Equity Salt
Services

Built for private equity and mid-market companies.

Operator-level engagements for sponsors and portfolio leadership — from a focused two-week sprint to a fractional retainer. Every engagement starts with a no-cost intro call to make sure the shape of the work fits.

01
M&A Consulting

Quiet diligence. Clear decisions. Calm closes.

  • Help you understand what a business is realistically worth, how different buyers or sellers will underwrite it, and what that means for timing, structure, and net proceeds after fees and taxes.
  • Source and qualify deals — target lists, owner outbound, and screening — so you see a consistent flow of on-strategy buy-side opportunities instead of one-off, broker-driven auctions.
  • Turn messy financials and operations into clean, buyer-ready or seller-ready materials — normalizations, KPIs, cohort views, margin analysis — that stand up to private equity, strategic buyers, and lenders.
  • Lead or support full deal cycles for lower-middle-market acquisitions, from sourcing and first conversations through LOI, confirmatory diligence, capital stack design, legal process, and close.
  • Design deal structures that balance cash at close with rollover equity, seller notes, and earn-outs — drawing on real-world transactions including Proven, Hales Engineering, and Northpoint Property Management.
  • Sit between principals and their attorneys, CPAs, and bankers to keep the process moving, translate jargon into clear options, and protect long-term interests around non-competes, reps and warranties, and post-close roles.
02
Operations Consulting

Make the business run without you in every meeting.

  • Assess your current operating model — org chart, roles, accountability, reporting, and rhythms — and design a leaner structure built around clear outcomes instead of legacy habits.
  • Implement practical systems like OKRs and EOS to align leadership and staff, with dashboards and cadences that make it obvious what is working, what is stuck, and who owns what.
  • Lead operational transformations such as moving to fully remote or hybrid teams, rebuilding delivery models (for example, pod-based teams at Proven), and resetting incentives without breaking the culture.
  • Stabilize companies under stress — EBITDA compression, client churn, or rapid scaling — by cutting noise, prioritizing high-leverage moves, and installing basic cost, pricing, and utilization discipline.
  • Build the operational and financial "plumbing" required for a future sale or recap: clean books, repeatable processes, documentation, and KPIs that buyers and lenders expect during diligence.
  • Coach founders and key leaders through difficult transitions — ownership changes, leadership turnover, major strategic shifts — so decisions are grounded in numbers while still respecting people and legacy.
03
Marketing & Growth

Spending that ties directly to pipeline and revenue.

  • Design or optimize a full-funnel marketing and growth engine — from channel mix and attribution to pipeline targets and unit economics — drawing on experience leading global growth and marketing ops at Sophos.
  • Build or tune your marketing operations stack — Salesforce and marketing-automation plumbing, lead lifecycle, scoring, routing, and reporting — so sales, marketing, and finance are looking at the same numbers.
  • Stand up or refine paid media, ABX, and outbound programs (search, social, display, account-based plays) that connect spending directly to qualified pipeline and closed-won revenue.
  • Clarify positioning and messaging so your website, outbound sequences, and sales collateral speak clearly to the right buyer personas, with proof points that resonate in both software and services businesses.
  • Help founders and executives show up as credible voices in their space — especially on LinkedIn — through thought leadership, content themes, and outreach that emphasize end-customer value, not just features.
  • Build lightweight, operator-friendly reporting (for example, dashboards in Tableau or Power BI) that turns data into decisions instead of noise, and that your leadership team will actually use every week.
04
Finance

Numbers your board, lenders, and buyers can trust.

  • Build clear, investor-grade financial models that tie revenue, margin, headcount, and capex together, so you can see exactly how decisions flow through to EBITDA and cash.
  • Clean up and structure historical financials — revenue by segment, cohort, and channel; gross margin by line of business; SG&A by function — so they are easy to manage and easy to diligence.
  • Design simple, durable forecasting and budgeting processes your team can actually maintain month to month, instead of fragile, consultant-built spreadsheets.
  • Help you understand unit economics, pricing, and contribution margin by product or service line, then translate those insights into concrete moves on pricing, product mix, and cost structure.
  • Create CFO-level reporting for boards, lenders, or buyers — monthly packages, KPIs, and commentary — that turns raw numbers into a clear narrative and specific next steps.
  • Support capital decisions (debt vs. equity, distributions vs. reinvestment, owner comp vs. retained earnings) with scenario analysis that reflects both the numbers and your long-term goals.

Not sure which one you need? That's usually a good place to start.

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