They have proven playbooks for three of four levers. Organic growth isn't one of them.
Every PE firm has the waterfall slide. Where EBITDA is now. Where it needs to be at exit. The gap, attributed across four levers: financial, operational, inorganic, organic. Three are systematized. The fourth is where the assumptions live.
Three of four levers are engineered, measured, and repeatable. The fourth is where the team plugs in numbers based on what the model needs to show, and where, three years in, you discover the sales team can't deliver what diligence assumed.
The private equity landscape has fundamentally changed. Eager sellers, favorable supply-demand, and cheap debt supported a basic playbook of balance-sheet engineering, cost-cutting, functional efficiency, and bolt-ons. That world is over.
Sponsors now face compression from both sides. Buying habits and market conditions are shifting in ways that founders and family management have never navigated. Spreadsheet assumptions about aggressive new-logo acquisition and margin improvement repeatedly prove aspirational rather than realistic.
The fastest, most impactful response is to apply the same process engineering, continuous improvement, metrics-driven management, and operational rigor that already characterize PE improvements elsewhere, to marketing and, most of all, to sales.
Whatever's broken in revenue takes eighteen months to surface.
Another twelve to fix. And most of an exit cycle to translate into multiple. The earlier the diagnostic, the bigger the lever. Here is where Ed engages, and what fails when he doesn't.
Acquisition
Diligence the target's sales team before you buy. Financial diligence checks the moat. Sales diligence checks whether the team can execute the thesis, and surfaces risks LBO modeling cannot see.
Integration
The first hundred days set the ceiling on organic growth for the entire hold period. Process, methodology, and reporting installed early, not hoped for in year three.
Growth
When operations work, bolt-ons closed, and organic growth never showed up. The diagnostic, root cause and improvement roadmap, completes in roughly a month.
Exit
Maximize value by demonstrating a sales engine that performs after you leave. Process, methodology, and hiring infrastructure that translate into multiple at sale.
The hold period is finite. Whatever's broken in revenue takes 18+ months to surface, another 12 to fix, and most of an exit cycle to translate into multiple. The earlier the diagnostic, the bigger the lever.
Ed's most common engagement is the "three or four years in" call, when bolt-ons are working, operations are running, but organic growth never showed up. The Quality of Sales evaluation produces a detailed read on the existing organization in roughly a month, identifying root causes and a realistic improvement roadmap.
Three decades inside industrial. PE-credentialed. Plain-spoken.
Ed has spent his career inside industrial manufacturing: building, selling, advising, sitting on boards, and writing about what works. He works exclusively with lower-middle and middle-market industrial manufacturers and the private equity sponsors that own them.
He holds governance certifications from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and the Private Directors Association (PDA), including the PE Portfolio Company governance designation. The frameworks on this page (Quality of Sales, ORE) are the systems Ed has built over thirty years of watching the same problems play out at companies that should know better.
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
Prefer to leave Ed a message instead?
No calendar, no obligation. Ed reads every message personally.
▼
Ed reads every message personally and usually responds within 24 hours.