The Freedom Challenge

By Greg Roworth

Most owners of management consultancy businesses around the western world end up running a business that actually runs them.  They end up working more hours than they ever wanted for less money than they expected when they started the business. The ones who are successful enough to grow their businesses beyond survival and have a small team working with them will eventually hit unforeseen barriers that stop their growth and create stress and almost insurmountable challenges for their owners.

 

Yet, there are a few highly successful entrepreneurial consultants that break the mold and grow beyond struggle and survival to have businesses that are ultimately scalable and saleable.

 

In The Freedom Challenge, Greg Roworth, who himself has started, grown and sold three successful consultancy firms over the past twenty-five years, reveals the five critical mistakes that almost all owners of management consultancy firms make that keep them trapped in their businesses, and who, while often making good money, are frustrated by their inability to take their business to the next level and are stressed by the time they need to invest in the business to make it work.

The book also highlights the different way top consultants think about the critical aspects of their business and shows you the all important steps these business leaders take to create a business that really works and how to create a management consulting practice that works without you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Business Flightpath
• Release date: Feb 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201178659

Book preview

Introduction

The Reality – Most Owners Of Professional Consultancy Firms Work Harder Than They Ever Imagined

At a recent seminar for owners of professional service businesses I attended, one of the highly respected speakers and a very successful entrepreneur in his own right asked everyone to stand up and to remain standing if they could honestly answer the following questions positively. Think about your own answers to these. 

Remain standing if:

You work on average less than 50 hours per week in your business.

You regularly take at least 4 weeks per year vacation from your business.

You regularly take more than 4 weeks per year vacation from your business and never worry about what might have happened while you were away.

If I gave you two weeks notice to get organized, you could come away with me on a luxury vacation and only bring your laptop and cell phone to keep in touch with your business and have no concerns that it may not survive while you are away.

If I gave you two weeks notice, you could come away on a 12 month tour of exotic locations that had no email or cell phone reception, leave your laptop and cell phone at home, and expect your business to not only survive, but be better than you left it when you get back home.

The results.

Around 60% of the participants sat down at question one and 80% were sitting after question 2. After question 3 only 10 were standing, and only 3 out of the 130 attendees were standing after question 5. The speaker went on to say that only these three could be called true entrepreneurs. All the others were merely business owners who are caught in the typical business success trap. 

At what point would you have sat down if you were attending the seminar?

Let me challenge you with a few different thoughts:

What if your business could run on autopilot with only a few hours input from you each week?

What if your business was able to fund the lifestyle of your choosing?

What if you had confidence in your employees to perform so well you never had to worry, even if you left your business for months?

What if you could be confident of selling your business at maximum value when you want to retire?

Right now, running a business like that may be a stretch for you to believe, but let me challenge you to keep an open mind. Because that’s exactly what business is like for a small group of successful consultancy business owners. But it’s certainly not the norm.

A recent global report confirmed some facts that we’ve all suspected for some time. In small and medium sized businesses, the owners, on average, work 52 hours per week and find it stressful, a struggle to make a decent profit and a high risk for health and