Lessons to Drive Sustainable Business Growth

The most common mistake I see among founders of 7 & 8-figure consumer businesses is simply focusing on the wrong long-term KPI's. Here are my 10 north-star indicators of sustainable business growth: 🚀 ✦ Brand’s EBITDA (net-profit) is growing year on year (even if revenue is flat or has slow growth). ✦ Brand has a long-term business strategy tied to storing cash reserves and being an attractive acquisition prospect within their market (or going public) (and has been communicated to their internal team at large). ✦ Brand has a tight grip on its MER (marketing efficiency ratio) with a nuanced framework—to deploy a 7, 8 or 9-figure marketing budget across many verticals. ✦ Brand’s CLTV (customer lifetime value) is improving YoY. ✦ Brand has a dialed-in organic social strategy that helps across the entire funnel from awareness to conversion to nurturing loyal customers — and has major mindshare of the idea customer profile in their market. ✦ Brand has a thorough understanding of how each paid advertising platform historically performs for them and are spending/monitoring across all channels (even if spending very little on an individual channel). ✦ Brand is selling across multiple sales channels, with DTC being an above average % of sales. (Why? Because margins are better at scale, brand experience is controlled, and first-party data is more available). ✦ Brand is able to rely on a plethora of first-party data to drive intelligent decisions across the entire business. ✦ Brand’s product development is vertically integrated (to the extent it can be) and the product catalog has achieved a breadth of “functional integration.” ✦ Brand sentiment is positive and improving over time amongst ICP of each age/stage range (both younger and older generations), as well as internal employees and the job market. ✦ There is a positive correlation between the brand’s reputation and their gross margin (capital 'B' Brand). ✦ Brand is financially able to engage in strategic M&A as a part of business growth and marketing, if the opportunity should arise and make sense. ——— These are things to strive for. A brand with even half of these characteristics is in a good place. The problem is that it's easy to be myopic in carrying out operations and lose sight of the big picture. 

Far too many Consulting firms struggle to scale beyond the influence of their Founder. They fail to build recurring revenue channels that extend beyond the Founder’s personal network and reputation. Instead of intentional growth, they operate on ad hoc improvisation—saying yes to everything, reacting to the flow of the day, and never truly designing a scalable model. The result is scattered efforts, unpredictable revenue, and a ceiling that’s impossible to break. Many Founders hesitate to hire senior experts due to their high cost, despite these individuals being best positioned to drive business growth. Even when they do bring them on board, they are often reluctant to grant equity, many Founders believe that they should retain all rewards since they created the original value. This mindset overlooks a crucial reality: securing and retaining senior talent with client relationships for the long term is what truly enhances equity value. The priority should be building a team of senior specialists with strong market reputations from day one. Paying above market rates and offering long-term equity incentives isn’t just an expense—it’s a strategic investment in credibility, accelerated growth, and early wins with high-value clients. Another defining factor is positioning. Many early-stage Consulting firms spread themselves too thin, saying yes to whatever comes their way. Sustainable growth comes from solving a well-defined, high-value problem better than competitors and shaping this into a repeatable process. Firms that dilute their expertise struggle to establish authority. Specialisation builds authority and pricing power. Client acquisition is another common stumbling block. Instead of chasing leads through cold outreach, the most successful consulting firms focus on becoming the reference in their field. Sharing insights, educating the market, and consistently reinforcing expertise creates demand, reducing reliance on unpredictable deal flow. Long-term success comes from consistently evolving expertise, deepening client relationships, and building a market-defining reputation.. Firms that take this approach position themselves as dominant players, creating a business that doesn’t just grow—it thrives on its own momentum.

The secret to sustainable growth: It's not what you think. Most founders focus on more. More clients. More revenue. More features. More everything. Wrong approach. Sustainable growth comes from less. Less complexity. Less availability. Less saying yes. Less doing everything. The Subtraction Strategy: What most founders do: → Add more services (confuse the market) → Take more clients (dilute the focus) → Work more hours (burn out faster) → Say yes more (lose direction) What sustainable founders do: → Remove everything that doesn't compound → Say no to almost everything → Serve fewer people better → Work fewer hours smarter The Growth Paradox: The more you subtract, the more you grow. The fewer clients you take, the more valuable you become. The less available you are, the more demand you create. The simpler your offer, the easier it sells. My Sustainable Growth Framework: 1. The Revenue Audit Track where money actually comes from. 80% comes from 20% of activities. Focus only on the 20%. Eliminate the rest. 2. The Client Cull Fire clients who drain energy. Keep clients who give energy. Energy up = Revenue up Energy down = Revenue down 3. The Availability Reduction Cut your working hours in half. Watch your value double. Scarcity creates demand. Demand creates premium pricing. 4. The Simplification Process One offer. One outcome. One type of client. Complexity kills conversion. Simplicity sells itself. The Long-Term Math: Unsustainable growth: → More hours worked → More stress created → More complexity managed → Less life lived Sustainable growth: → Fewer hours worked → Less stress created → Less complexity managed → More life lived Same revenue. Different experience. The Compound Effect: Sustainable founders compound energy. Unsustainable founders deplete it. One group gets stronger over time. One group burns out over time. Which are you building? The Real Secret: Growth isn't about addition. It's about subtraction. Not what you add to your business. What you remove from it. Not how much you can do. How little you need to do. Not how available you can be. How unavailable you can afford to be. The businesses that last: → Simple systems → Clear boundaries → Focused offerings → Selective clients The businesses that burn out: → Complex operations → No boundaries → Everything for everyone → Any client with money Your choice: Build for explosion or build for longevity. Build for ego or build for sustainability. Build for more or build for better. One crashes eventually. One compounds forever. The secret isn't growing faster. It's growing smarter. By doing less. Not more. Your turn: What can you subtract this week? More importantly: What will you never add back? Because sustainable growth starts with sustainable choices. And sustainable choices start with saying no. To almost everything.