Winning Moves

105 Proven Ways to Create Value in Private Equity-Backed Companies

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by Dan Cremons

“In Winning Moves, Dan Cremons provides practical and sometimes counterintuitive advice about how to build valuable investor-backed companies. Spoiler alert, it’s as much about getting the “who” right as it is the “what!””

— Dr. Geoff Smart, Chairman and Founder of ghSMART and New York Times bestselling author of Who and Power Score

When cheap leverage and multiple expansion no longer guarantee out-performance, private-equity firms must generate value the hard way: by improving the business. Dan Cremons—a former operating partner and talent adviser—wrote Winning Moves to codify what consistently works inside mid-market, PE-backed companies. Drawing on 1,000 + years of cumulative experience from his interview pool, he presents 105 proven, bite-sized practices (“moves”) that any investor or operator can plug into a 100-day plan or multi-year value-creation roadmap.

Book Structure

Cremons groups the moves into six chronological sections:

1. Pre-Close Preparation – How top buyers sharpen the investment thesis, pressure-test management, and draft a 100-day plan before the deal even funds.

2. First 100 Days – Rapid-alignment plays that create momentum: talent calibration, KPI architecture, early wins for customer trust, and cash-management quick hits.

3. People & Culture – Seventeen moves focused on leadership succession, incentive design, employee engagement, and building a “performance with purpose” culture that survives the exit.

4. Growth Acceleration – From account segmentation and pricing resets to RevOps automation and channel partnerships, this section shows how to convert strategy decks into topline gains.

5. Operational Excellence & Scalability – Cost-to-serve diagnostics, lean process kaizens, working-capital unlocks, and digital toolkits that stretch EBITDA without starving growth.

6. Exit Maximization – Final-mile initiatives: quality-of-earnings prep, storyboarding the equity narrative, grooming second-bench leadership, and running a dual-track sale.

Each move spans 2-3 pages and follows the same template: Why it matters, when to deploy, how to execute, pitfalls, and ROI potential. Busy executives can scan the bolded “How to Do It” section and immediately assign the task to a functional lead.

Five Cross-Cutting Themes

1. Talent before Strategy
   Winning investors lock in the right CEO, CFO, and functional heads within six months of close. Cremons quotes several operating partners who view misaligned leadership as the single biggest drag on IRR. Moves include a structured “6 Questions” alignment workshop, an objective scorecard for key roles, and a 30-60-90 onboarding playbook.

2. Data-Guided Decision-Making
   Many portfolio companies arrive with Excel reporting and tribal metrics. The book recommends standing up a cloud-based data stack (data warehouse plus BI layer) in the first year. That infrastructure underpins weekly KPI “power hours” where execs challenge variances, remove blockers, and assign owners.

3. Rapid, Low-Risk Experimentation
   Several moves show how to A/B price increases on 10 percent of accounts or pilot a new upsell motion in one sales pod before scaling. Small, controlled tests preserve downside while surfacing upside fast—critical in three-to-five-year hold periods.

4. People-Powered Value Creation
   Echoing Drucker more than traditional PE, Cremons argues that culture can add or subtract full turns of exit multiple. He features case studies where modest engagement lifts (measured by eNPS) preceded double-digit productivity gains and drastically lower voluntary turnover.

5. Playbook, not Prescription
   The author stresses that moves are modular. Operating partners should diagnose the biggest value gaps—sometimes working capital, sometimes pricing power—and then select 10-15 moves that map to those gaps instead of blindly executing all 105.

Illustrative “Moves”

• Move #8 – Run a Pre-Close “Day-Zero” Simulation
  Why: Surfaces integration risks early.
  How: Convene cross-functional leaders from buyer and target; map every system cut-over and decision required by Day 1.
  Watch-out: Don’t let lawyers dominate; keep it operator-led.

• Move #27 – Install a Rolling 13-Week Cash-Flow Forecast
  Why: Cash surprises tank momentum.
  How: Finance builds a simple template linking order intake, AR aging, AP commitments, and payroll run-rate; review weekly.
  ROI: Often reveals 5-10 percent of working capital tied up in slow-pay customers.

• Move #44 – Price-for-Value, Not for Cost
  Why: Most mid-market firms under-price by anchoring to cost plus margin.
  How: Segment customers by willingness-to-pay, recalibrate list prices, and layer value-added bundles.
  Pitfall: Failing to arm sales with objection-handling scripts can erase gains.

• Move #73 – Micro-Acquisition “Tuck-Ins”
  Why: Bolt-ons can add revenue and capabilities quickly without headline multiples.
  How: Task a corp-dev analyst with a perpetual target list filtered by cultural fit, cross-sell potential, and sub-8x EBITDA multiples.
  Measure: Accretive EPS within 12 months or scrap integration.

• Move #95 – Exit-Year ‘Dry Run’ Diligence
  Why: Surprises during exclusivity crush valuation.
  How: Hire QOE auditors to critique revenue recognition policies, backlog disclosure, and contingent liabilities a year before launching the process.
  Benefit: Converts potential red flags into non-events, preserving deal momentum.

Case Snapshots

• Industrial Manufacturer Turnaround – By sequencing moves on cost-to-serve analytics, SKU rationalization, and net-working-capital reduction, a PE-backed industrial rolled EBITDA from 11 percent to 18 percent in 24 months, adding two turns of exit multiple.

• SaaS Scale-Up Plateau – A growth equity firm used moves on churn diagnostics, customer-success compensation redesign, and price-metering tests to cut gross churn in half and lift ARR growth from 18 percent to 30 percent.

• Consumer Health Roll-Up – Leveraging micro-acquisition playbooks, the platform completed four tuck-ins in 18 months while preserving brand autonomy, leading to a strategic exit at 15× EBITDA against an 11× entry multiple.

Practical Tooling

The companion website offers a downloadable Value-Creation Toolkit (spreadsheets, interview guides, KPI dashboards) and a subscription video library that walks teams through implementation—effectively a digital operating-partner in your pocket.

Critiques and Limitations

• Breadth vs. Depth: Some moves span just two pages, leaving heavy lifting to operating teams.

• B2B Bias: Almost all examples come from B2B or industrial settings; consumer brands and healthcare services get lighter treatment.

• Assumes Sponsor Support: Several moves (e.g., data-platform build-out) require cap-ex that not every PE fund approves.

Still, readers praise the book’s practicality and versatility—it’s been described as “the Playbook to complement Adam Coffey’s Private Equity Playbook.”

Key Takeaways

• Private-equity value creation is shifting from leverage mills to operational excellence and talent mastery.

• A structured repertoire of repeatable “winning moves” accelerates IRR and reduces variance across deals.

• Start before closing: diligence should feed directly into a 100-day value-creation plan.

• Talent alignment and data visibility are foundational—without them, growth plays and operational lifts stall.

• Treat each move as an experiment with clear KPIs; double-down on winners and sunset duds quickly.

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