Right, let’s get one thing clear from the start. Most creative service businesses think they need a growth strategist when what they actually need is to fix their fundamentals. But when you’re doing £50k to £200k a month and you’re ready to scale properly – the right strategist can be the difference between staying stuck and building something significant.
I’ve been on both sides of this. Built a creative agency from zero to £200k monthly revenue, sold it for £2.2M, made plenty of mistakes along the way. Now I help other creative service businesses avoid the same costly errors. And I’m going to tell you exactly what a business growth strategist does, when you need one, and when you don’t.
What is a Business Growth Strategist?
A business growth strategist is someone who’s actually built and scaled businesses in your space, made the mistakes, learned what works, and now helps others do it better and faster. We’re not consultants with MBAs who’ve never run an agency. We’re not coaches who’ve read a few books. We’re practitioners who’ve been in the trenches.
When I work with a creative service business, I’m not interested in theory. I’m interested in what’s actually going to move the needle. That might be fixing your pricing model that’s leaving thousands on the table – and trust me, every agency I’ve worked with has been undercharging. It might be restructuring how you deliver services so you can scale without burning out. It might be helping you see the opportunity that’s right in front of you but you’re too close to spot.
The best way I can describe it? We help you see your business the way a buyer would. What’s working, what’s broken, what’s got potential, what needs binning. Then we help you fix it.
What Does a Business Growth Strategist Actually Do?
When I start working with someone, the first thing I do is ignore everything they tell me about their business and look at the numbers. Revenue, profit, customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, churn rate, operational efficiency. The numbers don’t lie.
Then I look at the business model itself. Is it built to scale or is it going to break? I’ve seen brilliant businesses hit a ceiling because they never sorted their operational foundations. They’re trying to build a skyscraper on foundations meant for a bungalow.
The Actual Work
Here’s what I spend most of my time doing with clients:
Fixing pricing – You’d be amazed how many creative agencies are essentially working for free because they don’t understand their true costs. One design agency I worked with was losing money on every project but making up for it in volume. Mental.
Building systems – Most agencies run on the owner’s hustle. That’s fine at £30k a month. At £100k a month, it’ll kill you. We build systems that mean the agency runs without you having to do everything.
Finding leverage – Every business has hidden assets they’re not using. Might be your customer list, might be your expertise, might be partnerships you haven’t explored. We find them and use them.
Strategic planning – Not the kind where you write a 50-page document nobody reads. Real planning. What are we doing this quarter? How does it connect to where we want to be in a year? What could go wrong and what’s our plan B?
But mostly? I stop agency owners doing stupid things. Like the creative director who wanted to launch a software product whilst their core agency was struggling. Or the branding agency that wanted to become a full-service marketing consultancy before they’d even mastered their core offering.
The Four Growth Strategies That Actually Work
After working with over 100 creative service businesses, I’ve found four approaches that consistently deliver results. Not overnight transformations – I’m talking about sustainable, profitable growth.
1. Compound Growth
Everyone wants the big win. The game-changer. The one strategy that doubles their business overnight. It doesn’t exist.
What does work? Improving multiple areas of your business by small percentages. Increase your conversion rate by 10%. Increase your average order value by 10%. Reduce your costs by 10%. Improve retention by 10%.
Those four 10% improvements don’t add 40% to your bottom line. They multiply. You end up with 46% more profit. And because each improvement is small, it’s actually achievable.
I used this with my own creative agency. Instead of chasing massive new clients like Nike or Apple, we focused on doing better work for existing clients, charging properly for it, and keeping them longer. Grew from £50k to £200k monthly revenue in 18 months.
2. Strategic Leverage
This is about using what you’ve already got instead of constantly chasing new things. Most businesses are sitting on goldmines they don’t even know about.
One creative agency had been blogging about design and branding for three years. Thousands of articles, decent traffic, but no monetisation. We packaged that content into a course for their clients’ marketing teams, created a membership site, and added £30k monthly recurring revenue. The content already existed. We just gave it structure and a price tag.
Another agency had a list of 5,000 past clients they’d never contacted again. One email campaign about their new brand refresh service brought in £75k in repeat business. Cost: virtually nothing.
