If you’ve called a plumber or had your air conditioner go out in the middle of summer, you know how personal home services can feel. You want someone who picks up the phone, shows up when promised, and fixes the problem. You probably don’t care who owns the business.
Private equity firms, on the other hand, have become very interested in who owns that business. In 2026, financial sponsors accounted for 60.5% of residential services M&A, with HVAC, plumbing, and electrical among the busiest areas of activity. The strategy is familiar: buy a strong company, add smaller local businesses, share resources, and build something bigger.
A good example of this is Blackstone’s acquisition of Champions Group, a leading home services provider based out of Orange County, CA, that specializes in HVAC, plumbing and electrical. Blackstone announced plans to acquire the company in February 2026. The deal was reportedly valued at approximately $2.5 billion, representing roughly 18.5 times EBITDA.With more than 1,800 field technicians and 150,000 active members, Champions shows just how large a collection of local service businesses can become
It’s easy to see why investors like this model. But there’s something the deal numbers can’t tell you: whether the homeowner who trusted the neighborhood HVAC company will continue trust it after acquisition. Or whether the next new customer will choose that business at all.
That’s the part of a target company’s operation we think deserves more attention. Marketing is often brought in once a deal is done, when someone wants more leads, a better website, or a consistent brand to help drive demand. Those things matter. But by that point, a few important questions may have been missed.
Why do customers choose this company? What does it really cost to win them (CAC)? What makes them come back? And can the business keep growing without losing what made it successful? Those are both marketing and investment questions.
The value of a home services business goes beyond its numbers
When investors look at home services companies, they’re understandably drawn to repeat customers, strong local markets, efficient routes, and reliable teams, but those are normally strengths for a reason. They’re built through hundreds of customer experiences and thousands of small decisions.
Think about the last time you hired someone to work on your home. Maybe you searched online, read a few reviews, asked a neighbor, or went back to someone you’d used before. The company that won your business probably did more than buy an ad. They made you feel confident enough to call, and earned your trust enough to ultimately hire them.
Now imagine trying to repeat that experience across dozens of locations and multiple brands. That’s where marketing can become more than lead generation. It helps a growing business understand its customers, earn trust in new markets, and make better decisions about where to invest.
Three moments when marketing can change the outcome
Marketing plays an important role at every stage of the private equity investment lifecycle. From evaluating an acquisition to growing the business and preparing for exit, the right marketing insights can help investors make smarter decisions, uncover opportunities, and build long-term value.
Here's how marketing can make a difference at three critical stages.
1. Before the deal: Are you buying a business that can keep growing?
Strong revenue doesn't always mean a company has a reliable strategy for continued growth. Through our experience in the due diligence process, we've seen how a closer look at a company's marketing can reveal things that aren't obvious in the financials. Maybe the business is spending more than it should to acquire new customers. Maybe it's relying too heavily on one marketing channel, or doesn't have a clear picture of which efforts are actually bringing in customers and revenue.
These are the kinds of gaps that can raise questions about a company's ability to sustain growth. But they can also point to opportunities to improve performance and create value after the acquisition.
Before an acquisition, perform a full marketing due-diligence audit to identify the answers to these five questions:
- Where do customers actually come from? Trace marketing spend to booked calls, completed jobs, and revenue. Look by channel and market. Separate first-time customers from returning households and branded search from demand the company had to create.
- How much demand does the company truly own? A business that depends heavily on one lead aggregator, paid channel, agency, or founder referral network carries a risk that deserves attention in the model.
- What local trust are you buying? Reviews, word of mouth, community presence, and a family name can influence conversion as much as media spend. Understand which parts of that equity can travel with the business and which depend on the owner.
- Does the data hold up? Confirm ownership of the website, domains, ad accounts, analytics, phone numbers, creative assets, customer lists, and CRM. Then test whether the data can connect a source to a call, a job, a membership, and a return visit.
- Can operations keep the promise? A growing lead pipeline has limited value when phones go unanswered or the field team is booked out. Evaluate membership growth and demand generation alongside technician supply, call center performance, and route capacity.
The point isn’t to create another lengthy diligence checklist. It’s to understand what’s really driving growth before committing to a plan. That work can also give new owners a head start. In fact, 55% of private equity survey respondents reported beginning value creation planning during the due diligence process, giving them an opportunity to identify growth priorities and build a plan before closing.
2. After the deal: Where are the biggest opportunities to create value?
Once an acquisition closes, the focus shifts to finding opportunities to improve performance and create value. More leads might seem like the obvious place to start, but they aren't always the answer. Picture a newly acquired plumbing company that launches a successful marketing campaign. The phones start ringing, but the technicians are already booked for two weeks. More demand isn't necessarily helping the business grow.
The biggest opportunities may lie elsewhere: strengthening customer retention, improving conversion, identifying marketing efficiencies, protecting local brand equity, or making better use of existing capacity. Finding those opportunities requires marketing and operations to work together, with a shared focus on profitable, sustainable growth.
Don’t lose the local name people already trust
A local company might have spent 30 years building a reputation. Customers recognize the trucks, know the owner, and recommend the business to friends. Replacing that identity overnight with a national brand may simplify operations, but it can also erase a reason people choose the company.
