sales Recruiting & Hiring, Sales Process & Methodology, and execution support install the systems the diagnostic says are missing.
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Step 03 · Advise
Make the gains durable
An independent board seat and strategic advisory keep the rigor in place and turn revenue-growth process into a lasting value and IP asset.
Ed also works the marketing side. PR, podcasts, video, partner marketing, and marketing built for LLMs and platform acquisition.
Sales Recruiting & Hiring
A structured, repeatable recruiting process built for industrial sales roles, not a one-off search. It covers job posting, sourcing, candidate processing, hiring, and an onboarding and coaching roadmap. Ed specializes in industrial capital equipment; this is not a traditional headhunter relationship.
The process is the product. You can have your team trained to run it, or have Ed run it for you first to prove the model works before you take it in-house.
Train your team
Ed installs the recruiting process and trains your people to run it themselves.
Done For You
Ed runs recruiting for a defined period, proving the model before you bring it in-house.
Who it’s for: any of the three ICPs with a sales-hire track record they don’t trust: high turnover, expensive misses, no repeatable process.
Sales Force Evaluation
An evaluation of the current revenue team: the VP, sales managers, field sales, inside sales, customer service, and marketing. It produces an aggregate management overview plus individual strength-and-weakness detail. It is sales-specific, not a personality test.
This is the diagnostic that answers the question every sponsor and operator is really asking: is the constraint people, process, or strategy, and is this team able to execute the thesis?
Per-deal diligence read
A focused evaluation during diligence, roughly three weeks.
Mid-hold diagnostic
A full read on an existing portco, roughly one month.
Who it’s for: sponsors sizing up a team in diligence or mid-hold; operators who need an empirical answer before they fund or restructure.
Two more ways Ed engages
Real services, but each one works best after a diagnostic points to it. Start with the read, then build.
Independent Board Director & Board Advisor
Board-level governance for industrial firms and PE portfolio companies, with formal NACD and PDA governance certifications, including PE portfolio-company governance.
Strategic Advisory folds in here: board-level advisory on disruptive trends, and building long-term value through revenue-growth process IP and data assets.
Who it’s for: sponsors and boards that want an independent voice on revenue.
Sales Process & Methodology
Installing a named, defined sales process: deal qualification, coaching cadence, compensation alignment, and pipeline rigor. Ed builds it into how your team sells every day.
This is the “Build” step a diagnostic feeds into, not a starting point on its own.
Who it’s for: teams where a diagnostic has already named process as the gap.
How you actually buy this
Ed’s work is structured as defined engagements, each with a deliverable you can point to. The shapes below are the common ones; most can be combined.
Project plus performance, sized to the question, with a clear deliverable.
Per-deal diligence
A revenue-team read during diligence, before the deal closes.
Integration support
Revenue-side support through the integration window post-close.
Mid-hold diagnostic
A full diagnostic on an existing portco partway through the hold.
Engineered sales hiring
A run of the structured hiring process for a specific role.
Exit-readiness audit
A revenue-side audit ahead of a planned exit.
Portfolio program / retainer
A shared-resource program across multiple portfolio companies.
Independent board seat
A standing governance role on the board.
Not sure which?
A quick call sizes the right engagement to your situation.
Train your team
Ed installs the process or framework and trains your people to run it. You own the capability afterward.
Done For You
Ed runs it directly for a defined period, proving the model works before your team takes it in-house.
How Ed charges: engagements are structured on a project plus performance basis, sized to the question, with a clear deliverable.
Start with a diagnostic
You don’t have to know which capability you need. You start by finding out what’s actually happening, then the diagnostic tells you what to build.
Quality of Sales
Ed's methodology for private equity, built on a sales-specific evaluation engine. It's the diligence-and-value-creation read on a revenue team, usable across every deal phase, from acquisition through hold to exit.
Built on proven rigor. The Objective Management Group assessment underneath it has been refined since 1992. Ed Marsh is an OMG-certified STAR.
ORE Diagnostic™
A structured read on Overall Revenue Effectiveness: 199 yes/no questions across four pillars: strategy, marketing, technology, and sales. The default answer is "no," so the score reflects what's genuinely in place.
Currently in progress. ORE V2 is adding AI integration and a brand refresh.
Prefer a quick self-assessment first?
Two free self-graders from Objective Management Group, built on the same assessment engine Ed’s work runs on. No call required, results in minutes.
Not sure which is the right starting point?
A short call with Ed. Sharp questions, and an honest read on the right next step.
The evidence behind the methodology
No invented case studies. These are the real, sourced numbers behind the assessment work.
Ed Marsh
Ed Marsh has spent three decades in industrial sales and marketing: the world of capital equipment, complex sales, and the manufacturers who sell it. His work brings the same rigor and detail that drives operational efficiency to the revenue side of the business.
He holds NACD and PDA governance certifications, including PE portfolio-company governance, and is an Objective Management Group-certified STAR, an earned credential on the assessment engine his diagnostic work runs on. He is the author of the Quality of Sales methodology and the ORE Diagnostic.
Talk to Ed About Your Sales Team
Sharp diagnostic questions. An honest read on whether Ed can help, and if he can't, who can.
An honest read on your sales team.
No pitch deck. No proposal cycle. No follow-up automation. Ed asks sharp diagnostic questions about your organic growth challenge and gives you an honest read on what's actually happening.
- A clear next step, a better referral, or a few things you can do this week
- Ed's read on whether your sales problem is people, process, or strategy
- If Ed isn't the right fit, he'll tell you who is
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Prefer to leave Ed a message instead?
No calendar, no obligation. Ed reads every message personally.
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Ed reads every message personally and usually responds within 24 hours.