Growth Assessment
Ten honest questions on the conditions that decide whether growth efforts stick. Your results appear straight away.
About five minutes
Stephen Newman · Growth expert
Growth begins with seeing differently
I help leadership teams find what is really holding growth back, and build a clear, practical plan to move forward, using their own people and their own data.
For SME and scale-up leadersAccounting firm partnersPE investors
Thirty years inside businesses: executive search, complex sales and coaching
Organisations I have worked with
Why now
What got you here will not necessarily get you where you need to be.
Business feels turbulent at the moment. Uncertainty, not least around AI, is clouding paths to growth that once looked obvious, and many leaders are hesitating. Some are not yet clear on their growth strategy. Others have one in place and it is not delivering.
When growth stalls, the natural instinct is to reach for what worked before. Each of the familiar fixes has its place, and each is expensive, slow and comes with no guarantee.
- 01
Replace the sales leader
Months to recruit, more months to settle in, and the conditions around the new person are often unchanged.
- 02
Invest in a new CRM or system
Expensive and disruptive. A new system rarely changes how people behave on its own.
- 03
Retrain the whole sales team
Worthwhile when it is the right answer. The question worth asking first is whether it is.
There is a quicker and less costly first step: find out what is actually in the way, from the people who live with it every day, and then decide where to invest.
How it works
Three stages, from an honest first look to a clear plan.
Start with the free Growth Assessment. If it is worth looking deeper, Growth Insight finds what is really going on, and your Growth Pathway sets out what to do about it.
Growth Insight
Structured conversations with your leadership team and a close look at your own data, to find what is really helping and holding back growth.
Usually a few weeks
Growth Pathway
A forward-looking action plan and roadmap, presented to your leadership team. Yours to run with, with my support if you want it.
Included in Growth Insight
How I work
“When a company called asking for the price of a sales programme, we never simply quoted. We asked why they were calling. The answer was rarely the one they started with.”Stephen Newman, on eighteen years with Miller Heiman
Who I work with
The same work, seen from three chairs.
01
SME and scale-up leaders
You want the next stage of growth, and the answers that worked before are no longer enough.
Read more
02
Accounting firm partners
Offer your clients growth advice alongside the numbers. The client relationship stays yours.
Read more
03
PE investors
Protect and grow the value of a portfolio business on the way to exit.
Read more
Thirty years, three disciplines
Three lenses on how a business grows.
How a business grows, how it sells and how its leadership works together are three different questions. Growth Insight brings all three to yours.
30+
years with business leaders
Executive search, complex-sale consulting and coaching.
18
years with Miller Heiman
Between $500,000 and $1.2m billed every year.
100
offices in 35 countries
InterSearch, which I founded and chaired for ten years.
MSc
Executive Coaching
Then systemic team coaching, working with whole leadership teams.
LinkedIn recommendations
What clients and colleagues say.
Stephen was a great mentor of mine for several years. He helped me see past the problems I was facing to the key issues underneath.
Oliver Cwikowski
Senior Lead System Design Specialist, Ørsted
August 2025 · Worked on the same team
Stephen is a consummate sales and marketing coach, helping companies to achieve step-change growth.
Martin Coombes
Co-Owner, Odyssey Pensions
February 2014 · Stephen was Martin's client
I first met Stephen shortly after I opened my business some years ago. Today we have grown considerably.
Dave Slemen
Founding Partner, EPP
November 2019 · Stephen's client
It has been a pleasure to work with Stephen of the last period. Having a fresh external perspective, supported by extensive experience in change management from various sectors has been extremely useful.
Jeroen Van De Heijning
Technology Manager, Shell
January 2025 · Stephen's client
We worked with Stephen on several occasions to help us evaluate our sales approach and drive business growth.
David Bakst
Business Operations Leader, Sabien
November 2019 · Stephen's client
I have known Stephen for many years and during that time I have seen him help sales organisations to grow profitable revenue streams.
Tim Morris
Owner, Sales Insights Limited
November 2019 · Same team
Start with ten honest questions.
The Growth Assessment takes about five minutes and your results appear straight away. If it raises something worth talking about, you can book a conversation with me, without obligation.