This is one of the most common mistakes I see consultancy owners make. 

Things are stretched. Margins are tight. The team is under pressure. 

And the instinct is: we need to hire. 

But here's the reality — 

Hiring more people won't fix your profit. In fact, if you get the timing wrong, it'll make things worse. 

In this week's podcast episode, I break down exactly why — and what to do instead. 

Inside this episode we cover: 

• Why every hire reduces profit before it improves it — and what the real lag looks like 

• Why throwing people at problems is often avoidance of the real issue 

• Why 7 or 8 times out of 10, it's not a people problem — it's a systems and process problem 

• Why growth phases are meant to feel messy — and where profit is actually built 

• The Growth → Consolidation → Rest model and why the most profitable phase is the one most owners skip 

I also share a brilliant win from Mandy inside our Boardroom community — who just h...

For a long time, my entire sense of progress (and self-worth) was tied to a to-do list. 

Every day started with it. 

Every day ended with it. 

And if I hadn't crossed enough off — the day felt wasted. 

It didn't matter if I'd had a great conversation with a client. 

Or made an important decision for the business. 

Or been genuinely present with my family that evening. 

If the list wasn't shrinking, I felt behind. 

And the brutal truth about a to-do list? 

It never shrinks. 

You cross one thing off and two more appear. 

It's a game you can never win. 

And I was playing it every single day. 

The exhaustion wasn't just physical. 

It was the constant feeling of never being enough. 

Never doing enough. 

Never getting on top of it. 

My wife could see it. 

My team could feel it. 

And deep down, I knew something had to change. 

So I stopped measuring my days by what I got done. 

And I started asking a different question at the end of each day:...

We've spoken with hundreds of engineering and built environment consultancy owners over the years. 

And there's a pattern we see constantly. 

They know their revenue. 

But ask them their net profit margin last month? Blank. 

Their team utilisation rate? Blank. 

Profit per project? Blank. 

The business can look healthy on the surface while quietly bleeding profit underneath. 

We've seen it firsthand. Strong revenue, team flat out, everyone busy. But the profit isn't there. And nobody can figure out why. 

Here's why. 

Staff can be completely utilised — even over utilised — and projects are still making no money.  

When teams spend too much time on projects, margin disappears. The hours blow out, nobody catches it in time, and by the time the project closes, the damage is done. 

The frustrating thing? It's entirely preventable. 

But you can't fix what you're not tracking. 

Here's what we recommend every consultancy owner puts in place: 

A ...

There was a period building our engineering and built environment consultancy to $30M where I was completely consumed by it. 

Every win felt enormous. 

Every setback felt catastrophic. 

Every bad day at work followed me through the front door. 

I thought that level of investment meant I cared. 

That it made me a better business owner. 

That it was just part of being serious about what I was building. 

My wife saw it differently. 

One night she said something I wasn't ready to hear. 

She told me that living with me had become exhausting. 

That my mood was dictated by whatever had happened that day in the business. 

That the kids were walking on eggshells when I came home. 

That she never knew which version of me was going to walk through the door. 

It stopped me cold. 

Because I hadn't even realised I was doing it. 

I thought I was showing up for my family. 

I was there physically. 

But emotionally? The business had all of me. 

And here's ...

As we were building our engineering & built environment consultancy from $3M to $30M, we were obsessed with winning work. 

Every new contract felt like progress. 

Every new client felt like a win. 

Every yes felt like momentum. 

But underneath the revenue growth, something wasn't adding up. 

A handful of clients were consuming a wildly disproportionate amount of our time. 

They changed scope constantly — but pushed back on every variation. 

They paid late. Every single time. 

And every interaction left the team drained. 

But we kept saying yes to them. 

Because the revenue looked good on paper. 

The truth we had to face was this: 

Not all revenue is equal. 

Some clients pay your invoices. Others cost you far more — in time, in energy, and in the toll it takes on your people. 

So we did something we'd never done before. 

We scored every major client. Not just by revenue — but by margin, by relationship, and by whether they were the kind of wo...