Look at what you’ve already built. Your customers, your content, your expertise, your systems. How can you get more value from them?
3. Ecosystem Building
You don’t have to do everything yourself. In fact, you shouldn’t. The fastest-growing agencies I know all have strong ecosystems around them.
This isn’t networking (which is usually a waste of time). It’s strategic partnership building. Find businesses that serve the same customers but aren’t competitors. For creative agencies, that’s often PR firms, marketing consultancies, business advisors, even accountants. Build genuine relationships. Create mutual value.
My agency grew fastest when we partnered with PR firms, marketing consultancies, and business advisors. They’d send us design work, we’d send them clients who needed their services. Everyone won.
One partnership with a business advisor brought us £500k in project work over two years. Cost to set up? A coffee and a conversation.
4. Systematic Innovation
This sounds fancy but it’s not. It just means consistently testing new things without betting the farm on any of them.
Set aside 10% of your resources for testing. New services, new markets, new approaches. Most will fail. That’s fine. The ones that work become your next growth drivers.
We tested offering website maintenance packages to our design clients. Seemed boring compared to big rebrand projects. But it added £20k monthly recurring revenue with 80% margins. Boring but profitable beats exciting but broke.
The Digital Reality Check
Everyone bangs on about digital transformation like it’s complicated. It’s not. It’s about using technology to do things better, faster, or cheaper than you’re doing them now.
For most creative service businesses, this means:
Getting your online marketing sorted – Not throwing money at ads and hoping. Actually understanding your customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and how to improve both.
Automating the repetitive stuff – If you’re doing the same thing more than twice, there’s probably a tool that can do it for you. We saved 30 hours a week in my agency just by automating project management, time tracking, and invoicing. That’s 30 hours of billable time we got back.
Creating scalable revenue streams – Template systems, design toolkits, brand guidelines generators, online workshops. Things you create once and sell repeatedly. Not suitable for every agency, but when it works, it’s brilliant. One agency I know makes £40k a month selling Webflow templates they created in their downtime.
The key is not getting distracted by shiny new tools and platforms. Focus on what will actually impact your business. Usually, that’s the boring stuff that everyone else is avoiding.
Understanding Your Growth Stage (And Why It Matters)
One of the biggest mistakes I see is creative agencies trying to implement strategies meant for a different stage of growth. You wouldn’t use the same training plan for a Sunday jogger and an Olympic athlete. Same with business strategy.
Under £50k/month: Not Ready Yet
If you’re doing less than £50k monthly, you’re not ready for the kind of strategic work I do. Your job is still to prove your business model works. Can you consistently win clients? Can you deliver great creative work profitably? Can you build a small team that functions?
This is when you need my course, not my coaching. You need fundamentals, not advanced strategy.
£50k to £100k/month: Build the Machine
This is my sweet spot. You’ve proven it works. You’ve got regular clients, decent revenue, probably 10-30 staff. But you’re hitting ceilings. The owner is still involved in everything. Projects run over. Margins are thin. Growth has stalled.
This is where we:
- Build scalable delivery systems
- Fix your pricing and margins
- Create management structures that actually work
- Develop predictable new business pipelines
- Get the owner out of day-to-day delivery
This is exactly where my agency was when we broke through. It’s the hardest transition in the agency world – going from founder-led to system-led.
£100k to £200k/month: Strategic Growth
Now you’re ready for serious expansion. New service lines, strategic partnerships, maybe acquisitions, potentially international clients. You’re thinking about exit strategies.
The mistakes here are expensive. Launch the wrong service? That’s £200k wasted. Hire the wrong senior team? That’ll cost you a year of progress. This is where my experience of scaling to £200k/month and exiting becomes invaluable.
Over £200k/month: Different Game
Honestly? If you’re doing over £200k monthly, you probably need different help than I provide. You’re looking at corporate structures, complex M&A, international expansion. I’ll happily refer you to someone who specialises in that level.
When You Actually Need a Growth Strategist
I turn down about 70% of enquiries. Not because I don’t need the money, but because most agencies either aren’t ready for strategic help or aren’t the right fit for what I do.
