Scale without the headcount · Melbourne and regional Victoria

You've outgrown the
way you run your
business.

My GM helps owner-led businesses scale without the headcount. We work on the operations, systems and marketing behind the business, in Melbourne and regional Victoria, as a piece of scoped work with a start and a finish rather than a permanent salary.

Book a conversation Score your business

who it's for

Businesses that have outgrown the way they're run.

The signal is not size, it is the bottleneck. A second layer of management forming but not yet working. The owner still personally approving quotes. Headcount going up while output stays flat. Most of our clients turn over between $2 million and $10 million and employ somewhere between ten and sixty people, but the number matters less than whether the place can currently run without the person who built it.

o

Building and construction

Custom, family and project builders. Almost always the same three things: job management chaos, quoting that leaks margin, and no marketing beyond word of mouth.

o

Professional services

Accounting, engineering, legal and advisory firms. Struggling systems and processes, a principal doing everything, technical jargon and content that doesn't translate.

o

Local manufacturing

Manufacturers scaling into bigger customers or new channels. Production planning, compliance and supply chain, most often as a single project. Most of our deep experience here is in food manufacturing and the services around it.

what we do

Three kinds of work.

People come looking for different things and often use different words for them. If you have been searching for a part-time COO, a fractional CMO or a digital transformation consultant, these are the three areas that cover it.

Operations and project management

Getting work to move cleanly from quote to handover without you standing over it. Process, capacity planning, scheduling, and who decides what.

Digital and AI transformation

Choosing the right platforms, getting them talking to each other, and automating the work that shouldn't need a person. Including where AI genuinely helps and where it doesn't.

Marketing and customer acquisition

Turning new business from luck into something repeatable. Positioning, a pipeline you can see, lead generation and campaigns that fill it.

score yourself

Score yourself. Two minutes.

Operations and capacity

Take 25% more work. How confident are you?

1 not at all · 5 completely

Marketing and pipeline

Measuring your marketing. How confident are you?

1 not at all · 5 completely

Systems and infrastructure

Numbers on demand. How confident are you?

1 not at all · 5 completely

Team and delegation

Gone for a month. How confident are you?

1 not at all · 5 completely

Financial visibility

Knowing your margin by job. How confident are you?

1 not at all · 5 completely

See your score

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This is your own read on your own business, and it is yours to keep. The full version works through eighteen underlying questions and scores each on evidence rather than opinion, so it usually lands a few points lower than an owner gives themselves. That gap is normally the most useful half hour we spend together.

Five questions, no email address, nothing to sign. You get a number and a rough read on where you sit.

sound familiar

Scaling without the headcount, and what gets in the way.

These are the things owners actually say when they call, and what we do about each one. If two or three of them land, you are in the right place.

"

I can't keep up with my own business.

We find the constraint, then design how delivery should work instead. Operations

"

We've been stuck at the same number for two years.

We assess all five areas, then work on the two holding the ceiling down. Operations + Marketing

"

Everything still comes through me.

Part of designing delivery is setting who decides what, up to what value, without checking. Operations

"

I don't know what we actually make on a job.

We design how job data should meet finance data, so margin by job can be reported. Digital & AI

"

If I hire someone senior and it doesn't work, that hurts.

Buy a scoped piece of work with a price and a finish date instead. My GM

"

Where is the next lot of work coming from?

We work out who you should be selling to and design the pipeline and prospecting. Marketing

"

I haven't had a proper break in three years.

We map what only exists in your head, then design where those decisions should sit instead. Operations

"

We're still running the place on spreadsheets.

We audit what you run on, write the requirements, and design how it should fit together. Digital & AI

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about My GM

What is My GM?

My GM is the business growth practice of The Reputation Agency. It helps owner-led businesses in Melbourne and regional Victoria scale without the headcount, working on operations, systems, and marketing and customer acquisition. The work is delivered as scoped consulting with agreed deliverables and a finish line, not as a permanent or part-time hire on your org chart.

Is this the same as hiring a fractional CMO or a part-time COO?

It overlaps, and plenty of people find us searching those terms, but it is not quite the same thing. A fractional executive is a person on your org chart for an agreed number of days a month. My GM is a piece of scoped work: an agreed problem, agreed deliverables, an agreed price and a finish. You are buying a result rather than someone's time. If what you actually want is a person in the business two days a week, we will tell you and point you at someone who does that.

What does it cost?

The self-assessment and the first conversation are free. After that it depends on what the assessment turns up, so we scope and quote before anything starts. Everything is a fixed price against agreed deliverables rather than an hourly rate, and the plan is a separate decision from building it, so you are never committing to the whole thing up front. We will put real figures in front of you on the call once we know what we are looking at.

Is my business the right size?

Most of our clients turn over between $2 million and $10 million and employ ten to sixty people, but that is a guide rather than a rule. The better test is whether the business still depends on you for decisions it should have outgrown. Below roughly $2 million there is usually not enough structure to work on. Above $10 million there is often already a general manager or a CFO doing part of what we would do.

How long before anything changes?

You will get a clear read on the constraint within a fortnight of starting, because that is what the assessment is for. Operational and systems changes generally show up in the business within eight to sixteen weeks. Marketing takes longer to show in revenue, because it is limited by your sales cycle, so the early measure there is qualified conversations rather than signed work.

Do you work with businesses outside Melbourne?

Yes, across regional Victoria, and a good share of our construction work is regional. The assessment involves on-site time with you and a couple of your people, so travel matters at that stage. Project and retainer work runs on a mix of on-site and remote.

How does this relate to The Reputation Agency?

My GM is part of The Reputation Agency, which has worked on reputation, communications and marketing for years. The two do different jobs. The Reputation Agency works on how an organisation is seen. My GM works on whether a business can handle the work it wins. Same firm and same people, different problem.

Book a conversation

Half an hour, no charge, no pitch.

Bring your self-score, or don't. Either way you will get an honest read on what is holding the business back and what you would do about it first. If that turns into work with us, good. If it doesn't, you have still had a useful half hour.

Book a conversation