Most consultancy owners I work with have experienced this at some point. 

Revenue is growing. The team is expanding. Things are moving fast. 

And then…  

Everything plateaus. 

Growth slows. Forward movement stalls.  

And suddenly you start asking yourself — what's wrong with the business? 

Here's the truth: 

Nothing is wrong. 

Growth plateaus are not a problem. In fact, they're often one of the most important phases in building a strong consultancy. 

In this week's podcast episode, I unpack why business growth rarely happens in a straight line — and why the plateau phase is actually where the real foundations of a great business get built. 

Inside this episode we cover: 

• Why strong consultancies grow in cycles, not straight lines. 

• Why plateau phases are where systems, structure and team capability get built. 

• How to stop reacting emotionally to slowed growth and use the period strategically. 

• The difference between chasing r...

For a long time, I believed that figuring it out on my own was just part of the journey. 

That asking for help meant I wasn't capable… or even worse — a failure. 

That needing support was something to be embarrassed about. 

That the best leaders just... knew what to do. 

So I kept it all in. 

Every worry. 

Every doubt. 

Every problem I couldn't solve. 

And for a while, I told myself that's just what it takes to build something successful. 

But the truth? 

I was exhausted. 

Overwhelmed. 

Running on empty. 

And the people closest to me were getting the worst of it. 

I wasn't showing up the way I wanted to at home. 

I was short-tempered. 

Distracted. 

Not the husband or father I wanted to be. 

The business looked fine from the outside. 

But inside, I was drowning. 

I finally admitted I needed help — to myself and to those closest to me. 

And it was one of the most important decisions I ever made. 

I got a business coach. 

Most engineering and built environment consultancy owners build their business by saying yes. 

Yes to every client. 

Yes to every project. 

Yes to every opportunity that comes through the door. 

And it works — until it doesn’t. 

Because at a certain point, saying yes to everything means saying no to the things that actually matter. 

The consultancy owners who are stuck right now aren't stuck because they're not working hard enough. 

They're stuck because they're saying yes to the wrong things. 

Yes to the client who grinds on price and drains the team. 

Yes to the project that only works if the owner is in the middle of it. 

Yes to staying involved in delivery instead of leading the business. 

Yes to doing tasks that someone else should own. 

And no — by default — to the things that would actually move the needle. 

The shift happens when you flip it. 

Yes to clients who value your expertise and pay without hesitation. 

Yes to hiring people who ...

As we were building our engineering & built environment consultancy from $3M to $30M, we almost made a mistake that could have cost us everything. 

We were growing fast. 

Winning new work. 

Expanding the team. 

Things were looking really good. 

But bubbling under the surface was an issue that was about to undo our growth. 

Our best clients — the ones who had been with us for years — were starting to feel it. 

We became harder to reach. 

Response times slowed down. 

The quality of work started to slip. 

And as the team grew, the relationships they'd built with us personally started to fade. 

The worst part? We didn't even realise it. 

They weren't complaining to us. 

They were just quietly pulling back.  

Giving work to other consultants.  

Not renewing contracts.  

Stopped returning our calls. 

And we almost missed it entirely. 

The truth we had to face was this: 

Rapid growth, if you're not careful, doesn't just create opportunities....

Yesterday's "How to Thrive in a Slower Market" workshop was one of the most grounded, practical and strategic sessions I've run on how to position your consultancy to win in any market conditions. 

Engineering and built environment consultancy owners showed up ready to get ahead of the curve — and walked away with a clear picture of where the market is heading and a plan they can implement immediately. 

And the feedback's been great: 

"Walking away with a clear plan and ready to implement." 

"This completely changed how I'm thinking about the next 18 to 24 months for my business." 

"Great session Josh. Heaps of stuff I can action this week." 

A few people reached out saying they couldn't make it live — so I'm making the full replay available until Friday. 

Grab the replay here to watch at your convenience >> Click Here 

You'll get access to everything included in the workshop: 

✔️ The proven strategies that work in the engineering and built environment indust...