Operational partnership
The operating partner’s operator.
Value creation in a trades portfolio company is not financial engineering. It is operational engineering — the day-to-day work of making the branch sell, produce and keep its margin. We embed with management and do that work with them.
What does Coach to Success do for private-equity operating partners?
Coach to Success gives private-equity operating partners an embedded sales-and-operations operator for service and trades portfolio companies between $5M and $50M: an operational assessment before or after close, a 90-day stabilization plan, weekly KPI reporting to the sponsor, and interim or fractional leadership without adding permanent headcount.
- Led by
- Steve Lindstrom, Managing Director
- Reports to
- The operating partner, weekly
- Track record
- $11M → $28M in branch sales within 24 months and 211% of EBITDA goal, trailing twelve — delivered by teams Steve led
From thesis to execution
The thesis is written in the deal room. It is won on the branch floor.
Every investment thesis for a trades company says roughly the same thing: grow bookings, hold gross margin, get indirect costs onto the jobs, professionalize the leadership. None of that happens in a model. It happens — or fails to — in a branch where the phone is ringing and the trucks are already out.
The constraints that stall a plan are rarely in the strategy deck. They are in whether the sales team hunts or waits, whether equipment and labor burden ever reach the job that consumed them, whether anyone reads the P&L before the 20th, and whether one person owns the number every week.
Advice from the sidelines does not change any of that. An operator working shoulder to shoulder with management does — one who has carried a branch P&L, taught a team to sell on value and been measured on EBITDA every month. That is the seat we take.
Highlights
- Branch sales
- $11M → $28M in 24 months
- EBITDA
- More than 2× goal
- Down industry years
- Up to 169% of goal
- Trailing twelve
- 211% of EBITDA goal
Results delivered by teams Steve led in prior executive roles · Full track record
Trained, then tested
Formal training in selling, leadership and finance, proven on a branch floor — the combination operating partners rarely find in one person.
The first 90 days
The first 90 days set the rhythm.
Whatever cadence a company keeps in its first quarter under new ownership is the one it keeps for the hold. So we set it deliberately — assess, prioritize, execute, report — with dates, dollars and owners on one page.
Pre-close, the same assessment de-risks day one: you know what the branch needs before you own it.
- Days 1–10Assess
People, pipeline, P&L and cadence. We read the trailing-twelve by month, ride with sales, walk the warehouse and sit in whatever meetings exist. First flash to the operating partner by day 10.
- Days 11–30Prioritize
One page tied to the thesis: the leaks ranked by dollars, the sales gap named, an owner and a date on every line. Agreed with the deal team and the GM in the same room.
- Days 31–60Execute
Fix the leaks — contracts, indirect-cost billing, job costing, the warehouse. Run the sales sprint. Stand up the weekly scoreboard and hold it every Friday.
- Days 61–90Report
A KPI dashboard and sponsor reporting that survive us: built inside the company, owned by the local leader, read by the investment committee. Permanent hire onboarded or the fractional plan agreed.
Engagement structures
Operating support on demand.
The right operator at the point of need — not a permanent hire at the sponsor or inside the company. Each structure reports weekly to the operating partner and ends with a permanent leader running a cadence they can sustain. A pre-close operational assessment of sales and operations — scoped and quoted after a discovery call — can precede any of them.
Interim GM / VP
Steve takes the chair: full accountability for the branch P&L, the team and the plan, reporting weekly to the operating partner and handing off to the permanent leader.
Stabilization Sprint
The CEO or GM stays. We run the assessment, the leak recovery and the sales sprint beside them and coach the cadence in until it is theirs.
Advisor to the new GM
You hired a strong operator who has never run this kind of P&L. Steve becomes the seasoned voice at the table every week — coaching and mentoring, not supervising.
Built for the exit
Buyers pay for numbers they can diligence.
The exit story starts being written the week we arrive, not the quarter you go to market. A buyer pays for gross margin that held through a down year, bookings that came from a process rather than one rainmaker, and indirect costs that show up on the jobs that consumed them — because those are numbers they can test.
A branch with a documented sales process, job-costing discipline, a KPI cadence and leaders who own it tells a story no deck can. That is what we leave behind: not a set of recommendations, but a company that can prove its own performance.
Fit
Which portfolio companies are a fit?
Strong fit
- Trades and field services: MEP, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, roofing, GC, design-build, home services
- $5M–$50M revenue, single or multi-branch
- Off plan on bookings, gross margin or EBITDA
- Leadership gap: departed GM, disengaged founder, first-time manager
- Founder-led sales culture that has to become a team
Not the right tool
- Pure software, SaaS or e-commerce businesses
- Financial restructuring, refinancing or legal workouts
- ERP or CRM implementations
- Situations that need a bank, not an operator
Borderline? Send the situation — we answer within one business day.
Questions from operating partners
Asked before the first call.
An operator who does the work with management rather than reviewing it from a distance: an operational assessment of sales, production and the branch P&L; a 90-day stabilization plan tied to your thesis; a weekly KPI flash and monthly package written for the sponsor; and, where the chair is empty, an interim or fractional leader. Our scope is sales and operations.
A consultant hands the GM a findings deck and a schedule of check-ins. We take a seat in the branch: ride with sales, walk the warehouse, sit in the pipeline meeting and the monthly P&L review, and coach the leaders who will run those meetings after we leave. The deliverable is a company that performs differently, not a document describing how it should.
Yes. Give us the trailing-twelve P&L, general-ledger detail, the pipeline and an afternoon with the leadership team, and we will tell you where the sales engine and the margin really stand, what day one needs and what we would fix in the first 90 days. Sales and operations only — financial and legal diligence stay with the specialists who do them. After close, the same work becomes the first phase of the stabilization plan.
No — that is the point. An interim or fractional operator gives the operating partner execution capacity at the point of need, for a defined term, at a day rate or fixed fee, without a permanent hire at the sponsor or inside the company. When the permanent leader is in the chair and running the cadence, we step back.
A one-page weekly flash — bookings, revenue, gross margin, indirect-cost recovery, EBITDA, cash and people — and a monthly package with variance commentary, in whatever format your investment committee already uses. The dashboard is built inside the company and owned by its leader, so it keeps reporting after we leave.
Service and trades businesses between roughly $5M and $50M in revenue, single or multi-branch, in the trades and field services: MEP, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, roofing, general contracting, design-build and home services.
Discovery call this week; on-site the following week for a stabilization or interim engagement. A pre-close assessment or Profit Leak Audit can begin as soon as we have the trailing-twelve P&L and GL detail.
Next step
Send us the trailing-twelve. We will say what we see.
A thirty-minute call with the operating partner and the CEO. We’ll read the statement in advance and come with questions, not slides.
- Steve, our Managing Director, talks to you directly — not a customer service rep
- Replies within one business day
- Florida & California offices
- Serving all 50 states
Or write to info@