When Forecasts Fall Apart: Building Revenue Reality in PE-Backed Companies

I’ve spent years working with private equity portfolio companies, and I can tell you that one of the most common challenges we see when we first engage with a portco is the disconnect between what sales forecasts promise and what revenue actually delivers. 

It’s a problem that keeps CEOs up at night and creates tension in every board meeting, and it’s often the reason we get the call in the first place. But here’s what I’ve learned: the root cause isn’t usually about effort or even talent. It is about process, or more accurately, the lack of one.

The Common Pipeline Problems in PE Portfolio Companies

Here’s what typically goes wrong. Sales reps are chasing terrible deals – opportunities that were never going to close or that don’t align with what the company actually delivers well. They’re pursuing prospects outside the ideal customer profile, burning time and resources on accounts that will either never buy or will become nightmare clients if they do. And perhaps most damaging, there’s no repeatable process that reps are held accountable to within the CRM.

The result? A pipeline that has absolutely nothing to do with revenue reality.

I see this pattern repeat itself across portfolio companies. Each sales rep operates like their own independent contractor, with their own way of tracking deals, their own definitions of what constitutes a qualified opportunity, and their own timeline for when something might close. One rep’s “hot lead” is another rep’s “long-term nurture.” One person’s Q4 forecast includes deals that haven’t even had a discovery call, while another rep only counts opportunities with signed proposals.

This inconsistency creates chaos that ripples through the entire organization. Marketing doesn’t know what’s working because the data is unreliable. Finance can’t plan accurately because the forecast keeps shifting. And leadership can’t make informed decisions about where to invest resources or how to course-correct because they’re working with essentially fiction.

A Strategic Growth Advisory Approach to Pipeline Management

At Craig Group, our growth advisory work with portfolio companies focuses on building something different: a systematic process that every rep follows in the CRM. This isn’t about micromanagement or bureaucracy for its own sake. It’s about creating a common language and a shared reality that drives portfolio company revenue growth.

Here’s what that looks like in practice. We help companies define clear pipeline stages that reflect their actual sales process—not some idealized version copied from a textbook, but the real steps that deals move through from first contact to closed-won. Then we ensure every single rep uses the same categories and the same naming conventions as they work deals through that pipeline.

This might sound basic, but the impact is profound. When everyone is speaking the same language and following the same process, something remarkable happens: you get transparency. Sales leadership can actually see what’s happening across the team without having to translate each rep’s personal system. You get clarity about where deals are really stuck and what stage of the pipeline needs attention. And you get the simplicity of having consistent data fields across the entire sales team.

From Chaos to Clarity: Go-to-Market Strategy That Delivers ROI

When a forecast reaches the board, it’s backed by real data that means something. Instead of a collection of random pipeline entries assembled one by one from each sales rep’s best guess, you have a coherent picture based on a standardized process. The board can actually trust the numbers they’re seeing because those numbers are built on a foundation of consistency and accountability.

This is the essence of effective ROI consulting for private equity firms, creating systems that don’t just look good on paper but actually translate into measurable revenue outcomes. A sound go-to-market strategy means nothing if the execution lacks rigor and the data lacks integrity.

There’s a principle I always come back to: you can’t scale what you can’t quantify. If you can’t measure something reliably, you certainly can’t improve it systematically. And in sales, real deals create real data. But only if you have the discipline to capture that data consistently.

Building Scalable Systems Through Consulting for Private Equity Firms

The transformation isn’t always easy. Sales reps who’ve been doing things their own way for years can resist standardization. But when they see how a clear process actually helps them close more deals, by forcing them to qualify rigorously and focus on the right opportunities, resistance turns into buy-in.

At the end of the day, building a forecast that reflects revenue reality isn’t about installing better software or hiring more talented reps. It’s about creating a systematic process that everyone follows, capturing consistent data, and using that foundation to make better decisions. That’s how PE-backed companies move from pipeline chaos to predictable growth, and that’s the value of partnering with a strategic growth advisory firm that understands both the private equity mindset and the operational realities of driving revenue.

Summer Craig is a LMM growth expert with a background leading change management and GTM strategies for both Fortune 500 and PE-backed high-growth companies. Her resume includes guiding paid media strategy following global M&As as well as steering strategic growth at HomeAway.com (later VRBO) during the completion of a successful IPO, gaining experience at two major agency holding companies (Omnicom and Publicis), and overseeing marketing and operations at one of the largest privately held distributorships under the Toyota brand. Connect with her on LinkedIn.