What does a business growth strategist do? The short answer: they help you grow your business faster by applying experience you don’t have yet.

A growth strategist is a practitioner who has built and scaled businesses, made mistakes, learned what works, and now helps others achieve better results faster. We’re not consultants with MBAs who’ve never run an agency. We’ve done the thing. That’s the difference.

I built a creative agency in Belfast from zero to £2.2M annual revenue over 13 years before exiting. I made every mistake in the book. Underpriced projects, hired wrong, ignored margins, let scope creep eat profits. Now I help agency owners skip those mistakes entirely.

What a Growth Strategist Actually Does

The title sounds vague. The work isn’t. Here’s what a growth strategist focuses on in practice:

Financial Analysis

Most agency owners know their revenue number. Very few know their actual profitability by client, by service line, or by team member.

A strategist examines revenue, profit margins, customer acquisition costs, lifetime value, and operational efficiency. The goal is finding where money is leaking and where the biggest opportunities are hiding.

One client I worked with thought their £2,000 web projects were profitable. When we tracked true delivery costs including account management, project management, revisions, meetings, and overhead, those projects were costing £3,500 to deliver. They were paying clients to work with them. That’s the kind of thing a strategist catches in the first session.

Pricing Optimisation

Most agencies undercharge. From working with 50+ agency owners, not one has been overcharging for their work. Not one.

A strategist helps you move from time-based pricing to value-based pricing. The shift changes everything. I went from selling logos at £150 to commanding £15-20k for brand projects. Not because the work took longer. Because I learned to sell the commercial outcome, not the creative process.

One coaching client went from £26k monthly revenue to consistently over £50k. Same team. Same clients. Same work. Just priced correctly.

Systems and Operations

You can’t scale what depends on you. A strategist helps build operational systems that allow the business to function without the owner being involved in every decision.

This includes documented processes, project management frameworks, and decision-making authority structures. At Kaizen, I created detailed SOPs for every single service we offered. That’s what allowed us to hire and train people quickly.

The real test: can you take a two-week holiday with no email and nothing breaks? If the answer is no, you have a systems problem.

Strategic Planning

Not 50-page documents that sit in a drawer. Actionable quarterly plans with specific targets, clear priorities, and weekly accountability.

A good strategist creates plans you actually execute. Not plans that make you feel busy.

Growth Strategist vs Consultant vs Mentor

These three roles get confused constantly. They’re not the same thing.

A consultant diagnoses problems and provides solutions. They’re project-based with specific deliverables. You hire them for answers. The risk: it creates dependency. You keep needing them because you never developed the capability yourself.

A mentor shares experience from their own journey. It’s informal and relationship-based. The risk: their experience is one person’s story. It may not translate to your situation.

A growth strategist combines elements of both but adds something neither offers: structured accountability and implementation support. A strategist doesn’t just tell you what to do. They help you build the capability to do it, then hold you accountable for actually doing it.

The difference matters. Consultants give you a fish. Mentors tell you about the time they caught a fish. A strategist teaches you to fish, stands beside you while you do it, and makes sure you show up at the river every morning.

The Four Growth Strategies

There are four core approaches a strategist uses to drive growth. Most agencies need all four in different proportions.

1. Compound Growth

This is the most powerful strategy most agencies ignore. Instead of trying to double one thing, you improve multiple areas by a small amount each.

Here’s the maths. Improve these five areas by just 10% each:

A 10% improvement across all five compounds to 61% revenue growth. Not 50%. Because compounding isn’t linear.

This is how agencies make significant jumps without dramatic changes to any single area.

2. Strategic Leverage

You already have assets you’re not monetising. Your content, your client relationships, your team’s expertise, your processes.

When I ran my agency, one of my very first clients from 2009 was still a client years later. Their average order value was about £500 and they’d place this level of business with us almost weekly. That relationship existed because we maximised the lifetime value of every client, not just the initial project.

Most agencies only sell 30% of what they could to each client. The month before I exited my agency, a client showed me their new brand when buying print. They had no idea we offered branding services. That’s money sitting on the table because of poor communication, not poor capability.

3. Ecosystem Building

No agency operates in isolation. Strategic partnerships with complementary service providers create referral pipelines that cost nothing to maintain.

If you’re a design agency, partner with a development agency. If you’re a web agency, partner with an SEO agency. Build the ecosystem so leads flow in both directions.

At Kaizen, we used strategic partnerships, direct outreach, SEO, content marketing, and even billboards and radio ads. The agencies that grow fastest have 2-3 reliable acquisition methods working together.

4. Systematic Innovation

Allocate 10% of your resources to testing new services, approaches, and markets.

This isn’t about chasing shiny objects. It’s about controlled experimentation. One new service offering per quarter. Test it with existing clients first. Measure the response. Scale what works. Kill what doesn’t.

