Foundersmake rain.Coachesmotivate.Bankersrun the deal.
Almost no one does the work in between.
That work – building the recurring revenue, the growth engine, the margin, the management depth, and the AI leverage that decide what a firm is worth – matters most in the years around a sale or a stall. The patterns are familiar. And yet, the work rarely gets done as well as the business deserves.
The ground beneath the whole B2B sector is shifting – especially in professional services – and two forces are pushing in the same direction.
AI is breaking the billable-hour model that services firms were built on. “Agentic” competitors already price well below traditional shops, and clients have noticed: a majority of senior marketers cut agency spend last year, citing AI directly.1 Buyers are explicitly asking for their “AI discount.” At the same time, private equity has turned a fragmented, founder-built market into a roll-up hunting ground.2
One consequence: the firm you spent years building is worth a different number than it was two years ago, and the gap widens every quarter you wait.
For a founder weighing a sale, valuation is an ice cube on a hot stove. AI is the burner.
A firm changes hands across a table with two seats.
I’ve sat in both. Each provides an important perspective.
For the founder getting ready to sell, that means knowing, from the inside, exactly what acquirers reward, and what they quietly discount – and building the right things before diligence starts, not after.
For the acquirer sitting on an asset that’s stalling out, it means diagnosing which parts of the original thesis still hold water – and which need a reboot to survive the realities of post-close integration and accelerated value creation.
Same expertise – services economics, buy-side M&A, and the unglamorous operating work that builds real value – aimed at either side of the same transaction. These aren’t two different jobs. They’re the same firm, twelve months apart.
But what a difference twelve months can make.
Most people who dispense advice live on one side of this line, or the other. My house sits right on the border, sprawling out on either side.
In 20+ years I’ve sat in many chairs and served many functions, including:
Growth and go-to-market leader: rebuilt the marketing engine for a rebooted $1B+ customer-experience firm and grew an integrated practice assembled from a dozen acquired pieces.
Buy-side M&A: led acquisition strategy inside two global holding companies, evaluating targets on behalf of the people writing the checks.
Operator/integrator inheriting the deal thesis: architected the integration of multiple acquired firms under parents with a penchant for bootstrapping, which is the exact constraint every PE portfolio faces.
CEO and founder, in seats where it’s your name on the door and your reputation on the line.
The combination is the point. The buy-side eye, the operator’s dirty hands, and the founder’s vision and empathy rarely come bundled together.
So: What’s happening on your side of the line?
You’re preparing to sell – or you’ve hit a ceiling that won’t break.
Start with the Buyer’s-Eye View: an honest, buyer’s-eye read on what your firm is actually worth, scored against the criteria acquirers use, with a concrete plan to close the gap before you sell. The same work breaks the ceiling whether or not you ever sell – a more valuable firm and a firm that’s outgrown its plateau are the same firm.
You bought a firm, and it’s stalling.
Start with the Hard Restart: a 30-day, on-site intervention that stabilizes the people carrying the valuation on their shoulders, reads the firm against the drivers that actually move EBITDA, and lays out the recovery – then Integrate-to-Ignite to run it. Built for the sponsor who wants to grow the firm, not harvest it.
Neither of these, exactly? Situations rarely read the brochure before showing up. There’s a door for that →
If your firm is in or around one of these moments…
We should chat. If valuation is an ice cube, the stove is running hot. No time like the present for a quiet conversation.
20+ years in and around professional services, most recently as Global CMO of Merkle, a $1B+ customer experience firm.
Not there yet? That’s cool. I write about the maturity trap, applied AI, and what actually creates value in a B2B firm – here’s where to follow along.
1. Typeface survey of 200+ VP-and-above marketing leaders: 60% spent less on agencies in 2025 as a direct result of AI. Source ↩
2. PE-backed deals now exceed 40% of marketing-services M&A, up from ~25% in 2020. Source ↩