Neither really. I sit somewhere between the two. I’ll give you the strategic thinking and commercial perspective you’d expect from a consultant, but I don’t stop at advice. I design what your business needs, then build, optimise and manage it for you. That might involve websites, search, advertising, conversion, branding or bringing in other specialists when needed. You deal directly with me throughout.

Mostly established businesses that are already good at what they do but could be considerably better at winning new customers. Often they’ve grown through reputation, referrals and repeat business while their marketing and digital presence have fallen behind. That’s usually where I can make the biggest difference.

Generally established SMEs. Turnover and headcount aren't particularly useful measures on their own. I’m more interested in whether you have a proven business, good customers and enough commercial opportunity to make improving things worthwhile.

No. A lot of my experience is B2B, manufacturing, construction and specialist services, but I've worked with consumer businesses too. The fundamentals are much the same: find the right people, give them a compelling reason to choose you and make it easy for them to buy.

That’s often the best starting point. I’m much more interested in making a good business better than trying to rescue a bad one. If you've built a successful company through reputation, referrals or a strong sales team, there may be a lot of untapped growth sitting in how you market and present the business online.

Give me a look at the business. I’ll look at what you sell, how you present it, how customers find you, what your competitors are doing and where I think opportunities are being missed. If I don't think there's enough of an opportunity to justify doing something, I'll tell you.

Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes the website is genuinely holding the business back. Sometimes it just needs better messaging, structure or conversion. I’d rather improve what you've got for £2,000 than sell you a £10,000 website you don't need.

Yes, but I see them as tools rather than services I need to sell. If SEO represents a big commercial opportunity, we should probably do SEO. If Google Ads doesn't stack up commercially, we shouldn't spend money on Google Ads. The answer depends on the business.

Absolutely. I don't need to replace everybody to be useful. I can identify the opportunities, set the direction and work with your existing people to make it happen. Equally, if there are gaps, I can bring in the right people to fill them.

Both. I can advise, direct, lead or partner depending on what the business needs. Sometimes you just need someone experienced to tell you what to do. Sometimes you need somebody to take responsibility for making it happen.

The business, not the marketing. What do you sell? Who buys it? Why do they choose you? Where's the money made? How do new customers currently find you? Where are you losing opportunities? Once we understand that, deciding what to do with the website, Google or advertising becomes much easier.

A combination of experience, data and digging. I'll look at your business, customers, competitors, website, search market, advertising, analytics and customer journey. Usually the interesting opportunities appear when you stop looking at each of those things separately and start joining them together.

It depends on what we find. Changing a weak proposition or fixing a poor conversion journey can make a difference quickly. Building meaningful Google visibility can take months. I won't manufacture a timescale to make something easier to sell. I'll tell you what I think is realistic.

No. Anyone sensible should be wary of someone guaranteeing revenue or Google rankings. What I can do is find genuine opportunities, make sensible commercial decisions, execute them properly and measure whether they're working.

Ultimately, commercially. Traffic, rankings, clicks and impressions are useful, but they're not the objective. I’m much more interested in whether you're generating more of the right enquiries, customers, sales and revenue.

It depends on what your business needs and how involved you want me to be. Some work is agreed as a fixed-fee project, while ongoing work is usually based on an agreed monthly fee, from £1500 + VAT. For the right business, I’ll also consider investing my time and expertise in return for a share in the upside. We’ll agree everything upfront, so you’ll always know what you’re paying and what I’m responsible for.

Because I'm not trying to sell you an agency. I've spent 25 years running, building and growing businesses as well as understanding how to market them. That means I tend to look at marketing as a business owner would: what are we spending, what are we trying to achieve and is this actually going to make the business better?

We just have a conversation. You don't need a brief and you don't need to diagnose the problem before we speak. Tell me about the business, where you want to get to and what isn't working as well as you'd like. I'll take it from there.

If I think I can help, I’ll explain where I see the biggest opportunities and what I’d do next. From there, we can dig deeper, agree what needs to change and put a plan together. There’s no obligation to go any further. If we decide to work together, I’ll take responsibility for getting the right things built, improved and working together.