The Diagnostic
$95,000, fixed
- Eight weeks, led by a partner.
- The findings are yours whether or not you continue.
- Half the fee is credited if you continue into a turnaround engagement.
For companies backed by private equity
Turnaround GTM.
A turnaround engagement runs $20,000 to $50,000 a month for nine to 18 months.
For portfolio companies whose go-to-market isn’t working, when the sponsor wants it fixed rather than studied.
The Diagnostic for private equity
The re-underwrite.
When a portfolio company misses plan, the deal team goes back to the investment committee with a new base case, and the committee asks why the old one was wrong. The Diagnostic answers that question when the miss is in go-to-market. It tells you where revenue is leaking, what each leak costs, what to fix first and whether the current management team can fix it. When the miss turns out to sit somewhere else, we tell you that early.
Where it sits.
You already commission two reports before a deal closes. The quality of earnings report tells you whether the numbers are real, and commercial due diligence tells you whether the market is there. Neither tells you whether the company can sell, and after a miss that is the question left open.
Quality of earnings
Are the earnings real?
Before the deal.
Commercial due diligence
Is the market there?
Before the deal.
The Diagnostic
Can the company sell?
After the miss.
When sponsors call us.
- Ahead of a re-underwrite, or a reset of the value creation plan.
- Before a decision on the chief executive or the revenue leadership.
- When the board has heard three explanations for the miss from three executives.
What changes when a sponsor commissions it.
The work is the same eight weeks, the same five systems and the same two documents, and the price is the same $95,000.
The Readout is written so that the deal team can take it to the investment committee. Its first revenue bridge reconciles the miss to its causes, which answers why the old case was wrong. Its second bridge estimates what each fix should recover and by when, which gives the deal team a new base case to test. Every number in that second bridge is a range with its assumptions stated, and each fix names the early indicator that will show within 90 days whether it is holding.
As the commissioning party, the sponsor receives everything, including our assessment of the management team. We present to the deal team first and to the chief executive second, and then to both together in the same week. The engagement letter sets out which parts management sees, and we tell every executive that before we interview them.
The fee can be paid by the fund or by the portfolio company. Either way, the engagement letter names who commissioned the work, and that party receives all of it.
If the answer is to sell.
Sometimes we find that the problem is structural and can’t be fixed within the hold period. When that is what we find, the Readout says so, because eight weeks is a cheaper way to learn it than 18 months of trying.
A turnaround engagement
Then we rebuild it by running it.
The Readout sets out the sequence, and the three phases are how we carry it out.
Remove, replace, test.
Three to six months
We make the removals the Readout calls for, stand up a temporary team of contractors under our operators and test until we know what works. What works becomes the new playbook.
Wire it, hire in.
Three to six months
We wire the playbook into an AI operating system and hire a more permanent team on a trial basis to run it while we oversee and train them.
Hand it off.
Three to six months
Control moves to the new team, and we keep measuring until the sponsor is satisfied that it holds without us.
What it costs.
A turnaround engagement
$20,000 to $50,000 a month
- Nine to 18 months, depending on the team the business needs.
- All in, a nine-month turnaround runs about $230,000 and an 18-month one up to $950,000, including the Diagnostic less the half credited.
Bench
Operators, not advisers.
Each broken function gets someone who has run it before, who rebuilds it, proves it and writes it down, then finds and trains the person who replaces them. We can hire a full enterprise sales organization from the top down, because we have a full-time recruiter who does nothing else.
Talk to us first
If the situation is already clear, we can scope the turnaround directly.
Otherwise the Diagnostic takes eight weeks and costs $95,000, and you will know what’s true before you commit to more.