Private equity-backed businesses operate under intense scrutiny, where growth acceleration, operational efficiency, and commercial effectiveness define success. The pressure to scale revenue, optimise marketing spend, and deliver rapid returns is higher than ever. A well-executed Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy is fundamental to achieving these objectives – yet many portfolio companies struggle to implement one effectively.
Shifting investor expectations, evolving customer behaviour, and increasing competition are reshaping the commercial landscape. Here are the five critical GTM challenges that PE-backed businesses must overcome to unlock growth and maximise value creation.
1. Bridging the Sales & Marketing Divide
For many portfolio companies, sales and marketing operate in silos, leading to misaligned objectives, inefficient pipeline management, and underutilised demand-generation efforts. The result? Wasted capital, sluggish revenue growth, and suboptimal returns for investors.
Why it’s a challenge:
- Lean commercial teams often lack the internal capability to fully integrate sales and marketing.
- The increasing complexity of B2B buying cycles demands greater alignment between revenue functions.
- Misaligned metrics (e.g., marketing-qualified leads vs. sales pipeline conversion) lead to inefficiencies.
How to solve it:
- Implement a Revenue Operations (RevOps) framework to unify marketing, sales, and customer success under a single revenue-focused strategy.
- Define clear lead qualification SLAs between marketing and sales to ensure high-quality pipeline conversion.
- Deploy Fractional CROs and CMOs to establish a commercial growth roadmap and integrate demand generation with revenue acceleration.
Investor impact: A tighter commercial strategy improves sales efficiency, reduces CAC (customer acquisition cost), and accelerates revenue realisation.
2. Proving ROI to Investors in Short Timeframes
Private equity firms operate within defined investment cycles, requiring clear, measurable value creation in compressed timeframes. However, many portfolio companies fail to link marketing and sales performance to commercial outcomes, making it difficult to justify GTM investments.
Why it’s a challenge:
- Many businesses lack a standardised GTM performance framework to track pipeline velocity and revenue impact.
- Investors demand data-driven decision-making, but many marketing metrics are vanity KPIs with no direct link to financial performance.
- Short hold periods require fast-tracked GTM execution, leaving little room for inefficient experimentation.
How to solve it:
- Implement GTM maturity assessments to identify key revenue levers and prioritise high-impact interventions.
- Use predictive analytics to connect marketing and sales activity to revenue and pipeline acceleration.
- Develop investment-grade KPI dashboards that track Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Net Retention Rate (NRR), Lifetime Value (LTV), and pipeline velocity in real time.
Investor impact: Improved visibility into commercial ROI, allowing for data-backed investment decisions and faster revenue scaling.
3. Scaling Revenue Without Full-Time Executive Overhead
GTM leadership is essential for accelerating revenue, yet hiring full-time CROs or CMOs is costly, slow, and often unnecessary in transitional or high-growth phases. Many PE-backed companies need leadership expertise, but not the permanent cost structure.
Why it’s a challenge:
- Full-time CMOs and CROs command high salaries and long-term commitments.
- Traditional hiring cycles slow execution and delay revenue impact.
- Many companies require specialist GTM expertise, but not on a full-time basis.
How to solve it:
- Use project-based leadership engagements to execute GTM transformations without long-term overhead.
- Leverage GTM assessments to determine the right leadership structure based on growth stage and market conditions.
- Deploy Fractional CROs and CMOs who provide on-demand expertise at a fraction of the cost.
To maximise success with fractional executives, PE teams need to proactively build their network before an immediate need arises. Investing time to meet and nurture relationships with the best fractionals allows for rapid impact and deployment when necessary. This approach ensures that PE firms have access to a trusted network of experts who can seamlessly integrate and drive value creation initiatives.
Investor impact: Access to high-impact leadership without long-term fixed costs, accelerating revenue while preserving margin.
4. Balancing Long-Term Brand Perception with Short-Term Sales Targets
PE-backed companies often face a conflict between building long-term brand equity and achieving immediate sales goals. This tension can lead to unsustainable GTM strategies that sacrifice brand perception for quick wins.
Why it’s a challenge:
- Investors may push for aggressive sales tactics that damage brand reputation.
- Short-term promotions can erode brand value and reduce long-term profitability.
- Building brand equity requires consistent investment, which may not align with short-term financial goals.
How to solve it:
- Develop a brand strategy that aligns with long-term growth objectives.
- Implement GTM initiatives that balance brand building with sales activation.
- Use data and analytics to track brand perception and measure the impact of GTM activities.
Investor impact: A strong brand drives customer loyalty, increases pricing power, and improves exit valuation.
5. Adapting to Evolving Customer Expectations & Digital Disruption
Customer expectations are shifting rapidly, with digital-first engagement, AI-driven sales processes, and hyper-personalisation becoming the norm. Companies that fail to adapt risk losing market share to more agile competitors.
Why it’s a challenge:
- Buyers expect highly personalised digital experiences, but many GTM teams lack the tools to deliver them.
- AI-powered sales and marketing automation are reshaping engagement, requiring data-led strategy shifts.
- Companies relying on traditional, outbound-heavy GTM models risk becoming obsolete.
How to solve it:
- Implement AI-powered marketing automation to enhance demand generation and lead scoring.
- Align sales enablement tools with new buyer behaviour to improve conversion rates.
- Develop first-party data strategies to refine GTM decisions and reduce reliance on third-party platforms.
Investor impact: Drives scalable, cost-efficient customer acquisition, ensuring portfolio companies stay ahead of market shifts.
Conclusion: A Smarter Approach to GTM
Private equity-backed companies must evolve beyond static, inefficient GTM playbooks and adopt a more data-driven, flexible, and leadership-enabled approach. The key to maximising investor returns lies in commercial alignment, adaptable leadership models, and precision execution.
How Growth Partners Can Help
At Growth Partners, we specialise in helping investor-backed businesses navigate these GTM challenges through on-demand fractional revenue and marketing leadership. Whether you need strategic GTM advisory, sales acceleration, or marketing transformation, our network of proven leaders is ready to deliver.
Want to learn more? Schedule a free consultation.
