National Labor Relations Consulting Firm, Union Campaign Response Specialists

$4.0M

Revenue

$1.9M

SDE

3.2x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a national labor and employee relations consulting firm that employers call when a union organizing campaign begins. When a representation petition is filed with the NLRB, the firm deploys experienced consultants on site within days to work with supervisors and employees through the election window, which is measured in weeks. Beyond acute campaign response, the firm delivers preventive audits, leadership and HR consulting, and campaign media produced in house. The real asset is the bench: roughly 20 senior consultants including former union officials, corporate HR leaders, nurses, healthcare executives and attorneys who get matched to each client's industry, language and workforce.

The economics are unusually clean. Consultants bill $3,500 to $4,200 per day and campaigns typically deploy 4 to 8 consultants at once. Costs are almost entirely variable because consultants are paid only when deployed, meaning no idle payroll, no real estate footprint and no capex. The founder personally delivered the work until about three years ago, then stepped back, rebranded away from his own name and brought in senior consultants to deliver engagements. That decoupling of revenue from his personal time drove growth from $1.2M in 2023 to $4.4M in 2024, with trailing twelve month revenue of $3.99M and SDE of $1.97M at a 45% EBITDA margin.

The firm serves enterprise and multisite employers nationwide, with healthcare representing 68% of revenue and the balance across logistics, manufacturing, distribution and hospitality. It billed 23 clients in the trailing twelve months with the largest at 17% of revenue. Work arrives by referral from employer counsel, prior clients and the consultants themselves, and because employers have only weeks to respond once a petition is filed, engagements are urgent and rarely price shopped. Competition is a narrow niche of roughly 200 firms nationally where credibility, not capital, is the barrier to entry.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong and asset-light: trailing twelve month SDE of $1.97M on $3.99M revenue at a 45% adjusted EBITDA margin, with EBITDA already net of a market rate owner replacement salary. Costs are almost entirely variable since consultants are paid only when deployed, so there is no idle payroll, no real estate and no capex to fund. That structure means downside protection in slow quarters because the cost base flexes with revenue.
The moat is the bench and it is genuinely hard to replicate. Credibility is the barrier to entry: consultants with authentic union, healthcare and HR leadership backgrounds cannot be trained or hired quickly, and management estimates only about 200 people do this work nationally. The firm regards its roughly 20 senior consultants as the top tier of that pool, which is exactly the kind of talent-scarce niche that resists new entrants.
Demand is countercyclical and non-discretionary. NLRB union election petitions reached 3,286 in fiscal 2024, double the fiscal 2021 level, and organizing activity tends to persist or rise in economic stress. Once a petition is filed an employer has weeks to respond, so this is urgent, must-do spend that rarely gets price shopped, the opposite of a nice-to-have that gets cut in a downturn.
The owner transition is already substantially de-risked. The founder rebranded the firm away from his own name three years ago and pushed delivery onto senior consultants, which is why revenue quadrupled without depending on his time. His role is now limited to consultant relations, networking and fielding inbound calls, so a buyer inherits a business that has already proven it runs without the seller personally billing.

How to improve it

Build the recurring revenue leg the firm ignores today. Most competitors earn the majority of their revenue training HR departments on union avoidance, and this firm does none of it, so packaging preventive audits and supervisor training into annual retainers for the existing 23 client base converts one-time campaign work into predictable subscription income and smooths the lumpy petition-driven cycle.
Install basic outbound infrastructure within the first 90 days. Advertising spend in the trailing twelve months was zero and there is no CRM or outbound sales effort, so simply implementing a CRM, tracking the referral pipeline from employer counsel, and running targeted outreach to labor and employment law firms could grow deal flow off a standing start with minimal cost.
Reduce client concentration and diversify beyond healthcare. Healthcare is 68% of revenue and the largest client is 17%, so a deliberate push into logistics, manufacturing, distribution and hospitality, where organizing is rising, would broaden the revenue base and make the earnings stream more durable to a single vertical slowing.
Formalize and expand the consultant bench with a recruiting pipeline. Because the bench is the entire moat and the talent is scarce, a buyer should build a structured pipeline to recruit and onboard credible former union officials, HR leaders and attorneys, increasing capacity to run more simultaneous campaigns rather than turning work away during surges.
Systematize the in-house campaign media into a productized offering. The firm already produces campaign media in house, so turning that into a standalone, scalable product with templates and rapid deployment could raise per-campaign revenue and create a differentiated deliverable competitors cannot match on speed.
Lock in the referral channels contractually or through structured relationships. Work arrives by referral from employer counsel, prior clients and consultants, so formalizing referral agreements or co-marketing with a network of labor and employment attorneys would harden the single most important source of new business and reduce reliance on informal goodwill.
Explore geographic and language-specific specialization as a wedge. Consultants are matched to each client's industry, language and workforce, so deliberately building deeper multilingual and region-specific capacity could win multisite enterprise accounts that need consistent nationwide coverage, differentiating from the handful of larger firms.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the revenue volatility because it is severe: revenue was $1.69M in 2022, dropped to $1.20M in 2023, then jumped to $4.41M in 2024. Understand exactly which engagements drove the 2024 spike, whether it reflects a durable model change from the rebrand or a handful of unusually large campaigns, and how repeatable the trailing $3.99M actually is.
Test whether the business truly runs without the founder. He claims his role is limited to consultant relations, networking and fielding inbound calls, but referral flow and consultant loyalty may still hinge on his personal relationships. Verify how many current clients and consultants came directly through him and structure the seller note and earnout accordingly.
Validate consultant retention and contractual status. The entire asset is a bench of roughly 20 senior consultants paid only when deployed, so confirm whether they are exclusive, whether non-competes exist, and whether they could follow the founder or a competitor. Loss of even a few top consultants would materially impair capacity and credibility.
Confirm the client concentration and pipeline visibility. Only 23 clients billed in the trailing twelve months with the largest at 17% and healthcare at 68%, so review revenue by client over multiple years, understand the sales cycle, and quantify how much visibility exists into future petitions versus purely reactive, unforecastable demand.
Reconcile the different profit figures and the owner add-backs. SDE, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA figures vary across years and adjusted EBITDA is stated as net of a market rate replacement salary, so obtain the full add-back schedule, accrual-basis financials and tax returns to confirm the $1.97M trailing SDE and the 45% margin are clean and defensible.
Assess regulatory and reputational exposure. This is union avoidance consulting during NLRB election windows, an area subject to persuader reporting rules and political scrutiny, so review compliance history, any Department of Labor filings, and litigation or reputational risk that could affect enterprise clients or a buyer's own risk appetite.

Source

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