Navigate confidently through every stage of small business growth
For small and medium business owners who’ve reached a point where what happens next matters a lot and quality of decisions will determine the outcome.
What’s your next business move?
It is a question we ask ourselves every day. As a business leader we need to make multiple decisions on a daily basis.
And we need to be confident that our decisions will lead to positive outcomes and not lead to the end of the business and all of the hard work we have put in.
If this feels heavier than it used to, don’t take it to mean you’re failing, it’s a growth stage problem.
What got you to where you are now, probably won’t get you to where you want to get to.
And this is a pivotal point. For many smaller businesses these transition points are make or break.
If it feels familiar, you’re not alone and this is exactly what we help leaders navigate with confidence.
If you’re keen to get moving, start with our complementary mini-diagnostic to gain instant clarity.
How we help
Most business support programs and education focuses on tactics, the specific action (e.g. ‘how to do social media’ or ‘how to export your product’).
We focus on ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’. This isn’t just learning the ‘how’ to do something, this is determining exactly what you can do, based on your unique conditions, that ensures the most successful outcome and then helps you do to it. Building your strategic decision capability and confidence to execute.
We help you:
Understand your starting position, stage and potential through diagnostics rooted in years of small business success research
Develop a bespoke and actionable strategy through guided online activities you work through week by week
Be surprised at your ability to remember frameworks that help you make future decisions with learning that is designed to stick. You’ll have a tool box you can reference to make better decisions quickly
Build confidence in your own decisions working with accredited and experience business coaches to help you align your strategy with your personal potential as a leader
Get guidance and insights from those who have been in your shoes or who know more about your market to save you months from wandering in the dark.
Increase your digital fluency, especially with AI, and how you capitalise on technology to enable faster progress
Sustain progress with accountability, through a structured process, 1:1 support and a community of like-minded business leaders.
Learn more about our flagship support program Next-Level Growth Program
“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do”
Who this is for
We’re here for every small and medium sized business owner/leader. We get the biggest transformations when you feel like one of the following applies:
You’re working hard but unsure what to prioritise next
You’re not sure why things aren’t quite working as you’d hoped
You’ve built something solid and don’t want to get the next stage wrong
You feel like the bottleneck or know you’re about to become one
Being clear and confident as your business leader, and having a strategy and plan you’ll actually use, is important to you
You have a number of options and directions you can take and you’re unsure which one would be best
You are looking to enter a new market, new territory or bring a new offering to market and you’d like to shorten the time it takes for you to understand how to do it so it works.
I credit a lot of our current success to the program! You’ve allowed me to think incredibly clearly about what our product is, who our target customer is, what problem we’re solving and so much more. As of the 10th of this month, we’ve got nearly $1m in confirmed orders and in the past month have scaled ten-fold!
Daniel, Medihood
The people who love what we do
We’re not for everyone, this is a partnership where you get out what you put in.
Business leaders who value their results, reputation and their time plus the ability to be able to think for themselves, strategically and critically, are a perfect fit for us.
This is because what we work on together not only saves them time, it empowers them to navigate complex situations, make informed decisions and drive meaningful change in their field in the most efficient way possible.
We’re not exclusive here, but we find that the following business leaders value our approach the most:
Passionate and Purpose-driven business owners: Those that are driven by the potential of their business, care deeply about the impact on their customers and want the best support to help them achieve their goals faster. They are passionate about what they do, have deep expertise in it and need help to develop their business knowledge and skills.
Female Leaders: that seek a credible, flexible yet structured approach to building their leadership skills, confidence and reputation in her (sometimes male-dominated) industry.
Complex Industries: Those in sectors like advanced manufacturing, technology, space, defence, health, robotics, renewables, transport and engineering. Those who value high performance training that is specifically tailored to their complex and important markets.
Technical, Creative and Service-Based Businesses: Those for whom had a ‘craft’ or specialism and didn’t really consider themselves a business person but who now has or is building something bigger than they thought and they need help to build their business skills, but in a practical and relevant way to them, to take their business to the next stage.
“Through the support of 25eight, we were able to present ourselves with confidence, build the networks and establish key milestones of establishing our worldwide distribution agreement and getting our first order with a global Aerospace company”
Kheang Khauv - 1 Millikelvin
Growth isn’t about doing more. It’s about deciding better.
Work smarter, not harder.
In today’s world, it is not necessarily about what you know (although that’s useful) because we have so much information at our fingertips, it is in your ability to discern (to recognise, perceive or understand something) so you choose the best information, best thing to focus on and best decision to make.
