I believe
I believe the people who run consultancies, agencies and specialist advisory firms are some of the most capable in the economy, building some of its most undervalued businesses. Not undervalued because the work isn't good. Undervalued because the person who built the firm was never taught to sell it, and almost everything written about marketing was written for someone else.
Where I learned this
Most of those thirty years were spent in frontline commercial roles, selling enterprise technology for companies like Oracle, Infor and Lawson.
That kind of selling is a hard school. Long cycles, sceptical buyers, complex stakeholder maps, and a number over your head every quarter. You learn what actually moves a deal and what's just activity. You learn that trust is built in specifics, not slogans. And you learn, watching hundreds of buying decisions from the inside, why customers really choose one expert firm over another. It's rarely the reason the firm thinks.
What I learned the hard way
SMARTer system exists: thirty years of what actually works, organised into a framework your business can learn, use and keep.
What I'm like to work with
Direct, but on your side. I'll tell you what I see, including the things that are uncomfortable to hear, because you're not paying me to nod. But everything I do starts from respect for what you've already built. You're the expert in your business and your market; I'm the expert in how firms like yours win and keep clients. The work happens where those two things meet.
And I'll say plainly what I won't do: I won't promise you revenue, I won't recite theory at you, and I won't design an engagement that quietly depends on you keeping me around. My engagements are designed to end. The capability is designed to stay.
Beyond the work
I'm at the stage of my career where I work because I choose to, which means I only take on clients whose businesses genuinely interest me. Away from the desk, you'll find me in Berkshire, keeping fit and following world events more closely than is probably good for me.