You need a growth strategist when:
You’re doing £50k-£200k monthly – This is the range where I add the most value. Below this, you need fundamentals. Above this, you need corporate advisors.
You’re a creative service business – Web design, branding, digital marketing, content creation, video production. This is what I know. I don’t do SaaS, ecommerce, or professional services because I’ve never built those businesses.
You’re genuinely stuck – You’ve been at the same revenue level for 6+ months. You’re working flat out but can’t break through. Classic signs: owner doing too much, feast or famine cycles, projects always running over.
You want to scale or exit – You’re thinking 2-3 years ahead. You want to build something sellable. You understand that requires fundamental changes to how you operate.
You’re ready to be challenged – I’m going to tell you things you don’t want to hear. Your pricing is wrong. Your team structure doesn’t work. Your biggest client is holding you back. If you want someone to validate your current approach, I’m not your person.
When You Don’t Need Me
If you’re doing less than £50k a month, take my course instead. You need fundamentals, not advanced strategy.
If you’re not a creative service business, I’m not your person. I don’t know ecommerce. I don’t know SaaS. I don’t know professional services. I stick to what I know.
If you’re looking for a quick fix, don’t bother. Real growth takes 12-18 months minimum. Anyone promising faster is lying.
If you’re not prepared to invest properly – both money and time – save your money. Strategy without implementation is just expensive chat.
How to Choose the Right Growth Strategist
Most growth strategists are full of shit. Harsh but true. They’ve read some books, maybe done an MBA, and now they’re experts. Here’s how to spot the real ones:
Look for practitioners, not theorists – Have they actually built and scaled businesses? Can they show you specific examples? If they’re talking about “synergies” and “paradigm shifts,” run.
Check their specialisation – I only coach creative service businesses because that’s what I built. Anyone who claims they can help any business is lying. Look for someone with specific expertise in creative agencies.
Ask about failures – Anyone who’s actually built businesses has failed at things. If they claim everything they’ve touched turned to gold, they’re lying. The lessons come from the failures.
Test their thinking – In your first conversation, they should be challenging your assumptions and showing you things you haven’t considered. If they’re just agreeing with everything you say, they’re not worth the money.
Get references – Not testimonials on their website. Actual references you can call. Ask specific questions about results, working style, and value delivered.
Making the Decision
Working with a growth strategist is an investment. For agencies doing £50k-£200k monthly, you’re looking at £2,000-£5,000 per month for proper strategic guidance. Plus you need to invest time – typically 4-6 hours monthly for sessions and implementation.
The return can be massive. Most of my clients see 30-40% revenue growth within 12 months. More importantly, they build sellable assets. My agency went from unsellable to a £2.2M exit in 3 years.
Start by being honest about where you are. Are you really doing £50k+ monthly? Are you a creative service business? Are you ready to change how you operate?
If you tick those boxes and you’re serious about scaling, find someone who’s built and sold an agency in your space. Not someone who’s read about it. Someone who’s done it.
And if you’re not ready? That’s fine. Focus on getting to £50k monthly first. Build your team. Win some decent clients. Get the basics right. Then come back when you’re ready for strategic growth.
The Truth About Growth
Building a creative agency is hard. Scaling it past £50k monthly is harder. Most get stuck because they’re brilliant creatives but average business people. They’re working hard but not smart.
A good growth strategist helps you work smart. Someone who’s built an agency knows the specific challenges – scope creep, feast or famine, difficult clients, creative team management. We’ve solved these problems before.
But I’m not a magician. If you’re doing £20k monthly, I can’t get you to £200k in six months. If your service is commoditised, I can’t make you premium overnight. If you’re not willing to change, I can’t force you.
What I can do is help you build a proper business, not just a big freelance operation. The kind of agency that runs without you. The kind someone would actually buy.
Most creative agencies have more potential than they realise. They’re just too busy delivering work to build the business. The question is whether you’ll figure it out through years of trial and error or get help from someone who’s already done it.
Either way, if you’re serious about building a scalable creative business, you need to think strategically. Because in the agency world, you’re either growing or you’re dying. There’s no middle ground.