Business Consulting and Executive Education Due Diligence
April 11, 2023
by a searcher from University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School in San Francisco, CA, USA
Hello fellow Searchfunders!
We have two deals in the "management consulting" space we're considering and would appreciate your thoughts and insights:
1. Niche healthcare (my background) with a focus on staffing agencies and their top-line growth and staff retention (recruiting and retaining staff and clients). Based on a personal brand, 3 customers = 51% of revenue. Low revenue customers with some multi-unit customers as "whales".
2. General leadership performance management consulting with a focus on 360 assessments and general leadership growth (industry agnostic). Not personally branded, 1 customer = 35% of revenue. Major brands as customers, with significant "land and expand" potential among current clients.
Two main questions:
1. Niche down and manage the personal brand hand-off or focus on the company with a more generalized approach?
2. What due diligence puzzles are most important to solve for these opportunities?
Thank you in advance for any guidance and experience you share!
NAICS###-###-#### for future reference)
from University of Minnesota in Anchorage, AK, USA
In regards to #1, I think you'd want to assess if they've been successful enough in the niche with a process that could be codified and applied generally. If not, I'd stick with managing the personal brand/niche and work on extracting a process/framework that could be used to expand your offering to other areas.
In due diligence, I'd review the quality/depth of their CRM data and those relationships, since that will impact how quick/effective you can execute land and expand.
from Villanova University in West Chester, PA, USA