For SME and scale-up leaders

Grow faster than you are growing today.

You may be doing well and want to accelerate. You may still be the one doing most of the selling, or you may have a team that is working hard and not quite landing the next stage. Either way, I help you find the few levers that will lift revenue, volume, margin and market share, and a clear path you can take yourselves.

  1. 01Growth AssessmentFree, about five minutes
  2. 02Growth InsightAI-powered, a few weeks
  3. 03Growth PathwayYour plan, included
The problem

The familiar fixes are expensive, slow, and often aimed at the wrong thing.

When growth levels off, the instinct is to reach for what worked last time. A new sales leader. A new system. A programme for the whole team. Those can be the right answer. Often they are not, and the new person inherits exactly the same problem.

  • Revenue has flattened

    Work is still coming in, but the curve is not as steep as it was, or as steep as the plan.

  • Margins are tightening

    Discounts creep in, bigger deals earn less, and it is hard to say exactly where the profit goes.

  • Too much still sits with you

    In many businesses this size, the owner or one salesperson still carries the selling. That got you here. It will not scale the next stage.

  • The team is rewarded to compete

    Pay and recognition can set people against each other. A new sales leader walks into that on day one.

  • The playbook is running out

    Radical changes to the team, a bigger IT spend, another training programme. Costly, slow, and no guarantee it is the real constraint.

  • The way ahead is cloudy

    Turbulent markets and uncertainty around AI are making it harder to commit the 2027 budget.

What moves growth now is knowing which levers to pull, and in what order.

Whatever you did that got you to where you are today is not necessarily what will get you to where you need to be.
What is really going on

The problem you can see is rarely the one holding you back.

These are things I hear from leaders every week. Each one sounds like the answer. Often the real cause sits somewhere else, and it is usually cheaper to fix.

  • What leaders say: “Sales have stalled, so we need a new sales director.”

    What is often really going on: Why fire the sales VP when the team is not rewarded to work together in the first place? The new person inherits the same problem.

  • What leaders say: “Everyone needs sales training.”

    What is often really going on: If one or two people are letting the team down, focused coaching costs far less than shaking up how everyone sells. You do not need to spend fifty thousand pounds to find that out.

  • What leaders say: “We need a better CRM.”

    What is often really going on: Why improve the system if people do not like sharing information with each other? A new tool will not create a habit that is not there.

  • What leaders say: “We should change how people are paid.”

    What is often really going on: Changing the compensation plan is often the hardest conversation, and often the one that matters. When people are rewarded to win together, information starts to flow.

  • What leaders say: “The team just needs to work harder.”

    What is often really going on: Sometimes the pressure comes from the top. When results are demanded without bringing people with you, effort drops rather than rises.

  • What leaders say: “Customers keep going elsewhere.”

    What is often really going on: Sometimes the product or delivery is the issue, and salespeople spend their time with customers apologising for it.

Why now

The 2027 plan is being written now.

The last quarter of the year is when budgets are set and priorities agreed. What you commit to in the next ninety days will shape the whole of next year.

Turbulent markets are splitting firms into those who freeze and those who get their act together. The ones who get clear on their growth levers now take market share from those who wait.

Levers and opportunities

Where the growth usually is in a business like yours.

Growth Insight looks at all six in your business, using your team's views and your own numbers, and tells you which to pull first. Most businesses need two or three, rather than all six. Some of the highest-value changes cost far less than a new hire or a new system.

  1. 01

    How the team is rewarded

    Pay and recognition that encourage people to win together, rather than guard their own accounts. Often the hardest lever to talk about, and often the one that moves the rest.

    What changes: Colleagues start helping each other close, and information flows.

  2. 02

    Leadership direction

    Working with the managing director or head of sales, so pressure turns into a direction the team can believe in. In a smaller business, that person may still be you.

    What changes: The team understands the target and owns it.

  3. 03

    The one or two

    Focused coaching for the people who hold the team back, or the star who will not follow the process. Cheaper, faster, and kinder than retraining everyone.

    What changes: The whole team performs as a team, without a costly shake-up.

  4. 04

    Sales capability

    Ready-to-run programmes in opportunity management, negotiation, account management and indirect channels, when the gap is genuinely wide.

    What changes: More of the right deals won, at better margins.

  5. 05

    Information and pipeline

    Accurate, shared information about customers and deals, so decisions rest on facts. The habit comes before the system.

