The 100-day plan is a phrase every private equity buyer uses and most execute poorly. The failure mode is predictable: rip-and-replace of systems and staff in month one, disruption of customer service in month two, technician exits in month three, missed EBITDA in month four. Every founder we talk to has heard the horror stories from a peer who sold to the wrong buyer.
Our version is sequenced differently. Days 1–30 are stabilization: no changes visible to customers or technicians, no systems migrations, no personnel changes below the CEO level. Payroll, benefits, insurance, and banking transition quietly in the background. The CEO operator (whether the founder continuing or a new operator we've installed) spends the month in the trucks, in the shop, in dispatch — listening.
Days 31–60 are the diagnostic. We run a formal review of unit economics by service line, technician productivity by tenure and manager, top-100 customer profitability, and the technology and finance stack. This is where the real 100-day plan gets written — not before close, when we don't have the data.
Days 61–100 are the first wave of change: usually a finance system upgrade, a call center or CRM improvement, a compensation redesign for the leadership team, and the first tuck-in acquisition kickoff. Never all four at once. Never anything that touches customer experience or technician workflow without direct CEO sign-off.
The measurable outcome we look for at day 100: customer NPS flat or higher, technician headcount flat or higher, revenue on plan or ahead, and a written 12-month plan the CEO owns end-to-end. If any of those are red, we slow down. There is no bonus for hitting a slide-deck timeline that destroys the asset.
Founders considering a sale should ask any prospective buyer what their 100-day plan is — specifically. If the answer is a generic 'integration playbook' with no acknowledgment of stabilization first, that tells you what your first hundred days after wire will actually look like.
