The thesis assumes the commercial team can execute it. This is how you find out whether they can.
Braintrust is the commercial capability layer of the value creation plan. We change how sellers and managers behave under pressure using applied neuroscience, then install the coaching system that makes it hold after we leave. Deploy it inside one portfolio company or standardize it across the portfolio.
Twenty minutes with our Head of Private Equity. A working conversation about how this fits a hold period.
The problem looks different depending on where you sit.
At the fund, the problem is variance you cannot see. Inside a portfolio company, the problem is a number that arrived with the new owner and a team built for the last stage of growth.
Every portco sells differently, and none of it rolls up
You have a growth thesis for each company and no common way to judge whether the commercial org can carry it. Diligence on revenue leadership is largely a reference call and an instinct.
- ·Each CEO buys a different training vendor with a different vocabulary
- ·Forecast quality varies so widely that portfolio-level roll-ups are directional at best
- ·Commercial capability is the least measured input to the value creation plan
- ·By the time the gap is visible in the numbers, you have lost a quarter or two of the hold
The team that got you here was not built for what comes next
The plan assumes a step change in growth. The people executing it are the same people, under new ownership, with a comp plan that changed and a board that did not exist last year.
- Reps discount to close because they never built enough trust to hold price
- Deals slip a quarter and nobody can say what actually caused it
- Frontline managers were promoted for selling, never taught to coach
- The last training program was well received and changed nothing
Your portfolio has bought sales training before. Here is why it decayed.
Most programs install a methodology: a stage model, a qualification framework, a set of discovery questions. Sellers learn it, pass the certification, and revert within a quarter. The reason is not discipline or follow-through. It is that a process sits on top of behavior without changing it.
Install a process
- ·Teaches a framework, a stage model, and a common qualification language
- ·Measured by adoption: CRM hygiene, stage compliance, certification completion
- ·Holds while conditions are calm and gets abandoned the moment the quarter tightens
- ·Reinforcement is the manager's job, but nobody taught the manager how
Change the behavior underneath it
- Starts from how buying decisions are actually made: emotionally first, then justified
- Targets the default pattern a seller reverts to under pressure, which is what actually costs deals
- NeuroCoaching turns the frontline manager into the reinforcement engine, so it compounds
- Every element anchored to peer-reviewed research, so it survives a skeptical room
A transaction is a threat event. Brains under threat stop doing the work.
New owner, new targets, new comp plan, often new leadership and an integration on top. The nervous system reads that as danger, and the behaviors your value creation plan depends on are exactly the ones that shut down first.
Four points in the hold period where this changes the outcome.
The work looks different depending on when you bring it in. Earlier is better, because behavior change compounds and there is no way to buy back the quarters you spent finding out.
Assess before you underwrite
A structured read on the commercial team and its leadership. An objective view of whether the go-to-market org can carry the thesis, before the number is committed to the IC.
Lead through the threat
Leadership alignment through the transition, a common language installed early, and quick behavior change with the revenue team while budgets and attention are still open.
Deploy and reinforce
Full rollout across sellers and managers, with coaching cadence, certification, and reinforcement built into the operating rhythm rather than bolted onto it.
Make it look repeatable
Predictable commercial execution, documented and transferable, plus a developed leadership bench. Buyers pay for a system, not for a founder-led sales motion.
Structured so capability building does not cost you multiple.
Most capability programs get booked as recurring SG&A, which is the worst available treatment. It lands in run-rate EBITDA and gets capitalized against you at exit. The same investment, scoped and papered differently, behaves as a transformation cost.
Nothing about the work changes. Only the scoping and the paper trail do. We structure engagements this way by default because we have had this conversation with enough CFOs to know it decides the deal.
Deployment: one-time, defined term
The majority of the investment. Fixed scope, fixed start and end date, tied to a named workstream in the value creation plan. Assessment, program design, delivery, and manager certification. Behaves as a project, not a subscription.
Reinforcement: modest and recurring
Deliberately small. Ongoing coaching cadence, new-hire onboarding into the methodology, and refresh certification. Sized to survive scrutiny as genuine run-rate cost rather than an add-back a buyer will challenge.
Positioning guidance, not accounting or tax advice. Final treatment depends on the company's auditor and quality of earnings provider. We are happy to walk the structure with your CFO or deal team directly.
The same engagement answers three different questions.
