For founder-operators · Sell-side readiness
Built sell-side. For the founder running the process.
When private equity diligences a home services business, the marketing function is now a discrete workstream — and what they find decides the multiple. Sheppard prepares founder-led HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing operators for the diligence buyers actually run. The work that protects your exit starts eighteen months before the LOI.
The Sell-Side Problem
What buyers diligence — and what founders surrender.
Buyer-side marketing diligence is now standard in any home services deal above ~$50M EBITDA, and increasingly common at smaller scale. A sophisticated buyer's CDD provider spends two weeks inside the marketing data room, running a structured review of channel mix, attribution methodology, brand equity, vendor concentration, and operational maturity.
Most founders learn what the buyer found at the negotiating table — three weeks into exclusivity, when there's no time to fix anything. The gaps the buyer surfaces become the price concessions you grant.
The founders who defend their multiple build the marketing function their buyer will inherit twelve months before they go to market. Not as a sell-prep activity — as an operating discipline that pays off when timing finally aligns.
The Sheppard Model · Sell-Side
From eighteen months out to the wire transfer.
The same engagement framework you'd hire post-acquisition, run pre-acquisition by the seller. Each phase produces an artifact that travels into the CIM, the data room, and the buyer's diligence binder.
— 01
Commercial Diligence
18–24 months pre-exit
3–4 week sprint
The seller's pre-mortem before the buyer's diligence runs. We document the marketing function exactly the way a sophisticated PE buyer's CDD provider will read it — every gap, every risk, every recoverable EBITDA pad you should bank before you go to market.
Outputs
- →Channel-mix and attribution audit
- →Vendor concentration and contract review
- →Brand-equity baseline and erosion check
- →Single-channel dependency assessment
- →12-tab data-room gap analysis
- →Multiple-defense remediation roadmap
— 02
Hardening
9–18 months pre-exit
12-month sprint
The work the buyer will eventually require, done now while you control the timing. Vendor consolidation, attribution methodology rebuild, brand cleanup, data-room build — turned into a sequenced 12-month program with a documented EBITDA-impact model.
Outputs
- →Vendor stack consolidated against transferable contracts
- →Attribution methodology rebuilt with audit trail
- →Brand and identity rationalization across DMAs
- →Local SEO, GBP, and reputation infrastructure
- →Marketing data warehouse and dashboards
- →Documented operating cadence the buyer can inherit
— 03
Data Room & Buyer Defense
0–9 months pre-exit through close
Through the process
The marketing data room maintained current, every claim defensible, every methodology documented. We sit in CIM review, QofE prep, and management presentations — the part of the process where buyers test the marketing story and most founders surrender turns of multiple.
Outputs
- →Marketing data room kept current and audit-ready
- →CIM marketing narrative co-developed with the banker
- →Buyer-side diligence support (LOI through close)
- →Management presentation marketing slides
- →Forward-looking growth narrative tied to channels
- →Working paper for post-close transition planning
What Buyers Stress-Test
Four diligence questions that decide the multiple.
Every sophisticated buyer of a home services platform runs the same four marketing stress tests. Sheppard's engagements are organized to defend the answer to each one — long before the buyer has time to ask.
— 01
Channel concentration.
Is paid-search, paid-social, or any single channel sourcing more than 35–40% of revenue? Buyers price in the risk of channel economics changing under their ownership. The diversification story has to be defensible.
— 02
Attribution methodology drift.
Has the way you count sourced revenue changed in the last 24 months? Even legitimate methodology updates without documented audit trails read as data manipulation in QofE review.
— 03
Brand-equity baselines.
Branded-search trend, review velocity, GBP impressions, share-of-voice. Buyers want consistent growth across these as proof of compounding pricing power — not flat lines paired with rising paid spend.
— 04
Vendor transferability.
If 40% of marketing spend sits with one agency that owns the analytics, the ad accounts, and the local-SEO assets — the buyer prices in transition cost and risk. The vendor map matters more at exit than during ownership.
The Multiple Defense
Three years out is early. One year out is late.
0.25–0.5
Turns of EBITDA per material marketing gap a buyer's CDD surfaces
12+
Standard tabs in the marketing data room buyers diligence
18 mo
Typical lead time for material marketing remediation
9 mo
Final sprint to build a defensible marketing data room
Why Sheppard, Sell-Side
We've seen the buyer's diligence binder.
- 01We know what PE buyers actually diligence — because we run that diligence for sponsors on the other side of the table.
- 02We're not your banker, your QofE provider, or your operating partner. We're the marketing function the seller wishes they'd hired in year five.
- 03We're trade-native. The marketing realities of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing are specific — and the diligence playbook follows the trade.
- 04We're measured on multiple defense, not impressions. Every workstream ties to an EBITDA-impact model the founder can underwrite.
- 05We run lean. Three to five founder engagements at a time. Senior attention, no agency stack, no junior hand-off.
Frequently Asked