    What changes: Forecasts you can plan around.

  6. 06

    The whole business

    Product, operations and delivery that make selling easier, rather than harder. Growth is rarely a sales-only problem.

    What changes: Salespeople spend their time selling, rather than apologising.

What real growth could look like

Most leaders I work with want one, two or three of these.

You want to improve revenue, sales volume, profit margins and market share. You want to grow faster than you are growing today. And you want to do it yourselves, with a plan you own.

  • Faster growthThan you are achieving today, from a strong position or a flat one.
  • More revenueFrom the customers and markets you already know.
  • More sales volumeA team that wins more of the right work, without it all sitting with you.
  • Better marginsMore of each pound kept as profit, and a clear view of where it is made.
  • Greater market shareTaken while others hesitate.
The road to 2027

From where you are today, to growth that lasts.

  1. NowA shared view

    Your leadership team agrees on what is really holding growth back.

  2. First 90 daysEarly wins

    Low-cost changes: coaching one or two people, or fixing how information is shared.

  3. 2027Growing faster

    Revenue, volume and margin moving the right way, with a team pulling together.

  4. BeyondGrowth you control

    Habits and measures you own, without depending on outside help.

What changes

Before and after.

  • Working harder for the same resultsA team pulling in the same direction
  • Guessing which fix to fundSpending on the levers that matter
  • You carrying too much of the sellingGrowth the whole team owns
  • Margins you cannot quite explainKnowing where profit is made
Why this path

Faster and less costly than the familiar fixes, and built around you.

You want to control your own destiny. This path gives you the insight and the plan, and leaves the decisions with you. I will not sell you something you do not need, or that will not work.

Weeks, not months

A few weeks to find the real constraint, before you commit to a new hire, a new system or a fifty-thousand-pound programme.

Built on your own data

Every recommendation comes from your people and your numbers, which is why teams act on it.

AI-powered

Patterns across your whole team show up clearly, then I test them against thirty years of experience.

An outside view

People tell an outsider what they would never say in the boardroom.

You stay in control

You own the plan and the credit. Run it yourselves, or with my support, until you do not need me.

Nothing you do not need

I build what is needed from what your data says. Coaching, a sales programme or a hire, only if the plan calls for it.

A story from the field

The sales problem that was not about sales.

Some years ago I delivered a £60,000 sales training programme for a company in the Midlands. The owners were engineers, perfectionists in some parts of the product and struggling in others.

What we heard from the salespeople was that they spent their time out with customers apologising for product problems, and losing business because of it. The owners had not come to a single session.

At one point we had to get them into the room and say so. The sales team was never the whole story. That is why I start with growth across the whole business, and why the first step is always to understand what is really going on.

LinkedIn recommendations

What clients and colleagues say.

Stephen was a great mentor of mine for several years. He helped me see past the problems I was facing to the key issues underneath.
Oliver Cwikowski
Senior Lead System Design Specialist, Ørsted
August 2025 · Worked on the same team
Stephen is a consummate sales and marketing coach, helping companies to achieve step-change growth.
Martin Coombes
Co-Owner, Odyssey Pensions
February 2014 · Stephen was Martin's client
I first met Stephen shortly after I opened my business some years ago. Today we have grown considerably.
Dave Slemen
Founding Partner, EPP
November 2019 · Stephen's client
Questions

What people usually ask.

Still wondering? Book a short conversation, without obligation.

We are growing already. Why would we need this?

Many of the leaders I work with are successful and want to go faster. Knowing which levers to pull next matters just as much when things are going well, and it is cheaper to find out before you commit the 2027 budget.

We are a small team. Does this still work?

Yes. In a smaller business the levers are often a handful of people, including the owner doing much of the selling. Growth Insight scales to the size of your leadership team.

Will you tell us to replace people?

Only if your data points that way, and it rarely starts there. Often one or two people need focused coaching, or the way the team is rewarded needs to change, so everyone works together.

Will the findings name individuals?

No. Findings describe patterns across the team, so people can be honest. Where someone needs support, the plan says what kind, without singling anyone out.

What does it cost?

The Growth Assessment is free. Growth Insight is agreed after a first conversation, and the Growth Pathway is included.

Start with ten honest questions.

The Growth Assessment takes about five minutes and your results appear straight away. If it raises something worth talking about, you can book a conversation with me, without obligation.