Business growth consultants: what they do and when to hire one.

These get confused, and the difference decides whether you get results.

A marketing agency drives more leads — useful only if the constraint is demand.

A coach develops the owner's thinking.

A growth consultant, or advisor, works across the whole business to remove whatever is actually limiting growth, which is often not marketing at all.

Best when the constraint is Generate more leads and traffic Genuinely a lack of demand Develop the owner's decisions Clarity and accountability Growth consultant / advisor Remove the whole-business constraint Pricing, sales, delivery or founder dependency More leads don't help a business that can't convert or deliver them.

Most stalled businesses do not have a lead problem.

They have a conversion, pricing or capacity problem that more leads only expose.

What they do Best when the constraint is Marketing agency Generate more leads and traffic Genuinely a lack of demand Business coach Develop the owner's decisions Clarity and accountability Growth consultant / advisor Remove the whole-business constraint Pricing, sales, delivery or founder dependency

Ongoing growth advisory typically runs $1,500–$10,000 per month one-to-one, or $500–$2,500 per month in a group programme.

Project-based work runs $5,000–$50,000 depending on scope.

What moves the price is the consultant's operating experience, not the hours — and the honest way to judge it is against the constraint: what is the ceiling costing you per month in growth you cannot reach?