Private equity has become less forgiving. Bain’s 2026 Global Private Equity Report argues that “12 is the new 5”, meaning deals that once needed around 5% annual EBITDA growth to generate target returns may now need closer to 10%-12%.
That raises an obvious question: where does that additional growth come from?
In many PE-backed businesses, the answer is not more activity; it’s better execution. And, to that end, the marketing function cannot spend the first three months chasing activity for activity’s sake.
In response, what we’re now seeing is the emergence of a new form of marketing function; one that views the first 100 days not as an opportunity for a vanity project, but as an opportunity to build a commercial plan that sales, marketing, and leadership can all act on and create value quickly enough to matter at investment level.
Marketing Has to Turn the Investment Thesis Into a Revenue Plan
Every PE-backed business starts with an investment thesis. There is usually a growth case somewhere inside it: expansion into a new market, better commercial performance, stronger retention, a tighter proposition, a more valuable customer mix, or a cleaner route to scale.
It’s tempting, instead, to jump straight into marketing channels because channels feel tangible. And, after all, content, nurture sequences, and paid search are great things to have, and you should have a plan in place eventually for all of these.
But this time is better spent focusing on your revenue plan.
RevOps Alignment Prevents Expensive Drift
One of the easiest ways to waste the first 100 days is to let every team work from a different version of reality.
If marketing qualifies leads, sales then dismisses them, and leadership asks for forecasts, everyone will look busy doing essentially nothing. And yet, this happens all the time in the real world. FTI Consulting’s 2025 Private Equity Value Creation Index found that 35% of respondents reported difficulty aligning on strategic priorities with management teams, while 31% pointed to governance and oversight gaps.
This is a problem which will only be solved with a set of shared rules:
- What counts as a qualified lead?
- When does ownership move from marketing to sales?
- How quickly does follow-up happen?
- Which funnel stages matter to the board?
- What gets reviewed weekly, monthly, and quarterly?
- Clean up lifecycle stages.
- Make sure lead sources are being tracked properly.
- Decide who owns what at each stage.
- Check whether handoffs between marketing and sales reflect the real buying journey.
- Rebuild dashboards so they show the numbers leadership actually needs.
And, effectively, once you have these rules in place, you have the basis of a RevOps strategy.
Now it’s time to action it.
Marketing's Focus Should Start With the Pipeline
Before marketing can improve performance, leadership needs a usable view of the revenue engine. That starts with data, not tools.
After all, most PE-backed businesses are not suffering from a lack of tools. They are suffering from fragmented systems, inconsistent definitions, patchy handoffs, and reporting that changes depending on who built the spreadsheet.
That’s exactly what Secret Source’s Private Equity RevOps offer is designed to address; here’s how:
These aren’t quick fixes, but they are essential, as they determine whether your business can see the truth about its pipeline. And, crucially, they enable you to build a RevOps strategy.
The Right First Step Is a Revenue Process Audit
By Day 100, leadership should have a clearer view of how pipeline is being created, where it is leaking, and what marketing, sales, and CRM need to fix first.
That is the real job of marketing in a PE-backed business. Not to generate activity for activity’s sake, but to help turn the investment thesis into a commercial system the business can actually run.
That is why the right first step is often a focused revenue process audit. It gives leadership a clearer picture of where ownership is unclear, where handoffs are breaking down, which numbers can be trusted, and what needs to change first across marketing, sales, and CRM.
That is exactly where Secret Source helps. Our Private Equity RevOps service is designed to give PE-backed businesses a clearer, shared view of the revenue engine, so leadership can make better decisions, marketing can work against the right priorities, and sales can follow up with greater consistency.
