$14M In EBITDA In Under 12 Months.
Client Case Study | Pre-Employment Screening Services
THE SITUATION
A nationwide B2B background check company was bleeding talent, burning budget on unused software, and losing ground under dysfunctional leadership. Critical institutional knowledge lived with a handful of people. Decision-making was paralyzed at the top. And the business had hit a revenue ceiling it couldn't push past on its own — almost entirely referral-driven with no active outbound.
ScaledToSell restructured operations from the ground up — without a single dollar of new capital — and grew EBITDA from ~$11M to $14M in under 12 months.
THE CHALLENGES
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Critical institutional knowledge lived with a handful of people. When they left, replacements couldn't perform — no documentation, no handoff process, no continuity.
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The CEO dismissed feedback, talked down to the team, and created an environment where top performers quietly disengaged. The culture problem was a performance problem.
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The business was almost entirely referral-driven with no active outbound, capping growth at a level they couldn't push past without a structural change to how they sold.
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Senior leadership spent months in meetings debating software purchases to "fix" interdepartmental workflow — a problem that didn't actually exist yet at their deal volume.
WHAT WE DID
Role-by-Role SOPs
Built documentation for every position in the company — from the C-suite to the janitors. Simple enough that a new hire could step in on day one and know exactly what to do, how to do it, and where to go for help.
Department KPIs
Implemented department-level KPIs reported up to the C-suite with incentive structures tied to hitting them. Accountability replaced ambiguity across every function.
Cancelled Unnecessary Software ($300k/year savings)
Teams sat next to each other — a sticky note or an email solved the problem. The workflow software was the right solution for a bottleneck that didn't exist yet. We cancelled the five-year contract and eliminated the cost entirely.
Replaced the CEO
Brought in a servant leader who got in the trenches with the team, took feedback, and treated every role in the company as one worth understanding. Culture shifted immediately — and the numbers followed.
Regionalized Sales Team
Stood up a dedicated sales team with a sales manager. Moved the company from passive referral-based growth to active, structured outbound for the first time — breaking the revenue ceiling that had held for years.
THE RESULTS
Within our 12-month engagement:
Scaled EBITDA 23% up to 14M
Eliminated $300k in expenses (per year)
New CEO transformed culture (decline in HR complaints, PTO usage, and onboarding times)
Expanded sales team broke previous revenue ceiling
We added $3M in EBITDA without spending a single dollar of new capital.
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