The buy-side Quality of Earnings firm is attempting to normalize our recent sales surge as a one-time pandemic anomaly, which would significantly lower our run-rate EBITDA. How do we prove this growth is permanent?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To defend your sales surge, you must shift the debate from opinions to empirical operational data. The Quality of Earnings team is looking for reasons to discount your run-rate, but you can prove this growth is structural, not anomalous. Use the Income Approach to value these cash flows by showing the retention history of the customers acquired during that period. Present your customer onboarding pipeline and your weekly scorecard metrics to demonstrate that these clients have contracted recurring or repeating revenue with long-term lifetime value. Show that your marketing and sales engine is a repeatable system, not a lucky break. If your sales team is driven by high-performing Achiever archetypes, show how their goal-oriented systems and pipeline management ensure a steady flow of new business. By presenting a clear cohort analysis that tracks the monthly recurring revenue and net retention rates of these new accounts, you prove to the buyer that your elevated performance is a sustainable baseline, thereby defeating their attempt to write off your hard-earned growth as a temporary bump.