In the early years of building our engineering and built environment consultancy from $3M to $30M, we said yes to everything. 

Every client. 
Every opportunity. 
Every “quick favour.” 

It worked… at first. 

That approach helped us grow to around $3M. 

But after that, it started to hurt us. 

Profit margins got really tight. 
Clients kept asking for more and more. 
The team was stretched. 
We were constantly in reactive mode. 

Growth got really hard and heavy. 

The big shift for us came when we stopped asking, “How do we win more work?” 

And started asking ourselves, “What should we say no to?” 

We got ruthless on client fit. 
We tightened scope and commercial terms. 
We actually started putting our hand up when variations came along. 
And we doubled down on the work we were genuinely strong at. 

What surprised us was that revenue didn’t fall. 

It actually improved. 

Profit margins got better. 
The team were happier and more efficient. 
The business ...

You can’t do everything yourself - and you shouldn’t be. 

Your business is your baby - I get it.  

It’s easier and quicker when you do it yourself.  

But are you happy with how much of “you” is still required for everything to run? 

Do you get to focus on the high value work and big picture elements that move the business forward? 

Or are you stuck in your emails and doing admin work?  

If you want to grow your consultancy and do the work that lights you up. 

It starts with you letting go. 

Delegating low value project work. 

Hiring some (or more) admin support. 

Bringing in an Ops Manager or GM to help run the day to day. 

And letting go of the tasks that you’re currently doing. 

So you can focus on the work and the actions that will grow you to the next level. 

But it all starts with you making the decision to let go. 

To your success, 

Josh 

PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now: 

1.  Gra...

We just spent the weekend in Noosa with an incredible group of people. 

All friends. 
All business owners. 

It rained the entire time. 

Didn’t matter. 

The conversations and connection were better than the weather. 

No small talk. 
No negativity. 
No whinging about the rain. 

We spoke about growth. 
Hiring. 
Structure. 
Big plays for the next 12–24 months. 

I drove home energised. Clear. 

With sharper ideas for our business. 
And better ways to help our clients win. 

Here’s the truth. 

If you’re in a circle that thinks small, plays safe and normalises average… 
you will too. 

Not because you don’t have big goals. 

But because the people you surround yourself with dictate your results in life. 

The opposite is true as well. 

When you’re around people building proper businesses… 
thinking long-term… 
having the hard conversations… 

You lift. 

So have a look at your inner circle. 

Are they pushing you to level up? 

Or keeping y...

Tomorrow we’re running “The Graduate Growth System” online workshop — and if you’ve been on the fence, this is your nudge. 
 
Most consultancy owners I speak to are running "OK" businesses.  
 
But they’re stuck because the structure underneath the business isn’t set up to support growth. 
 
Here are a few real examples from Boardroom coaching clients who have put the right foundations into their business: 
 
— Andy hired his first team member and immediately freed himself up to focus on higher-value work instead of doing everything himself 
— Jordan brought a graduate civil engineer into the business, strengthening delivery capacity without adding more pressure to himself 
— Meredith hired and onboarded junior planners with a clear structure, allowing the business to grow while buying back founder time 
 
Take a quick look at tomorrow’s calendar. 
 
Now back to me. 
Now back to your calendar. 
Now back to me. 
 
Tomorrow, you could keep trying to grow using the wrong structure for your business… 
 
…or y...

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...