The agencies that stagnate are the ones doing the same thing they did five years ago and wondering why the market has moved on.

What a Typical Engagement Looks Like

Month by month, here’s what working with a growth strategist typically involves:

Month 1: Diagnostic. Deep dive into your numbers, operations, team, clients, and pipeline. This is where most of the insight comes from. You can’t fix what you don’t measure. Expect uncomfortable truths about your pricing, utilisation, and client mix.

Months 2-3: Foundation. Fix the biggest leaks first. Usually that’s pricing, scope management, and operational gaps. Quick wins build momentum and fund the longer-term work.

Months 4-6: Systems. Implement the operational infrastructure that allows you to scale without being the bottleneck. CRM, project management, documented processes, team development.

Months 7-9: Growth. With the foundation solid, focus shifts to acquisition. Building pipeline, improving conversion, expanding service offerings, developing new channels.

Months 10-12: Scale. Optimise what’s working. Hire strategically. Build the leadership layer that allows you to step back from day-to-day operations.

What Results to Expect

I believe in specific numbers, not vague promises. Here’s what realistic results look like:

At 3 months: Pricing improvements implemented. Scope management tightened. You should see a 10-20% improvement in project profitability from these changes alone.

At 6 months: Systems in place. Team operating more independently. Pipeline more consistent. Revenue typically up 15-30% from baseline with improved margins.

At 12 months: Significant revenue growth. Improved profitability. Reduced owner dependency. The business has more structure, more predictability, and more value than when you started.

One client went from £32k to £42k per month. Same work. Better pricing. Another moved from £26k to consistently over £50k over six months. These aren’t outliers. They’re what happens when you fix the fundamentals.

Red Flags When Choosing a Growth Strategist

Not all strategists are equal. Watch for these:

No track record. If they haven’t built what they’re advising on, be cautious. Theory without practice is just opinion.

No niche. A strategist who works with “all businesses” doesn’t understand yours. Agency growth is specific. Find someone who understands agencies.

No framework. Ad hoc advice is mentoring, not strategy. Look for a structured approach with clear phases and measurable outcomes.

Promises of overnight results. Real transformation takes 12-18 months. Anyone promising dramatic results in 30 days is selling you something.

No accountability structure. If there are no regular check-ins, no targets, and no tracking, it’s a conversation, not a programme.

Who a Growth Strategist is Right For

Growth strategists are most effective for creative service businesses earning £20k-£200k monthly that are:

Below £20k monthly, you need to nail the fundamentals first. Focus on one acquisition channel, one service offering, and one niche. A strategist can help accelerate this phase, but courses and group programmes are often more cost-effective at this stage.

Above £200k, you’re likely looking at corporate advisory or M&A support rather than growth coaching.

The goal isn’t dependency. It’s acceleration. Helping you avoid the mistakes others have already made so you get there faster.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a growth strategist cost?

For agency-focused coaching in the UK, expect £700-£1,500 per month for 1:1 support. Group programmes are typically £300-£500 per month. High-end strategic advisory for larger agencies runs £2,000-5,000+ per month. The ROI should pay for the investment within the first 2-3 months through pricing and efficiency improvements.

When should I hire a growth strategist?

When you’ve hit a plateau you can’t break through alone. When you’re working harder but not growing. When you know something needs to change but aren’t sure what. When your agency has outgrown your ability to manage it on instinct alone.

What results should I expect from a growth strategist?

At 3 months: improved pricing and profitability. At 6 months: better systems and team performance. At 12 months: significant revenue growth, improved margins, and reduced owner dependency. Specific numbers depend on your starting point, but 20-50% revenue growth over 12 months is a reasonable benchmark for agencies doing the work.

What’s the difference between a growth strategist and a business coach?

There’s significant overlap. A growth strategist tends to be more data-driven and commercially focused, with specific expertise in scaling service businesses. A business coach may focus more broadly on leadership development and personal growth. The best practitioners combine both. Look for someone who understands your specific industry and can point to measurable results with businesses like yours.

Ready to Work with a Growth Strategist?

If your agency fits the profile above and you’re ready to break through your current plateau, there are two ways to start.

Take the free Agency Valuation to benchmark where your business stands today. It takes 3 minutes and gives you a clear picture of your agency’s strengths and gaps.

If you already know you need structured support, book a discovery call to discuss what a 12-month growth plan looks like for your agency. I work with a small number of agency owners through my Scale coaching programme. It’s 1:1 coaching built specifically for agency owners doing £20k-200k/month.

Want to understand what your agency is worth today? The Agency Valuation Guide covers the 7 factors that determine your multiple. Or learn how to remove yourself from day-to-day operations using the Owner Extraction Method.