Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “SGI Methodology & Blueprints”
Most professional services firms are not businesses. They are collections of skilled individuals sharing an office, a brand and an indemnity policy, and the distinction becomes painfully clear at exactly two moments: when a partner leaves, and when someone tries …
Franchising is one of the most accessible routes to business ownership in the UK, and one of the most misunderstood. The sector contributes around £19 billion to the UK economy across more than 50,000 franchise units, and franchise businesses fail …
Of all the sectors I work with, hospitality attracts the most passionate founders and produces the most avoidable failures. In 25 years of consulting, I have supported restaurants, hotels, bars, event venues, catering companies, and accommodation businesses at every stage—from …
I have a conversation every few months that follows the same arc. A service business founder — solicitor, consultant, digital agency owner, physiotherapist, accountant, whatever the discipline — comes in with what looks like a growth problem. Revenue has plateaued. …
The UK produces an extraordinary number of technically excellent products that never become financially significant businesses. I do not mean products that fail because the technology does not work. I mean products where the technology works well, the founding team …
The most dangerous place to be as an entrepreneur is six months into building something nobody has agreed to pay for. I have sat with founders in this situation more times than I can count. They have incorporated a company, …
The narrative around UK retail has been catastrophist for 15 years, and it has done significant damage to the decision-making of genuinely viable retail businesses. The high street is dying. Physical retail is finished. Amazon has won. Online will take …
A significant proportion of the founders who come to me have been burned before. Not by fraudulent consultants, but by perfectly legitimate ones who delivered something that looked like consulting: a thick strategy document, a set of slides with market …
A retail client came to me three years ago with a problem I see more often than I should. They had grown a genuinely successful homeware business from a single shop in Leeds to four locations across Yorkshire. Revenue had …
Most business owners approach growth as a marketing problem. They pour budget into customer acquisition, chase new channels, and push harder on sales — then wonder why the business feels like it is running faster just to stay in the …