What matters here depends on whether you are underwriting the thesis, executing it, or diligencing the vendor.
Is the commercial risk in this deal priced correctly
Management quality is the most consequential and least measured input to a deal. A structured read on commercial capability gives you something more defensible than reference calls when the growth assumption is the whole thesis.
Which portco needs this first, and what does it move
A common diagnostic across the portfolio makes commercial capability comparable company to company. You see where the real gap sits, sequence the work, and measure movement against each company's own baseline.
Is this credible enough to bring to the partner
Named enterprise clients, a methodology anchored in published research, and pricing structured so it does not create an EBITDA problem. The one-pager below is built to be forwarded without further explanation.
The summary, ready to paste into an email
Five lines a partner will actually read.
Two documents, built to be forwarded.
Both are one page. Neither requires a call to be useful.
The fund one-pager
The full position for operating and talent partners: portfolio variance, the four hold-period entry points, the metrics moved, and the three ways funds engage us. Written to be dropped into a portfolio operations review.
Download the one-pagerThe cost treatment sheet
How to structure the investment so it does not land in run-rate EBITDA: the two-layer model, the four things that make a deployment defensible as non-recurring, and the three funding paths with their approval routes.
Get the cost treatment sheetWhat funds ask before the first engagement.
What does the first conversation actually look like?
Twenty minutes with our Head of Private Equity. We walk through how the approach works, where firms typically bring it into a hold period, and what we have seen across the portfolios we support. If it is worth going further, the usual next step is one portfolio company, ideally the one where the revenue gap is most acute or most puzzling, scoped against its value creation plan. Funds that scale from there do it on evidence from their own portfolio rather than on our case studies.
How is this different from the sales methodology our portco already bought?
Methodology programs install a process: a stage model, a qualification framework, a discovery structure. That works while conditions are calm and gets abandoned when the quarter tightens, because process sits on top of behavior without changing it. NeuroSelling targets the behavior itself, starting from how buying decisions are actually made, and NeuroCoaching equips frontline managers to reinforce it. We work alongside whatever methodology or CRM discipline a company already has rather than replacing it.
Does this hit EBITDA?
It depends how the engagement is structured, which is why we structure it deliberately. The majority of the investment is a defined-term deployment with a start and end date, tied to a named workstream in the value creation plan, which is commonly treated as a transformation cost and added back in the quality of earnings. A deliberately small reinforcement layer remains as genuine run-rate cost. Final treatment depends on the company's auditor and QofE provider, and we are happy to walk the structure with your CFO directly.
Can this be contracted at the fund level?
Yes. Master agreements with pre-negotiated terms and portfolio pricing let individual portfolio companies draw down as their value creation plans require it, without renegotiating each time. Some funds fund the work from a portfolio operations or talent budget, which removes the EBITDA question at the portco entirely and shortens the approval path considerably.
When in the hold period should we bring this in?
Earlier compounds better. Pre-close, we assess whether the commercial org can carry the thesis before the number is committed. In the first 100 days, we work with leadership through the transition, when a new owner and new targets are creating exactly the threat conditions that shut down the behaviors the plan depends on. Mid-hold is full deployment. Pre-exit is about making commercial execution look repeatable and documented to a buyer. Most engagements begin in the first year.
How do you measure whether it worked?
Against the company's own baseline, on metrics the board already tracks: win rate, discount depth, cycle time, forecast accuracy, ramp time, and retention of top performers. We establish the baseline at the start of the engagement, and behavior is re-scored over time so movement is visible before it shows up in the forecast. We do not ask anyone to accept learning outcomes or satisfaction scores as evidence.
What size company does this fit?
The work applies from lower-middle-market companies with a first professional sales team through large enterprise revenue organizations. Our client roster includes GSK, Merck, Genentech, AbbVie, Cintas, and GE Aerospace, which means the methodology holds up in complex, regulated, long-cycle selling environments as well as in faster-moving growth companies.
Twenty minutes with our Head of Private Equity.
Learn how the approach works, where it fits across a hold period, and how we have become part of the commercial bench that PE firms call on when a portfolio company's growth depends on its sales organization.
- 20 minutes
- Direct with our PE lead
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Prefer email? Reach us at Zach.Strauss@BraintrustGrowth.com. Every engagement is backed by a performance guarantee.
Twenty minutes with our Head of Private Equity on how this fits a hold period.
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