Why Most Growth Advisory Services Are Missing the Point

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There's something fundamentally broken about how most businesses approach growth advisory services, and I've been watching it unfold for the better part of seventeen years. The problem isn't what you'd think.

It's not the consultants' credentials. It's not the fancy PowerPoint presentations. It's not even the eye-watering fees some of these firms charge. The real issue is that 83% of growth advisory engagements focus on solving yesterday's problems with tomorrow's budget. And frankly, most business owners are so desperate for that silver bullet solution, they're happy to pay for it.

I should know. I've been one of those advisors. I've sat in boardrooms from Sydney to Perth, nodding sagely whilst CEOs explain why their revenue has plateaued, why their teams aren't performing, why their market share is shrinking. And for years, I gave them exactly what they thought they wanted: detailed analysis, comprehensive strategies, implementation roadmaps that would make a NASA launch look simple.

The "Strategy Theatre" Problem

Here's what nobody talks about at those expensive conferences: most growth advisory sessions are elaborate theatre performances. The advisor shows up, asks probing questions, creates urgency around issues that may or may not be critical, then presents a solution that coincidentally requires ongoing engagement.

Don't get me wrong – there are brilliant advisors out there doing exceptional work. Companies like McKinsey have built empires on genuine value creation. But for every legitimate growth catalyst, there are dozens of consultants who've turned business advice into a subscription service.

I learned this the hard way when I worked with a Melbourne-based manufacturing client back in 2019. Spent three months developing what I thought was a revolutionary approach to their distribution challenges. Created detailed process maps, identified seventeen different efficiency improvements, even brought in specialists for change management support.

You know what actually moved the needle? The owner's 23-year-old daughter suggesting they start selling directly through Instagram. Revenue increased 34% in six months. My beautiful strategy document? Still gathering dust somewhere.

What Actually Drives Sustainable Growth

Real growth advisory isn't about creating elaborate strategic frameworks. It's about identifying the two or three things that will have genuine impact and helping businesses execute them relentlessly.

After countless engagements across different industries, I've noticed successful growth comes down to remarkably simple principles. First, businesses need to get obsessively good at one thing before they try to be adequate at ten things. Second, they need systems that can scale without requiring the owner to work 70-hour weeks. Third, they need people who actually give a damn about outcomes, not just activity.

The companies that achieve sustainable growth – the ones that aren't constantly lurching from crisis to opportunity – have figured out how to make small, consistent improvements rather than betting everything on dramatic transformation.

Take this logistics company in Brisbane I worked with recently. Instead of the usual "digital transformation" approach, we focused entirely on reducing their average delivery time by fifteen minutes. That's it. Fifteen minutes. Turns out, that small improvement increased customer satisfaction scores enough to drive a 28% increase in repeat business over eighteen months.

The Uncomfortable Truth About External Advice

Most business owners hire growth advisors because they want someone else to take responsibility for difficult decisions. It's easier to say "our consultant recommended this approach" than to own a potentially unpopular strategic direction.

But here's the thing: external advisors can provide perspective, frameworks, and expertise. They cannot provide courage, commitment, or cultural change. Those have to come from inside the organisation.

The best advisory relationships I've been part of weren't about me providing answers. They were about asking questions that forced leadership teams to confront realities they'd been avoiding. Why are your best people leaving for competitors? Why do customers choose your biggest rival over you? Why does implementing anything take three times longer than planned?

Sometimes the most valuable thing an advisor can do is tell a client they don't actually need an advisor. They need to start having honest conversations internally and stop looking for external validation of decisions they already know they need to make.

The "Quick Win" Obsession

Every business wants immediate results. I get it. Cash flow is tight, boards are impatient, competitors aren't waiting around. But the obsession with quick wins is precisely what keeps companies stuck in cycles of moderate performance.

Real growth happens when you're willing to invest in improvements that take six months to show results and twelve months to compound. It's about building capabilities, not just fixing problems.

I've watched too many businesses abandon genuinely effective strategies because they didn't see immediate results. They'll spend $50,000 on a marketing campaign that might deliver short-term revenue bumps, but won't invest $15,000 in training their customer service team properly.

The companies that consistently outperform their peers understand that growth advisory should focus on building long-term competitive advantages, not just solving immediate problems. They're willing to do the boring, unsexy work of improving processes, developing people, and creating systems that compound over time.

What Good Advisory Actually Looks Like

Effective growth advisory starts with brutal honesty about current reality. Not the sanitised version that gets presented in board papers, but the actual operational reality that frontline staff deal with every day.

It requires spending time understanding how work actually gets done, not just how it's supposed to get done according to documented processes. It means talking to customers, suppliers, and employees who've left for competitors.

Most importantly, it focuses on building internal capability rather than creating dependency on external expertise. The goal should be making the advisory relationship unnecessary as quickly as possible.

I've had clients who've genuinely transformed their businesses by focusing on three simple changes: improving how they hire people, creating clearer accountability structures, and getting better at saying no to opportunities that don't align with their core strengths.

Not exactly revolutionary stuff. But executed consistently over time, these fundamentals create compound effects that dramatic strategic pivots rarely achieve.

The best growth advisory happens when external expertise combines with internal commitment to create sustainable improvement. Everything else is just expensive consultation.

And honestly? If your growth advisor isn't pushing back on your assumptions and challenging your comfortable thinking, you're probably not getting your money's worth.