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Business Growth Consultant - Why work with Mack Bhatia

What to Look For When Growth Starts to Feel Harder

Hiring a business growth consultant often begins with a simple goal: grow faster.

But for many founders and operators, the real reason they start looking for help is more nuanced. Growth may still be happening, yet it feels harder, heavier, and more fragile than it used to.

This article is written from the perspective of someone who has reached that point — where growth exists, but clarity doesn’t — and is trying to understand what kind of business growth consultant actually makes a difference.

When Do Companies Start Looking for a Business Growth Consultant?

Most businesses don’t look for a consultant when things are broken.

They look when:

• Revenue is increasing but effort is increasing faster
• Growth stalls unexpectedly after early success
• The founder becomes the bottleneck for decisions
• New hires don’t unlock leverage the way they should
• Every initiative feels urgent, but few feel foundational

At this stage, the problem usually isn’t motivation, ambition, or opportunity.

It’s structure.

Why “More Growth Advice” Often Doesn’t Work

Many business growth consultants offer advice that sounds reasonable in isolation:

• Improve marketing
• Hire sales
• Add new channels
• Optimize conversion rates
• Expand into new markets

The issue isn’t that these ideas are wrong. The issue is that growth problems rarely live in one function.

When growth advice doesn’t account for:

• Cash flow timing
• Operational capacity
• Decision ownership
• System dependencies
• Founder bandwidth

It can unintentionally increase complexity instead of reducing it. This is where many founders begin to feel that growth is working against them.

The Difference Between Growth and Scalability

One of the most important distinctions a business growth consultant should help clarify is the difference between growth and scalability.

Growth often looks like:

• More activity
• More initiatives
• More decisions
• More people
• More pressure

Scalability looks different:

• Fewer repeated decisions
• Clear ownership
• Predictable revenue flow
• Systems that absorb volume
• Less dependency on individuals

When growth outpaces structure, the business may get bigger — but not stronger.

What Founders Are Really Looking For

Founders searching for a business growth consultant are rarely asking: “How do I grow?”

They are asking:

• Why does growth feel chaotic?
• Why does progress slow when revenue increases?
• Why do problems keep reappearing in new forms?
• Why does everything still come back to me?

These questions don’t point to a tactic gap.

They point to a systems gap.

Why Systems Matter More Than Tactics

Businesses grow through actions, but they scale through systems.

A capable business growth consultant understands:

• How revenue flows end-to-end
• Where friction accumulates
• Why certain constraints repeat
• How decisions propagate across teams
• Where automation helps — and where it doesn’t

Rather than prescribing tactics, they help surface:

• What should exist so growth becomes easier
• What decisions should no longer require the founder
• What processes need to stabilize before expansion
• What metrics actually indicate health

This kind of thinking often feels calmer, slower, and more deliberate — but it compounds.

Operator Experience vs Theoretical Advice

One of the clearest signals of an effective business growth consultant is operator thinking.

Operator-minded consultants tend to:

• Ask more questions before offering solutions
• Respect constraints instead of ignoring them
• Understand trade-offs between speed, margin, and stability
• View growth decisions as interconnected, not isolated

This perspective matters because poor growth advice isn’t neutral — it’s expensive.

Bad advice can:

• Erode margins
• Break teams
• Strain cash flow
• Increase founder burnout

Good advice simplifies the system.

From Founder-Led Growth to System-Led Revenue

Many businesses succeed early because the founder:

• Makes fast decisions
• Holds context in their head
• Connects dots intuitively
• Pushes things forward personally

But as the business grows, this strength becomes a constraint.

At this stage, the role of a business growth consultant isn’t to replace the founder — it’s to help translate founder intuition into systems.

That transition often includes:

• Clear decision frameworks
• Defined ownership
• Repeatable revenue processes
• Better alignment between strategy and execution



When this happens, growth stops feeling fragile.

What to Look For in a Business Growth Consultant

After experiencing both helpful and unhelpful guidance, certain criteria become clear.

A strong business growth consultant typically:

• Thinks in systems, not slogans
• Has operated within real businesses
• Understands revenue beyond top-line numbers
• Cares about sustainability, not just speed
• Helps reduce dependency, not increase it

Most importantly, they don’t make growth louder.

They make it clearer.

Growth Should Feel Calmer, Not Heavier

One of the clearest indicators that the right help is present is emotional, not tactical.

Instead of feeling:

• More urgency
• More chaos
• More pressure

You begin to feel:

• Clearer priorities
• Fewer repeated decisions
• Better alignment
• More leverage

That’s when growth starts to feel like something the business can carry — not something it survives.

Final Thoughts

Searching for a business growth consultant isn’t about finding someone with the best ideas.

It’s about finding someone who understands:

• Why growth breaks
• Where structure matters
• How systems create leverage
• When to slow down to move faster

The right conversations don’t feel promotional or overwhelming.

They feel grounding.

And that clarity often becomes the foundation for sustainable growth.

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