When we grew our engineering & built environment consultancy from $3M to $30M, we thought the only way to grow was to hire seniors and load them up. 
 
More seniors meant more capacity. 
And more capacity meant more growth. 
 
We thought we had the structure right. 
 
But we were wrong. 
 
The business became top-heavy. 
Profit margins were constantly under pressure. 
Senior staff were stretched thin trying to do everything. 
And as founders, we were still deeply involved in delivery, training, and problem-solving. 
 
The business wasn’t profitable, scalable, or sustainable. 
 
The real issue? 
 
We were trying to grow without the right foundations in place. 
 
The truth is, most consultancies struggle because they don’t have the right team structure. 
 
— Too many expensive roles at the top 
— Not enough juniors coming through 
— No clear development pathway 
— And founders still carrying the load as the business grows 
 
Strong, profitable consultancies are built on proper foundations. 
 
Graduates coming into t...

Next week I’m running an online workshop called “The Graduate Growth System.” 
 
It’s designed to help you stop relying on senior hires as the primary way your business grows — and start building capacity and capability inside your consultancy, properly. 
 
If hiring senior staff is getting harder, slower and more expensive… 
 
If every new senior hire feels like a gamble on salary, habits and whether they’ll work out… 
 
Or if growth keeps stalling because your mid- and senior-level hires are a constant revolving door… 
 
This is your chance to fix it. 
 
In this session, I’ll walk you through the exact approach high-performing consultancies are using to: 

— Hire high-quality graduates without relying on Seek, recruiters or luck 
— Train grads in their standards, systems and culture so they add value early 
— Develop graduates through clear pathways into mid-level and senior roles 
— Reduce long-term reliance on expensive senior hires by growing talent internally 
 
Tuesday 10 February – 11:45am NSW ...

You’ve built a solid consultancy. 
 
You’ve got experience, capability, and a strong reputation. 
Clients trust you. 
The work is there. 
 
But there’s a problem. 
 
Growth keeps stalling because hiring feels like a gamble. 
 
Senior hires are getting harder, slower, and more expensive. 

 
You’re competing on salary. 
You’re inheriting bad habits and poor behaviours you don't want. 
You’re crossing your fingers and hoping they’ll “work out”... 
 
...all whilst paying a bomb for the privilege. 
 
So you do what most consultancy owners do: 
 
You delay hiring because it's too hard. 
You stretch your seniors. 
You absorb the work yourself. 
 
And then your growth slowly stalls. 
 
That’s the real issue. 
 
But the consultancies that grow sustainably don’t rely on senior hires as their primary growth strategy. 
 
They build capability from the ground up. 
They hire graduates intentionally. 
They train them in their standards, systems, and culture. 
And they develop their grads over time — into mid-level and then senior ...

Next week I’m running an online workshop called — "The Graduate Growth System". 
 
Where I’ll be showing you how to grow your consultancy by hiring, training and upskilling graduates — and developing them all the way through to senior roles. 
 
If hiring senior staff is getting harder, slower and more expensive… 
 
If you’re always competing on salary and inheriting bad habits in seniors you don’t want… 
 
Or if growth in your business keeps stalling because finding the “right” senior hire feels like a gamble… 
 
This workshop is designed to help you fix that — properly. 
 
The Graduate Growth System is about installing a repeatable system inside your consultancy that shows you how to hire high-quality graduates, train them in your standards and culture, and develop them over time into capable, confident mid-level and then senior team members. 
 
Register now >> Click Here
 
In this session, I’ll walk you through exactly how to: 
— Build a repeatable strategy for hiring graduates without relying on See...

As we were building our $30M engineering and built-environment consultancy, we kept thinking that motivation was the problem. 

If we just pushed harder. 
Stayed more disciplined. 
Held ourselves to a higher standard. 

But the real issue wasn’t effort at all. 

It was that the business had no rhythm. 

Every week was reactive. 
Everything felt urgent. 
And the important work — leadership, BD and strategy — kept getting drowned out by day-to-day noise. 

So we made a simple but strategic shift: 

We separated running the business from leading the business. 

First, we installed a fixed weekly operations meeting. 

Same time. Same agenda. 
Projects. People. Delivery. Capacity. 
Operations only. 

No strategy. 
No big ideas. 
No future-focused discussions. 

If it was operational, it lived here. 
If it wasn’t, it waited. 

Then, separately, we locked in a monthly strategic / board meeting. 