Not every acquired business needs to keep its name forever. But, that decision should be informed by customer insights and analysis. What do customers recognize? What makes them feel confident? Would a shared brand help, or would it create distance? The answers should shape the strategy.
Find the work your teams can actually deliver
Not every branch needs more calls. One may need higher-value installations. Another may need a source of recurring revenue, such as a maintenance membership program, during slower months. A third may need to hire technicians before increasing demand at all.
Marketing is more effective when it’s built around those realities. Working with dispatch and field teams helps focus spending on the neighborhoods, services, and time slots that can actually support profitable growth.
Give customers a reason to stay
Maintenance memberships are attractive because they can bring customers back and make revenue more predictable. But a membership is only as strong as the experience behind it. Are the benefits clear? Does the customer get timely service? Do reminders feel helpful? Is renewal worth it?
Blackstone specifically pointed to Champions Group’s membership-led approach as a differentiator. That’s worth noting. The lesson isn’t simply to sell more memberships. It’s to create a valuable service relationship that customers want to continue.
Make it easier to see what’s working
When one branch counts every phone call as a lead and another counts only booked appointments, comparing performance becomes difficult. Add different systems, agencies, and reporting practices, and even basic questions become hard to answer.
Getting everyone on the same page starts with shared definitions and consistent ways to measure calls, booked jobs, revenue, customer acquisition costs, and renewals. A centralized reporting dashboard brings this data together, helping leaders see what's working, identify opportunities to improve performance, and make smarter decisions. It also gives potential buyers a clearer picture of the business when it's time to sell.
Make the Next Acquisition Easier With a Clear Marketing Playbook
Every acquisition brings important marketing decisions. Should the acquired company's website remain independent or become part of the broader brand? How do you preserve its brand equity, search rankings, and AI visibility while bringing it into the portfolio?
Having a clear marketing integration playbook helps teams answer these questions before they become problems. That means securing access to marketing data and reporting before the acquisition closes, confirming the business owns its website, domains, and marketing accounts (not an outside agency), and establishing a consistent approach to brand integration, website migrations, and digital visibility.
The goal is to create a repeatable process that protects what makes each business valuable while making future acquisitions easier to integrate and grow.
3. At exit: Can you prove the growth will last?
Eventually, your private equity firm will look to sell. And the next buyer will ask a question that sounds simple but is surprisingly hard to answer: What makes you confident this business will keep growing?
A chart showing more website traffic or more leads won’t be enough. Buyers will want to understand the customer relationships and systems behind the results. That means being able to show:
- How efficiently customers are acquired: Show acquisition cost, conversion, payback, and revenue quality by channel, trade, market, and cohort.
- Why customers stay: Show membership renewal, repeat service, household penetration, cross-sell, referrals, and customer sentiment over time.
- How much demand you own: Show the balance of brand, organic, referral, and paid demand, supported by first-party data and company-controlled infrastructure.
- How the model can scale: Show a common measurement system, clear decision rights, a capable marketing team, and an integration playbook that has worked across acquisitions.
- Where the next growth opportunities are: Show evidence-backed potential across markets, service lines, customer segments, membership penetration, conversion, and retention.
Here’s the catch: it’s near impossible to build that proof in the final few months before a sale. Customer behavior takes time to measure. New systems take time to settle. A brand investment takes time to show whether it worked.The sooner marketing is connected to the business strategy, the stronger the company's growth story becomes, and the clearer its potential for creating long-term value.
The best home services businesses combine national scale with local trust
There’s a tension at the heart of every home services roll-up. Investors want the advantages of scale. Customers still want to feel like someone local knows them and will show up when they need help.
Those goals don’t have to compete. A successful home services platform shares technology, data, and expertise behind the scenes while preserving the relationships and local reputation customers value. In fact, doing both well may be what separates a collection of acquisitions from a business built to last.
Put another way: centralize what makes the business run better, while also protecting what makes customers choose it.
That’s why we believe marketing belongs in the conversation before a deal closes. It can help investors spot risks earlier, make smarter decisions during ownership, and show the next buyer why the growth story is credible.
Why the right marketing partner matters
When you're evaluating an acquisition or looking for ways to grow a portfolio company, an outside perspective can make a meaningful difference. An experienced marketing partner can bring a fresh set of eyes to the business, uncover risks and opportunities that internal teams may overlook, and help turn those insights into a clear value creation plan.
At Fratzke, we specialize in helping home services businesses and private equity firms turn marketing into a driver of business growth. With decades of combined experience in brand strategy, digital marketing, research, and analytics, we know what it takes to build strong brands, attract customers, and improve marketing performance.
We've also worked alongside dozens of private equity firms to evaluate potential acquisitions, uncover marketing risks, and identify opportunities to create value. We bring that experience together to help investors and business leaders make smarter marketing decisions, accelerate growth, and build more valuable businesses.
Looking for a marketing partner who understands private equity? Explore Fratzke's Private Equity Portfolio Company Digital Marketing Services and Private Equity Portfolio Company Marketing Audit to see how we can help.
