Commercial Growth
Taking commercial load off a founder without hiring a director
One day a week of senior commercial leadership: pricing, margin and new business given structure, owners and a reporting rhythm.
Grow
Turn growth into value.
Growth that improves the business, not just the turnover line. Pricing, margin, new business and the commercial structure underneath it. Better revenue, not simply more of it.
What does a business growth consultant do?
A business growth consultant works on the commercial engine of a company: where revenue comes from, what it costs to win and deliver, what margin it leaves, and how predictable it is. The output is a smaller number of changes to pricing, proposition, pipeline and cost structure, implemented with the team.
Growth that only moves the turnover line usually makes a business harder to run. The useful measures are retained margin, predictability and how little the result depends on one person or one client.
Is the business clear about what it is selling?
Growth problems are not always sales problems. Sometimes the proposition is unclear, the services have developed without an overall structure or the company's expertise is difficult for clients to understand.
We help founders define the offer, sharpen the narrative and make sure the commercial model, team and delivery structure support what the business is promising.
Revenue is not the same as value
Plenty of businesses grow revenue and end up working harder for less. The question is not how much you invoice, it is how much you keep, how predictable it is, and whether it depends on one person or one client.
We start with where margin is actually being lost: pricing, scoping, project profitability, cost structure, supplier terms and the work you keep saying yes to.
More revenue or better revenue?
Not all growth is worth having. Some of it adds clients you can't serve profitably, work that stretches the team past what it can deliver well, and complexity the business isn't built for. Growth at any cost usually costs margin, people and the founder's time.
We help leadership teams tell the difference between more revenue and better revenue: work that improves margin, builds capability, spreads risk and adds to what the business is worth. Then we build the pricing, pipeline and capacity to go after it deliberately.
Commercial performance
- Commercial strategy and commercial models
- Pricing and rate structure
- Margin improvement and EBITDA improvement
- Client and project profitability
- Revenue analysis and cost structure
- Budgeting, forecasting and negotiation
Routes to growth
- Business and brand narrative
- Proposition development
- Product and service architecture
- Translating specialist expertise into clear client value
- Aligning teams behind the proposition
- New business strategy and pitch strategy
- New revenue streams
- Partnerships and client development
- Market expansion and international growth
- Revenue diversification
- Recurring and repeatable revenue
How the work runs
A short diagnostic first: numbers, pipeline, pricing and where the business really makes money. Then a small number of changes with owners and dates, implemented alongside the team rather than handed over.
Questions founders ask
How do you scale without hiring another permanent director?
By separating the work that genuinely needs a director from the work that needs structure. Most founder-led businesses can absorb significant growth once pricing, scoping, reporting and accountability are fixed, with senior commercial input on a fractional basis rather than a new salary.
How do you improve EBITDA?
Almost always through pricing, scoping discipline, project and client profitability, resourcing and cost structure, in that order. Revenue growth on unchanged margins rarely improves earnings as much as founders expect.
We start with a diagnostic of where money is actually made and lost across clients, projects and services, then work on the two or three areas that move earnings most.
What is sustainable growth?
Growth that improves profitability, organisational capability and long-term value at the same time as revenue. The test is simple: is the business getting better, or just busier? If margin, retention and the founder's diary are all worse after a year of growth, the growth has cost more than it earned.
Why doesn't revenue growth increase the value of the business?
Because a buyer, a lender or an incoming managing director values quality of earnings, not turnover. Concentrated clients, thin margins, undocumented process and founder-dependent revenue all reduce what growth is worth.
Related work
Agency Consultancy
Building a new service line inside an established agency
Defining a new commercial proposition inside a design-led agency, giving it a production model it could deliver profitably, and opening the relationships to sell it.
Better businesses perform better.
Commercial performance and organisational health reinforce one another. It is the philosophy that runs through everything ANDvisory does. Read why →
Advice action.
Revenue, margin and commercial performance. Let us look at where the growth actually is.