Service
Business Consulting for Small Business
A business consultant for small business usually means one of two things, and neither fits a company doing eight million.
Free call first, then the $1,500 Bottleneck Diagnostic
Key takeaways
- Advice written for sole traders does not fit you. Neither do firms whose minimum engagement is bigger than your annual profit.
- What these companies share is not an industry. It is a structure: one owner whose decisions still bind everything, and a management layer that has not been allowed to work yet.
- The diagnostic is paid for a reason. A free one is a sales call with a document attached.
- A paid diagnostic can end with a recommendation to do nothing. Sometimes it does.
A business consultant for small business usually means one of two things, and neither fits a company doing eight million. At one end there is the general small business consultant whose advice is written for sole traders and pre-revenue founders. At the other there are firms whose minimum engagement is larger than your annual profit. Companies between $500k and $50M fall in the middle and get sold whichever of the two is nearest.
What this covers
- Built for owner-led companies from $500k to $50M; we say no to the rest rather than reprice
- Bottleneck Diagnostic before any larger engagement is proposed
- The same person throughout, not a partner at the pitch and an analyst on delivery
- Findings delivered as a written document you keep, whether or not the work continues
- Interviews inside the company across at least 3 levels, not a survey emailed round
- 90-day advisory with a defined end state if the diagnostic warrants one
Who this is for
Owner-led companies with a team past the point where you know everything by walking around. What they share is not an industry. It is a structure: one owner whose decisions still bind the whole company, and a management layer that has not yet been allowed to do its job.
How it starts
With the Bottleneck Diagnostic, not a free consultation. It produces a written finding: where the real constraint sits, what the evidence is, and what order to fix things in. It involves interviews inside your company rather than a questionnaire, a read of the numbers you already have, and a look at how decisions actually move versus how the org chart says they move.
A free diagnostic is a sales call with a document attached, and it always finds whatever justifies the biggest follow-on. A paid one can end with a recommendation to do nothing. Sometimes it does.
What follows
If a longer engagement makes sense, the 90-day advisory has a defined end state and a written stop rule. If the diagnostic shows the problem is one your accountant should handle, that is what the document says, and the engagement ends there.
One person
Small business consulting has a built-in failure: the person who wins the work is not the person who does it. Here there is no pyramid. The person in the diagnostic interviews is the person in every session afterwards. That limits how many clients we take, and it is why we are open about the revenue band.
Alternatives
Business growth consulting when revenue has flattened and the question is about capacity or sales. Organizational development consulting, or a business management consultant in plainer terms, when the company runs badly rather than sells badly. Executive coaching when the diagnostic points at your own decisions, which it does more often than owners expect.
| First step | A free 30-minute call |
|---|---|
| Then | The Bottleneck Diagnostic, $1,500, fixed |
| After that | Scoped and priced from what the diagnostic finds |
| Delivery | Virtual, or on site by arrangement |
| Built for | Owner-led companies, $500k–$50M revenue |
| If we are not the fix | We say so on the call |
Next step
How to start
Book a free call. We talk for about thirty minutes about your company and what is stuck. If it sounds like something we can help with, the next step is the Bottleneck Diagnostic, a fixed piece of work at $1,500 that tells you in writing what is actually holding the company back. Any work after that is scoped and priced from what the diagnostic finds. If it turns out we are not the right fit, we will tell you on the call.
Locations
Business Consulting for Small Business by city
Start with a free call
Thirty minutes about your company and what is stuck. If we can help, the next step is the $1,500 Bottleneck Diagnostic. If we cannot, we will say so.