A business consultant for UK owners deciding where growth should come from

What a business consultant does

"Business consultant" is not a protected title in the UK. Anyone can use it, and people with very different jobs do. Many accountancy practices describe themselves as business advisers and mean mainly financial and tax work. Management consultants often focus on operations, organisation design or large change programmes. Others use the label for selling businesses, raising finance or HR. And some, like us, mean strategic advice on the direction and commercial side of a company.

Whatever the label, a strategy consultant or small business consultant who is worth paying does four things:

• Analyses. Where the business stands, where growth is coming from, where margin leaks away and what alternatives your clients have.
• Lays out the options. Which routes are realistic, what each costs, what it is likely to deliver and where the risks lie.
• Recommends. A reasoned recommendation with an order: what first, what later and what not at all.
• Stays close to implementation. So the advice changes the business rather than sitting in a folder.

You stay the decision-maker throughout. A consultant brings analysis and judgement; the choice and the consequences remain yours.

What we advise on

We advise in four connected areas. They are the same areas we work in hands-on every week, which keeps the advice concrete and achievable.

Growth

Which route is healthiest for your company: more clients, higher prices, larger projects, a new service or a new market? Which clients and services generate real profit, and which mostly consume energy? Growth usually starts by stopping something.

Positioning

Who you are for, why clients choose you and how you compare with the alternatives. Sharp positioning makes selling, marketing and pricing easier. Where it needs more depth, we develop it into a full brand strategy.

Commercial strategy

How your offer is packaged, how prices are set and defended, how a lead becomes a signed client and which channels bring the enquiries that actually suit you. Small changes here often show results faster than anything else, because they affect every sale.

Digital strategy

Your website, your visibility in Google and AI assistants, your online marketing, and which parts you run in-house or outsource. Many owners invest in all of these without a clear link to their strategy. We create that link; our guide to digital marketing strategy shows how the pieces fit.

What we do not advise on, and who does

A good consultant knows where their competence ends. We do not give accountancy, tax, legal or financing advice. That is not modesty but care: these areas involve specialist knowledge, regulation and professional responsibilities that belong with other professionals.

• No accountancy. We do not prepare accounts, keep books or review figures as an accountant would. We can look with you at commercial numbers you choose to share, such as which services and clients are most profitable.
• No tax advice. VAT, company structure, dividends, holding companies and the tax treatment of investments belong with your accountant or a tax adviser.
• No legal advice. Contracts, terms and conditions, liability, employment matters, disputes and shareholder agreements belong with a solicitor.
• No financing advice. Loans, investors, grants and credit are for a finance broker, your bank or a regulated adviser. Gov.uk lists finance and support schemes as a starting point.

When our advice touches one of these areas, we say so and recommend checking with the right professional first. If you wish, we coordinate with your own accountant or solicitor.

Business consultant, management consultant, mentor or coach?

The labels overlap, so look at who supplies the answer and who does the work.

• Business or strategy consultant. Analyses a question and recommends a course of action. The consultant brings the content; you decide.
• Management consultant. Often works on how the organisation runs: processes, structure, systems, change programmes. Typically larger firms and larger projects. We do not offer operational or organisational consultancy of that kind.
• Business mentor. Shares experience from their own career, often informally and occasionally, sometimes unpaid. Valuable for perspective; less structured.
• Business coach. Helps you reach your own decisions and hold to them. You bring the content; the coach sharpens it. See our business coaching page.
• Executive coach. Works on you as a leader: decisions, delegation and your role as the company grows. See executive coaching.
• Interim manager. Temporarily takes on a role and does the work personally.

In practice we combine consulting and coaching: a clear view where you need one, and support in carrying the decisions yourself, so the thinking stays in your company after the engagement ends. If your question is mainly about who should run your marketing, our marketing consultant page compares the options.

Finding a business mentor, and when paid advice is better

Many UK owners start by looking for a business mentor, and that is often a sensible first step. Mentoring is available through industry bodies, trade associations, banks, local enterprise networks and publicly funded business support, which differs between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Gov.uk's page on how to get help and support for your business is a reasonable place to see what is currently offered near you.

A good mentor gives perspective from someone who has been further down the road. The limits are structural: mentoring is usually occasional, the advice reflects one person's experience, and few mentors will analyse your market, pricing or digital presence in depth. Paid consulting earns its place when your question is specific to your company, needs real analysis, and benefits from someone accountable for the quality of the recommendation. Many owners use both.

Consulting for small businesses: what is different

Advice for an owner-managed company has to work differently from advice for a corporation.

• The owner decides and often executes. There is no strategy department to turn advice into a programme. Recommendations must be manageable with the people you have.
• Time is scarcer than money. A plan with twenty actions will not happen. Three well-chosen steps in the right order will.
• Personal and business goals are intertwined. What the owner wants from their time, risk and future shapes the right strategy. Advice that ignores this misses the point.
• Little room for expensive experiments. Choices need a sound basis and, where possible, a small test first.

We build and run our own brands alongside client work and test methods there first, so we know the trade-offs of spending your own money with limited time.

How an advisory engagement works

1. Strategy session. A paid 50-minute conversation with the founder, £225 excl. VAT, about your ambition, your market, your question and whether we fit. It is a conversation, not an analysis, report or written advice. Afterwards we decide whether to take the work on.
2. Proposal. A fixed scope and fixed price, stating which question we answer and what you receive.
3. Analysis. Conversations with you and your team, a look at your market and competitors, your offer, sales process and digital presence, and the commercial figures you share.
4. Options and recommendation. The routes, the trade-offs and our recommendation, in a clear order. You decide.
5. Support during implementation. Depending on what we agree, fixed moments to review and adjust while you carry it out.

An engagement usually runs from several weeks to a few months, depending on the question and how quickly decisions are made. If you later want us to carry out digital work, that is a separate proposal, so the advice stays independent of anything we might do afterwards. To begin, book a strategy session.

What a business consultant costs

There is no standard fee for strategic advice, because questions differ so much. What drives the cost:

• The size and complexity of the question.
• How much analysis is needed: interviews, market research, a review of your digital presence.
• The number of markets, audiences and services involved.
• Whether you want a recommendation only or support during implementation.

We do not publish prices or day rates. You start with the strategy session; if there is a fit, you receive a proposal with a fixed scope and fixed price. Whether the cost is deductible for your business is a question for your accountant.

How to choose a business consultant

• Are they clear about what they do not advise on? A consultant who claims expertise in everything from strategy to tax is a risk.
• Do they start with your question or their product? If the right package is obvious after the first call, they were not listening.
• How do they handle conflicts of interest? If they also sell implementation, ask how advice and delivery are kept separate.
• What do they promise? Be wary of firm promises about revenue or timescales. Nobody controls your market.
• Is the advice usable? Ask to see what a recommendation looks like and whether it fits the capacity of a company your size.
• Do you trust them? You will share figures, doubts and plans. That only works with someone candid.

Warning signs

• A standard report that looks the same for every client.
• Tax or legal advice from someone not qualified to give it.
• No fixed scope or price, so the engagement keeps expanding.
• Recommendations without an order or a named owner for each step.