You may not have considered yourself a business person or leader when you first set out, however, that is who you are now. Your strategic leadership capabilities become increasingly important as the complexity in your business grows to help ensure its success without burning you out. Having a strategy and the confidence to action it, act as a decision infrastructure, helping you make better and faster decisions. Tools, tactics, and advice only work when decisions are clear. Your increased clarity is transformative.
“Strategy is not a lengthy action plan. It is the evolution of a central idea through continually changing circumstances. ”
Consider your stage of business growth, the common challenges and what you would benefit from
My biggest challenge is finding my place in the market and standing out so that my ideal customers find me
At this early stage of growth, you will probably be trying to work out how to attract more customers and build a solid foundation for your business. Whether you have just started out or haven’t quite got the traction with customers you were hoping for yet, it can be one of the toughest spot to navigate through.
The other tricky bit here is often you don’t have a lot of cash to play with too, so everything you spend money on needs to give you the best return on investment. We get it and our programs focus on ensuring we get maximum impact from the action you put in.
What you will benefit from:
Ensuring your have the right product or service for the right market. Sounds reasonably simple, however, if you haven’t found regular customers yet, you may have the wrong market or you may need to tweak your offering or the way you position it for the market you are targeting.
There is also so much you could do at this stage, knowing where to start or what to focus on first that will help you move things forward (rather than feeling like you’re going in circles) will significantly accelerate your progress.
At this stage getting support through a program that includes 1:1 coaching and mentoring helps you determine the low effort, high impact activities that get you out of just existing, helps you to validate what it is you do and for whom and then get your positioning and messaging right to connect with your ideal customers. It also helps you create the systems you need to prevent you from feeling like you’re on a hamster wheel. 25eight’s Next-Level Growth Program aims to get you to that next stage so you’re worrying less about where the next dollar is coming from, how you’re going to get everything done and what you need to focus on, and fast.
My biggest challenge is stabilising sales, building a pipeline so I can get off the hamster wheel
You’ve survived up to this point, but things still feel a little unstable. You’re making sales, but you need more consistency. You might ask yourself how do you generate steady revenue or how can I streamline my operations to keep up.
We know that this stage can feel like a juggling act, but we can help you focus on what will actually move the dial.
What you will benefit from:
A diagnostic to identify your gaps to understand what is working and what you can focus on to create that stability.
Guidance as you transition from just working in the business to working on the business and the systems of support you need to grow, potentially including your first hire or first senior hire.
A support team that helps you stabilise, build that profitable pipeline and create that operating machine. 25eight’s Next-Level Growth Program will focus on exactly what you need to do to ‘level up’ both in your business and as a leader.
Get support from a community of like-minded business leaders whilst working together to develop and action your most targeted growth strategy you have every created in our Next Level Growth Program
I want to scale and fast. I need the right systems in place so nothing breaks on my way to the top!
You’re doing ok, you’re profitable, you’ve got a solid customer base, but you are now wondering what is the next step to growth. Should you expand into new markets, fix your staffing issues or launch a new product?
This is where growth starts to get exciting, but also a little tricky. Having an evidence-based proven process to help you make sure you make the right decisions on the next steps is where we can help you.
What you will benefit from:
25eight’s Next-Level Growth Program quickly identifies the gaps in your business and helps you determine the most important goal to focus on. Then builds your knowledge in key areas whilst supporting you to action what you learn. Your strategic leadership skills are enhanced and progress in business is propelled. You’ll grow as a leader and strengthen your management skills, so you ensure you’re running your business and your business is not running you.
If you are looking to enter a new sector, a new territory or international market and need to consider your business’ position and how you expand successful, 25eight’s Industry Growth Program is for established SMEs aspiring to expand or needing to transition into new markets. Build your strategy whilst learning from global and domestic supply chain and procurement experts and industry leaders who have been in your shoes and done it successfully.
I’m ready to grow….and want to do it properly and without burning out
Your business is growing, maybe even faster than you expected. Now you’re thinking, how do I manage this growth sustainably without sacrificing quality or burning out me or my team?
Getting the right systems in place to make sure nothing breaks (and if it does, it’s fixed quickly), is important at this stage.
What you will benefit from:
25eight’s Next-Level Growth Program quickly identifies the gaps in your business and helps you determine the most important goal to focus on. Then builds your knowledge in key areas whilst supporting you to action what you learn. Your strategic leadership skills are enhanced and progress in business is propelled. You will also be coached on how to manage growth effectively transforming yourself from a small to medium sized business leader and beyond.
We also offer a fully bespoke hands-on program of support for businesses that need to develop the effective systems and resources for fast growth. Contact us today to find out how we can help you scale.
