My first business was a coffee shop I opened with my brother Sal in 2015. It ran for two years and then closed. Since then I have co-founded a burger franchise, built a cleaning company, founded an agency, and built a software tool. Each of those taught me something I could not have learned by advising someone else. So I am biased: I think operating experience matters. This guide is about how to check for it, and also when it matters less than people think.
Why operating experience changes the advice
Someone who has run a business gives advice that fits inside a real week. They know the owner is also handling staff, cash flow and a supplier who did not turn up. Their recommendations tend to come in an order you can actually follow, with the cost of each step in mind.
They also know what it feels like when advice turns out to be wrong, because they have paid for their own bad calls. Taking Slide N Shake from one store in Gordon to six Sydney locations through licensed operators taught me more about systems and brand consistency than any course. Closing Buzzing Oasis taught me what high rent does to a small margin.
That does not mean every operator makes a good consultant. Running a business and explaining it to someone else are different skills. But it is a strong first filter.
What to check
Do not take a biography at face value, including mine. These are checks anyone can do in an afternoon.
- Can you look the businesses up? Real businesses have websites, ABNs, addresses and a history. If a consultant's ventures cannot be found, ask why.
- What was their actual role? Founder, owner, manager, adviser and investor are different jobs. Ask what they personally did day to day.
- Are they still operating? Markets change. Someone who ran a business ten years ago and has only advised since may be working from an old playbook.
- Will they talk about what failed? Everyone who has run businesses has closed something or got something wrong. If every story is a success, you are hearing marketing.
- Does their experience match your problem? A great hospitality operator is not automatically the right person for your SEO, and a great SEO is not automatically the right person to prepare your business for sale.
Questions to ask on the first call
- What is a business you ran, and what would you do differently now?
- What would you do first in my business, and what would you ignore for now?
- Who does the work after you advise? You, my team, or someone you refer me to?
- Do you earn anything from what you recommend? For example a referral fee, or your own agency doing the work.
- What does a typical engagement look like, and how do I end it?
The fourth question matters. There is nothing wrong with a consultant who also runs a delivery business (I do), but you should know about it up front so you can weigh the advice accordingly.
Red flags
- Guaranteed results, especially guaranteed rankings or a guaranteed sale price.
- A long, fixed engagement before they have looked at anything.
- Answers that stay the same no matter what you tell them.
- Testimonials and figures you cannot trace back to a real business.
- Pressure to decide on the first call.
Start small before you commit
Even after the checks, the best test is a small piece of real work. A single consulting session or a short, defined project tells you more than any biography.
- Bring a real problem. Not a general request to help you grow, but a specific decision or a specific thing that is not working.
- Watch how they ask questions. Someone who has run businesses will usually want to know about cash, people and capacity before recommending anything.
- Judge the output, not the delivery. Did you leave with something you could act on this week, in an order that made sense for your business?
- Check whether they said no to anything. Good advice usually includes things not to do. If every idea you raised was a good idea, be careful.
If the first piece of work is useful, extend it. If it is not, you have spent a little and learned a lot.
When operating experience matters less
If you need a narrow technical job done well, such as fixing a site migration or setting up conversion tracking, a specialist who has never run a business may be the better choice. Deep skill in one area beats broad experience on a well defined task.
It also matters less if you already have a strong operator in-house, such as an experienced general manager, and you need someone to fill a specific skill gap rather than help run the business.
Operating experience matters most when the decision touches the whole business: where the marketing budget goes, whether to buy or sell, how to restructure operations, or which of five problems to fix first.
My own record, so you can check it
In the spirit of the checks above, here is mine.
- Buzzing Oasis, a coffee shop opened with my brother Sal. 2015 to 2017, then closed.
- Prodigy Cleaning, a commercial cleaning business I founded in 2016. It is now Sydney Commercial Clean, run by Sal, and I still run its SEO.
- Slide N Shake, a burger franchise I co-founded in 2016. It grew to six Sydney locations, was featured on Sunrise, and I have since exited.
- Core Creations, the digital agency I founded and run as Director.
- Network Infinity, a business brokerage where I am Head of Marketing and General Manager.
- FileGrab, a software tool I built in-house.
The full story is on the story page, and every current venture is on the portfolio page with a link you can follow. To see how that turns into consulting, start at consulting, or read SEO consultant or SEO agency and fractional CMO or agency retainer.