This was big-picture only: 

 
Direction. 
Priorities. 
What to stop. 
Wha...

In the past year, my client Quentin grew his business by 160%. 

That’s not a typo. 

In just 12 months, he: 

— 1.6x’d his revenue 

— Doubled the size of his team 

— Attracted top-tier clients that elevated his business 

Here’s what made it possible: 

— He upgraded his client base — 

Quentin got crystal clear on his ideal clients and stopped saying yes to everything.  

He focused on the right projects, with the right clients — ones that valued his expertise, paid well, and led to repeat work. 

— He built a consistent BD system — 

Instead of relying on referrals, Quentin installed our ‘LinkedIn Lead Gen’ outreach system. 

One that consistently generates warm leads and high-value opportunities - run by his team, not him. 

— He focused on high-value tasks — 

As the business grew, Quentin delegated delivery and built the right team structure. 

He followed our ‘Company Structure’ and ‘Hiring High Performers’ processes.  

And freed h...

When we grew our engineering & built environment consultancy to $30M, we didn’t have a blueprint. 

We didn’t have anyone showing us the next step. 

But we did have self-belief. 

We had a big vision and we backed ourselves. 

Sitting here now reflecting on 2025, and the goals our consultancy owner coaching clients hit in their businesses… 

(We celebrated in November with 28 of our clients hitting big revenue milestones in their consultancies). 

50% (or more) of the process is self-belief. 

When you’re below $1M, you can’t imagine hitting the $1M mark.  

When you’re at $1M, you can’t imagine hitting $3M. 

When you’re at $3M, you can’t imagine hitting $5M. 

And when you’re at $5M, you can’t imagine hitting $10M+. 

But trust me, you will get there. 

With enough belief in yourself and a willingness to continue to get uncomfortable. 

A willingness to build the skills required and uplevel yourself. 

Anything is possible. 

So here’s to...

2025 was a huge year - personally and professionally.

I grew so much in all areas of my life - it’s hard to distil down into my top 5.

But here they are:

1) Consistency gets rewarded. Doing something once is great, but when you commit to doing that thing over and over again - that’s when results come.

2) Experiences are better shared. I can a bit of a lone wolf at times, but reflecting on the most fun I had in 2025 - it was with others.

Family, mates, loved ones - it was all better when I was with those most important to me.

3) When you shift from tracking money to impact made - everything changes. Money is great - but it doesn’t feed the soul.

When I started tracking how much impact we’re making and how many people we’re helping - myself and our whole team lifted.

4) Gratitude is everything. When you can be grateful for your life, no matter what is going on, you become unstoppable.

5) Results through others is way better than results through me. Our team grew significantly...

Your Brand Isn’t a Witness Protection Program

But right now, no one knows you exist

Let’s be honest

Most consultancy brands look the same

Blue logo

Stock photo banner

Tagline that could’ve been written by ChatGPT in 2017


And the result?



You blend in so well you could join the witness protection program and no one would notice

The truth?

If your brand doesn’t stand out - your business starts to fade

And invisible consultancies don’t win market share, great clients or A-grade staff

They sit on the sideline and keep watching their competitors get all the attention

 
Let’s fix that


Next Wednesday, I’m running an online workshop called:

Stand Out, Build Your Brand & Grow Your Business // How to stop being vanilla and start becoming known

— Wednesday, 19th November


— 10:00am – 11:30am NSW time


— $100 to join


— Limited to 10 spots

 
Register now >> https://www.coachignite.com/offers/quxbyZG9/checkout 


This is a practical, no-fluff session for consultancy owners who are done hiding and ar...

For years, we were across every single thing in our engineering consulting business.  

Every client issue. Every proposal. Every decision. 

It felt safe - because we knew it would get done right. 

But it was also the biggest bottleneck on the business. 

We thought being across everything was good leadership. 

Setting an example for our team that we could “do it all”. 

Turns out we were actually sabotaging our own growth.  

And when we hit around $5M, all Directors were completely maxed out. 

The team couldn’t grow, because we hadn’t let them. 

And we couldn’t grow, because we were still doing their jobs for them.  

So we made a decision: 

We were going to let go. 

Not overnight, but deliberately. 

We started with one simple rule: 

If you delegate a task, delegate the decision making that comes with it. 

We focused on coaching the next level of leaders in the business. 

We built trust with them and in them.  

We stopped...