GROWTH ADVISORY
Growth, produced by a process the business can actually forecast.
We work with management teams on where new commercial relationships come from, and on the pricing, concentration and route-to-market decisions that determine what that revenue is worth to a buyer or a lender.
Start a conversationTHE CONSTRAINT
Most established companies convert well. Fewer can produce the conversation.
A business that has grown through referrals, inbound and the relationships of a few people usually closes at a rate a newer competitor would envy. The constraint is almost never conversion. It is volume, and volume is capped by whatever currently produces it.
Sometimes that cap is a problem. A rainmaker leaves, a channel saturates, a customer becomes too large a share of the total. More often it is simply a ceiling, and the business wants to grow faster than a network can deliver.
THE WORK
Demand the business can plan against.
We start with the market as it already behaves. What triggers a purchase, what language buyers use when they describe the problem, and which companies are showing those signals now rather than in principle. From there we work backwards to the offer and the message that meet them, and build the channel that produces qualified conversations at a rate the business can forecast.
Origination
Identifying the companies that fit and approaching them directly, at a volume that produces a forecastable number of conversations rather than an occasional one.
Positioning and offer
What the business sells, to whom, and against what alternative. Most origination problems turn out to be offer problems wearing a channel costume.
Pricing and terms
What is charged, how it is structured, and what is collected upfront against what sits in the back end. Pricing decisions compound faster than volume decisions.
Concentration and route to market
Where revenue is dangerously clustered, which segments are underweight, and whether the next stage of growth comes through direct sales, partners or acquisition.
The first is arithmetic. A channel that produces qualified conversations at a forecastable rate raises revenue, and a multiple applied to a larger number produces a larger outcome. That is the reason most owners engage.
The second is what happens to the multiple itself. A buyer is purchasing future cash flow and a lender is underwriting it, and both are asking the same question, which is whether the revenue survives the departure of whoever currently produces it. Where demand can be explained, measured and repeated, the answer is straightforward. Where it arrives through relationships that do not transfer, the discount shows up in diligence rather than in negotiation, by which point it is a fact rather than a position.
The same work produces both. Only the reason for doing it changes.
PROCESS
How an engagement runs.
1. Diagnostic
Where demand currently comes from, what converts and at what rate, how revenue is distributed across customers and segments, and what pricing looks like against the value delivered. The constraint is rarely where it is assumed to be, so the answer comes from the numbers rather than from the brief.
2. Definition
The market as it actually behaves. What triggers a purchase, what language buyers use, which companies are showing those signals now. From that, the offer and the message that meet them.
3. Build
The channel that produces qualified conversations, and the commercial infrastructure that turns them into contracted revenue. Qualification criteria, stage definitions, pricing structure and terms, so the process is written down rather than improvised.
4. Operate
The channel runs and the targeting sharpens against what the market returns. Reported against the baseline recorded at the start.
QUESTIONS
Initial questions frequently asked.
Does this connect to your other practices?
Only if you want it to.
The practices are engaged separately and neither is conditioned on the other.
What does an engagement look like?
It opens with a diagnostic conversation running in both directions.
We look at where demand currently comes from, what converts, what the numbers say about concentration and pricing, and where the constraint actually sits. If there is a fit, we scope against what we found rather than against what was asked for. If there is not, we say so and you keep the read-out either way.
Who does the work?
The same people who scoped it.
We run a small number of engagements at a time so the people in the first conversation stay close to the work.
How long before anything happens?
The first conversations arrive within weeks.
The value accumulates well beyond that.