“It's not just about growth potential today.”
PE firms are no longer satisfied with short-term margin improvements and cost cuts. They want evidence that growth is repeatable — not a one-time spike fueled by pricing, luck, or a single rainmaker.
That proof shows up in a blend of commercial and brand health indicators, like:
- New logos in priority segments
- CAC efficiency by channel and account type
- Retention and expansion signals
- Share of voice and brand strength in key markets
Why does brand suddenly matter in EBITDA conversations? Because brand is what makes growth feel believable at exit. A company with a strong market position and clear story doesn’t just sell products — it sells confidence. And confidence tends to get rewarded.
“What I’ve defined now over the years is kind of a four-step plan.”
Frederik outlines a four-stage path that shows up again and again in PE-backed and growth-stage environments:
- Due diligence
Marketing helps assess the real state of demand, data, and brand before or just after acquisition.
- Development
Over the first three months, leadership sets priorities, OKRs, and roles. Marketing shifts to revenue focus.
- Execution
Marketing and sales work closely on funnel velocity, market learning, and standard ways of working.
- Exit readiness
The company can show repeatable growth, clear brand strength, and a working commercial system.
The theme here: you’re not “doing marketing.” You’re building a business that knows how to grow on purpose.
“Let’s start with a zero budget. If we want to grow...”
Seeing marketing as overhead limits growth. Treating it as a revenue engine changes budget talks with finance.
The right starting point is not “Here’s what we spent last year.” It’s “Here’s how much we want to grow, and here’s the plan that gets us there.” From there, marketing can:
- Map targets back to the pipeline and lead needs.
- Show the funnel stages and key conversion points.
- Link spending to expected wins and clear milestones.
Strong attribution helps. Clean CRM data and clear lead definitions show which efforts move deals and which don’t. That insight lets teams reallocate spend with confidence.
Over time, this builds trust with CFOs. They see marketing as a lever they can pull, not a line to cut.
“There’s really no daylight between us.”
When a fractional CMO and agency work in sync, they behave like one team, not two vendors.
The CMO brings cross-company influence, linking marketing with sales, product, engineering, and service. They make sure changes land inside the business, not only in slides.
The agency brings repeatable methods, tool sets, and channel craft from many clients and markets. It knows where common pitfalls sit and how to avoid them. It can also use AI tools to accelerate research, content creation, and testing, while humans steer strategy.
For leaders and PE firms, this partnership offers one clear benefit. It compresses learning time. Companies move faster from idea to working engine, without the delay of building a full senior team in-house.
In the end, marketing stands where it should. At the core of growth, measured by revenue, valued at exit, and treated as a strategic asset, not a cost.
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