Transforming Journey4 into a sustainable rapid-growth consultancy  

Experts in customer-led growth and transformation, Journey4, needed guidance to shift to a sustainable high-growth consultancy, with a strategy specifically geared towards a business sale and exit for the shareholders. That’s where The Consultancy Growth Network came in.

Guidance from the Network’s Growth Experts has been crucial; from an initial strategic review with Marc Jantzen, to working on their proposition and sales process with Dom Moorhouse, to meeting Marcia Marini on the Network’s Growth Accelerator Programme (GAP) and subsequently engaging Marcia as a member of the Board.

As Stuart Pearce, Director and Owner at Journey4 explains, “What stood out the most for me were the Growth Experts. People who had experience running, building, and growing their own consultancy business. The opportunity to learn lessons from them was the perfect blend of real-world experience, best practice, and reassurance that the problems you were facing were commonly found in a consultancy our size and we could learn from others who had faced the same problems”.

“We considered appointing a Non-Executive Director from outside the network, but when we looked at the benefits of the Advisory membership package offered by The Consultancy Growth Network we decided to upgrade from Professional membership and take advantage of the opportunity of having a Growth Expert become a member of our Board. We were spoilt for choice, as they are all equally experienced and qualified”.

Journey4 engaged with the Network’s specialist providers, such as New Minds for their people strategy, SBR Consulting for sales training, Wallace for shareholder and employment contracts, The Wow Company for company valuation and Fogarty and Patchett to build their website. The Network’s community team, particularly George Berrington, have helped Journey4 to leverage all that The Consultancy Growth Network has to offer, from in-person networking events to roundtables, referral events and online workshops with the Growth Experts and resources on the Growth Hub.

This has made a huge impact on their performance, as Stuart explains, “The biggest change for us as owners has been to recognise the importance of working ‘on’ the business, and not ‘in’ the business. We are currently on track with our budget and with our valuation estimate as we seek to build a sustainable, high-growth business. We continue to engage actively with the Network and access everything it has to offer.”

Benefits delivered by The Consultancy Growth Network

• Advisory level membership opened doors to involve more leaders from Journey4 in everything the Networks offers, from webinars and events to resources on the Growth Hub.
• Provided the tools and support to help us effectively develop and implement a new People Plan, recruiting talented Consultants and Associates.
• Enabled the upgrade of Journey4’s website efficiently and with great success through the Network’s specialist providers.
• Enlisted a highly experienced Growth Expert to join the Journey4 Board.
• Members of the Journey4 team have benefitted individually from the support offered by the network, the connections made via the interactive Slack channel and the relationships built through meetings and events.
• As owners, access to experienced guidance and resources saved time personally and provided confidence in what they were implementing.
• Learning from other people’s mistakes has saved time in implementing strategies and plans based on the advice of others.
• The Network’s Sales training programme has helped a Journey4 team member to develop their sales skills whilst also helping to refine the organisation’s sales process and build a strong sales pipeline.
• The Network’s specialised legal advisors have improved our key employment contracts and shaped our long term incentive plan for our people.