I need to stay relevant in the market, stay ahead of the competition and ensure I leave a business legacy
You’ve been around for a while, and now it’s all about staying competitive while maintaining stability so you can leave a legacy. You might be asking yourself how you stay ahead of the ever-increasing competition, how do you keep up with technological advancements or how can you give back and make a positive impact in your community.
We can help you stay strong, relevant and impactful.
What you will benefit from:
Next-Level Growth Program is also great at helping to pinpoint innovative ways to increase your competitive advantage and inefficiency gaps in your operations, looks at your tech stack and how you can build tools and artificial intelligence into your workflows to maximise you and your teams time as well as building further value for your business. It can also help you to identify how you can elevate your leadership skills and get coached to become the enterprising leader you know you are capable of being.
Launching a new product or expanding into a new market? Ensure you get maximum return on your efforts, review your competitive advantage and strategically position your business for success through our Industry Growth Program.
We also offer a fully bespoke hands-on program of support for businesses that have a specific strategic, growth, digital or innovation need. Contact us today to find out how we can help you take your business further.
Not sure which is your biggest challenge?
Take the mini-diagnostic quiz to get insights into exactly what you can do to grow
Acheive a meaningful outcome for your business
A ‘one size fits all’ approach does not work in our increasingly competitive and complex business environment, whether you are targeting domestic or international markets.
Our programs help you achieve a meaningful outcome for your business. This might be specific, such as a focus on customer acquisition or a focus on your operational efficiencies when you need to scale effectively.
Or we might work with you to help you determine the most important outcome specific to helping you reach the next stage of growth - where we focus on all enablers of high performing business and ensure you have them.
Regardless of which program you participate in with 25eight, your progress towards achieving something impactful for your business will be accelerated.
Helping you to do more in less time.
As if you had an extra hour in the day and day in the week.
A case study in the long term benefits of our programs
How we helped Standard Ledger from go to grow
The Challenge
Standard Ledger is an accounting firm embracing virtual and doing things differently, serving startups and high-growth SMEs. They had huge ambitions to expand their markets domestically and internationally. They needed a growth strategy and guidance to implement it. Over time, as their team grew, they needed support to ensure their systems and processes and how best to utilise the tech they invested in for each team didn’t compromise on the customer experience and their growth ambitions.
The Solution
Over a year-long strategy and capability-building program with 25eight, Standard Ledger developed a growth strategy through education, coaching, and mentorship. While they gained strategic clarity, they needed support implementing it. 25eight continued with them in 90-day cycles, helping integrate their tech stack and build a digital strategy to optimise their tools. As their team and operations expanded, we streamlined their systems for scalability, ensuring each improvement drove them to the next growth stage. We provided internal training and helped build processes an documentation for operational excellence. Across three years, 25eight supported them in the following areas:
Creating a growth strategy
Developed a clear unique value proposition
Developing a competitive advantage and strong position in the market
Identified target customers
Refined the Brand
Built out a content strategy
Identified creative channels to market
Developed a customer experience strategy
Identified employee communications
Identified partnerships
Created key measurements to track
Revising the business model
Mapped the sales funnel, CTR and conversions to find gaps and inefficiencies to be addressed
Updated the entire sales process - implemented new nurture emails, workflows, feedback forms, checklists, automation and more, and met with the team to execute
Created internal reporting dashboards and work with the team to execute regular reporting cycles
Re-designing customer experiences
Marketing messaging, landing page design and support for campaigns throughout the year
Revamping high-traffic website pages for a smoother customer experience
Reinventing business processes and creating a digital strategy
Created various supporting documentation on how the system works for each team and trained them in their specialist areas
Cleansed the HubSpot system and made optimisations based on how the team use the tool
Deep tool analysis - List, Form, Workflow and Property review, feedback and updates to logic to improve efficiencies
Ensured the tech stack was in working order - connected integrations, accounts, pixels, analytics and other various tools
The Outcome
Standard Ledger has expanded their operations domestically and now internationally. Having grown their team and client base, their are smashing the goals they set.
After working closely with Standard Ledger’s whole team, the understanding they had built of their tools and how to use them increased tenfold. They had a sales strategy that they could use immediately and build on in the future, which integrated seamlessly with the tool they invested in. They are better connected with their customers and have the ability to address feedback and support on a daily basis. Reference and support documents that were created were unique to their business processes and can be used by current and future employees.
Most importantly Standard Ledger got time back and built confidence in their tech stack. Knowing exactly what to do with a tool and having the support gave them the internal capability and confidence to navigate through difficult market conditions and continue to grow their business.
Watch them soar into their next stage of growth.
Ready to take your business to the next-level, on your terms?
