You built this business to give you a life. Most days it does the opposite.
For established business owners, turnover $500k and up. A fifteen-minute conversation is usually enough to tell you whether that can change, and roughly how. Not a report you file away. I get in myself and fix what's actually costing you: the pricing, the systems, the marketing spend that isn't earning its keep, whatever it turns out to be. Thirty-five years in banking, accounting, software and now AI, and nine #1 bestselling books along the way.
The formula behind the diagnostic. A secret formula I've refined over 35 years and 1,000 businesses, built to surface the money a set of financial statements never shows on its own.
Same formula, every time, for 35 years. By the time we talk, there's a good chance I've already seen your exact problem in someone else's business.
Thirty-five years, one thread running through it
I'm not a consultant who read a book on this. Each stage below fed the next, and all of it ends up pointed at your business.
1980–91 · Westpac Bank — Eleven years assessing lending at Westpac. Assistant Commercial Manager, assessing commercial and residential lending up to $5m: credit, valuation, recommendation. It's why I can usually see what's really going on in a set of numbers faster than most people would guess.
1989 · Qualified — Qualified as a Professional National Accountant. Completed with honours in accounting while working full time at the bank. The formal grounding under everything that came after.
1991–99 · Complete Business Results — A thousand system installs, and $100,000 spent learning marketing. Built a Queensland business to a thousand customers installing accounting systems, then put more than $100,000 into learning marketing properly, because selling the systems was only half the job. Getting the customers in the first place was the other half.
1999–2014 · Sage Pastel AU — Took the territory from twentieth to second in the world. Ran the Australian arm of an international accounting software business, led 25 staff, rebuilt the channel, and introduced a recurring revenue model. The territory moved from #20 to #2 worldwide in three years.
2010– · Publishing & SaaS — Built the systems, not just advised on them. 150+ books published for clients, and two software platforms built from the ground up. I've run the businesses and carried the P&L myself, in good years and hard ones.
2024–26 · AI & streamlining — Then I put it to work with AI. Over 10,000 hours in the past 18 months building AI applications and streamlining businesses with them. The same judgment, applied at a speed that wasn't possible before.
Banking, accounting, software, marketing and now AI, thirty-five years of it, one business after another. Whatever's hiding in yours, there's a good chance I've already found it in someone else's.
Fifteen minutes, and you leave knowing whether the money is there
I'll ask the questions that actually show what's going on, not the questions a consultant asks. In fifteen minutes I'll usually know whether there's real money sitting in your business, and roughly where. No pitch, no deck, just a conversation.
How It Works
You tell me about the business
Turnover, margin, how long since prices moved, and whatever has been bothering you about the numbers lately.
I ask what most people skip
Supplier terms, what the software bill looks like each month, and which part of the marketing spend you can actually trace to a sale.
I tell you what I think is there
If I don't think there's money in it worth chasing, I'll tell you straight, before we hang up, and we leave it there.
You decide what happens next
If there is, we talk about what's next. If not, you've still spent fifteen minutes and picked up a few ideas. Either way, it costs you nothing.
What you'll get out of it
Nothing to prepare. Just come ready to talk about the business.
A straight read
On your business, from someone who's done this a thousand times over.
A few things worth looking at
Whether or not we ever work together.
A clear answer
On whether there's enough there to take further.
How it runs, and what each part costs
Every engagement is built as a win-win. We agree the targets up front, set the baseline from the diagnostic, and measure everything I land against it. The targets might be profit, turnover growth, how smoothly the business runs, or where AI can do real work in it. Whatever matters most, my interest stays tied to yours the whole way through.
How It Works
The Diagnostic — about a week
I go through your business the way I have for over a thousand before yours. You get a one-page picture of where things stand and what's worth tackling first, whether that's profit, pricing or the strategy underneath it. We agree terms before we start, so there are no surprises either way.
The Engagement — months 1 to 4
Built as a win-win, start to finish. The terms get set once we both know what's realistic for your business, so neither of us is guessing. I'm working inside the business toward the agreed targets: the price move, the supplier bill, the marketing dollar, the tool stack.
Staying Installed — month 5 onward
Once the targets are landed, the heavy lift stops. I stay close enough to keep the gains in place, on whatever schedule suits the business. Step away any time, on terms we agree together.
The principle
I only do well out of this when you do well out of it. The details are worked out with you, not published on a page.
Six engines, each one a place money tends to hide
Between them, these six cover where the profit is, how fast the business is growing, how smoothly it runs day to day, and how well AI is actually being used in it. Which two or three matter most for yours is what the call tells you. We work on those, and leave the rest alone.
Profit Engine
The whole picture pulled together, so more of every dollar you take reaches the bottom line.
Expense Crusher
We find the money quietly leaving the business every month, and we stop it.
Conversion Engine
More of the visitors and leads you already pay for turn into paying customers.
Sales Engine
More revenue from what you've already built, through pricing, offers and reach.
Systems Engine
The way the business is wired together stops costing you time, so the gains hold instead of leaking away.
AI Engine
Over 10,000 hours in the past 18 months spent building AI applications and streamlining businesses, pointed at the few places in yours where it actually moves the numbers.
Is this a good use of your 15 minutes?
Worth booking if
- Turnover is $500k or more
- Your prices haven't been reviewed properly in a couple of years
- You pay for a lot of software that doesn't talk to each other
- You want someone in the business doing the work, and a report won't cut it
Probably not yet if
- Turnover is under $500k. There's usually not enough in it yet for this to make sense for either of us.
- You're after a bookkeeper or someone to lodge the BAS
- Nobody in the business can spend an hour with me on the numbers
Pick a time that suits you
The call is free and runs on Zoom. Email me and I'll send you a time that works. Rather talk first? Email john.north@evolvesys.com.au