What's a Business Advisor, Anyway?

Are You a Business Advisor? The 5 Levels of Business Advisory and Your Ideal Role in Driving Strategic Growth

If you work with business owners as a coach, consultant, CPA, exit planner, wealth advisor, i-banker, or fractional CFO, you already know that your role is more than just providing insights. You are a business advisor. The question is: To what extent?

A blue-ribbon group of senior pros like you are collaborating to define what it means to be a business advisor. This is in the context of Growth-Drive’s vision of helping $1 Trillion of private businesses increase Strategic Capacity™ in the 3 Dimensions of Business Growth™. We specifically recognize that advising businesses about growing profits and transferable value requires a collaborative team of advisors.  

How deep do you go in shaping your clients' strategic future? Are you a sounding board, an educator, a strategic architect, an implementation partner, or an embedded leader?

In this context, let’s reflect on your role and how it aligns with the five levels of advisory engagement:

1️⃣ Discuss – You have relevant conversations with clients but don’t formally educate or plan.
2️⃣ Educate – You actively educate clients about transferable business value
3️⃣ Design – You work with clients to build a strategic plan for business growth and transition.
4️⃣ Execute – You help them implement the plan, ensuring it turns into action.
5️⃣ Lead – You act as a fractional senior leader, deeply involved in strategic execution.

Where Do You Stand? Where Do You Want to Be? Is your work transactional, or is it transformational?

The Growth-Drive Model: Mastering Strategic Capacity

At Growth-Drive, we guide you and your fellow senior professionals through the seven elements of strategic planning and execution, helping you evolve your practice and deliver client wins:

I've outlined seven primary elements of the strategic business advisory process. We'll see if our community ultimately agrees - it's your gig! These seven elements are:

1. Discovering the Client’s strategic intent for their business
2. Educating the Client about their business’ current strategic capacity to deliver their intent
3. Analyzing the Client’s strategic capacity in the 3 dimensions of business growth
4. Designing a plan to increase strategic capacity in line with successfully delivering the Client’s intent
5. Advising the Client as they execute their plan
6. Collaborating with relevant advisors in support of successfully executing the plan
7. Regularly confirming intent, monitoring progress and updating the plan if needed in line with increasing capacity and delivering intended results

These elements form the core of the Growth-Drive’s approach to delivering wins. Demonstrating proficiency in these areas demonstrates increased mastery of strategic planning and execution skills.

Mastery of these seven elements separates high-level business advisors from mere consultants. If you want to create real strategic impact, you should support clients in each of these seven areas - for yourself, or in collaboration with relevant peers.

Your Next Step: Elevating Your Advisory Impact

🔹 What level are you currently operating at?
🔹 Does that level match your vision for your role?
🔹 How can you expand your impact and drive strategic execution?

If you want to elevate your role, it starts with a shift in mindset—from being an observer of business challenges to being the driver of business success.

Are you ready for this next step?

Let’s grow. Let’s drive. Let’s lead.

🚀 Join the Growth-Drive movement and take your advisory practice to the next level.

Want to learn more? Check out these hot resources:

→ CLARITY

→ Community

→ C3D

→ Summit

We'd love to know what you think. Comment here or email blog@growth-drive.com. Onwards! -George