Sheppard

For PE Sponsors & Operating Partners

The marketing practice your home services platform should run on.

Sheppard is the specialist marketing practice for PE-backed residential home services platforms. Marketing audit pre-close. 100-day operating system install post-close. Ongoing execution through hold and into exit. Across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and the other residential trades that compound under PE ownership.

Engage SheppardSee the operating model →

Where Sheppard Fits

Four moments in the deal lifecycle.

Sheppard engages at any stage of a platform's hold. Most sponsors start in one phase and grow into all three. The handoff between phases is intentionally tight — the same team carries context from diligence into install into ongoing execution.

— 01Pre-close

You're under LOI on a residential home services platform.

Sheppard runs a structured marketing audit alongside your CDD provider's commercial DD. Output: a working memo with an EBITDA-impact estimate the deal team folds into committee materials, and an operating plan the future portco CEO uses on Day 1.

See the marketing audit →
— 02First 100 days

You just closed and need marketing operational by Day 100.

Sheppard installs the marketing operating system — vendor consolidation, attribution methodology, KPI dashboards, channel rebuild, sponsor-facing reporting cadence. The 100-day playbook that eliminates the discovery quarter.

See the 100-day install →
— 03Mid-hold / roll-up

You're acquiring add-ons and the marketing integration keeps slipping.

Sheppard runs the platform marketing function through the hold — integrating each add-on cleanly, defending brand equity across DMAs, compounding local SEO across the roll-up. One operating system across portcos, not nine vendors per portco.

See roll-up marketing →
— 04Pre-exit (12–18 months out)

You're 12–18 months from sale and the marketing data room isn't ready.

Sheppard hardens the marketing function the buyer's CDD provider will inspect — clean attribution, vendor lineage, brand-equity baselines, transferable systems pack. Built deliberately, the marketing data room defends a half-turn or more of EBITDA at exit.

See portfolio company marketing →

Why Specialist

The PE marketing agencies that win in home services don't exist.

Generalist PE marketing agencies serve B2B SaaS, healthcare, financial services, and consumer brands — sometimes all four under one roof. The frameworks transfer at the level of "do marketing diligence" or "build a 100-day plan." The substance doesn't.

Residential home services marketing has specific economics: emergency vs. retail demand splits, lead quality through CRM-dialer-dispatch, neighborhood saturation through EDDM, multi-DMA local-pack compounding, brand decisions during add-on integration, route density driving paid-search ROI. A generalist team isn't equipped to run the marketing engine inside an HVAC roll-up. A specialist practice is.

Sheppard's entire practice is built around this category. Nothing else.

Residential home services platforms only.

HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, pest control, pool, garage door, flooring, restoration, landscaping. We do not work in B2B SaaS, healthcare, financial services, or other PE verticals. Specialization is the entire point.

$10M–$200M EBITDA platforms.

Single-portco operators through multi-DMA roll-ups. The operating model scales; the work depth tracks the platform's scale.

Sponsor-level engagement.

We engage at the sponsor level and operate inside the portco. The operating partner sees monthly EBITDA-contribution reporting tied to the deal thesis. Portco CEO works with us weekly on execution.

Three to five active platforms at a time.

Sheppard is not a high-volume agency. Capacity is deliberately limited so each engagement gets senior attention, not junior hand-off.

By Trade

What Sheppard does inside each residential trade.

The operating model is the same across the residential trades. The playbook inside each phase is engineered around the unit economics of the specific trade.

For Sponsors · HVAC

— 01

HVAC platforms

Replacement-driven, recurring service, weather-cyclical.

See the engagement →

For Sponsors · Plumbing

— 02

Plumbing platforms

Emergency demand, trust at point of crisis.

See the engagement →

For Sponsors · Electrical

— 03

Electrical platforms

Decision-cycle driven, electrification tailwinds.

See the engagement →

For Sponsors · Roofing

— 04

Roofing platforms

Storm and retail funnels with different economics.

See the engagement →

All ten residential trades →

Frequently Asked

Questions sponsors and operating partners ask before they engage.

What marketing services does Sheppard provide for PE-backed portfolio companies?

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Three integrated services across the deal lifecycle. Pre-close: a structured marketing audit that doubles as a Day-1 operating plan or a marketing input alongside your CDD provider. Post-close: the 100-day playbook that installs the marketing operating system (vendor consolidation, attribution methodology, KPI dashboards, channel rebuild). Hold-period through exit: ongoing execution of the full marketing engine — ten specialties run as one function, reported up to the sponsor.

How is Sheppard different from a general PE-marketing agency?

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Sheppard is the specialist marketing practice for PE-backed residential home services platforms — HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, pest control, pool, garage door, flooring, restoration, and landscaping. We do not work in B2B SaaS, healthcare, financial services, or other PE verticals. Most PE marketing agencies are generalists; our entire practice is built around the operating realities of the residential trades — multi-DMA roll-ups, lead-driven trade economics, dispatch and booked-call discipline, seasonality, and the exit dynamics of this category specifically.

Does Sheppard work with sponsors directly, or with the portcos?

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Both. Most engagements are scoped at the sponsor level — an operating partner brings Sheppard in to install the marketing function across one or more portcos. The day-to-day work happens inside the portfolio company, with the portco CEO and marketing operator. The sponsor sees monthly EBITDA-contribution reporting and a clear cadence tied to the deal thesis.

What size of platform does Sheppard typically work with?

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$10M–$200M EBITDA platforms across single-portco and multi-portco roll-ups. The work scales — a single-DMA HVAC operator gets a different playbook depth than a 12-DMA multi-trade roll-up — but the operating model is the same. We do not take engagements with platforms below ~$5M EBITDA where the marketing function isn't yet large enough to professionalize.

Can Sheppard support multiple portcos in the same sponsor's portfolio?

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Yes — that's increasingly common. We engage at the sponsor level and operate across the portfolio, standardizing the marketing operating system across portcos while respecting per-trade and per-DMA differences. The advantage compounds: same dashboards, same vendor map structure, same operating cadence, transferable benchmarks across the portfolio.

Have a platform that needs marketing under control?

Engage Sheppard