Growth agency is not a marketing agency.

Not really. Not by a long shot.

That’s a lot of numbers (image)

I run a growth consulting business. My team can either work standalone, or they can work alongside your existing marketing infrastructure. The commercials of the engagement change, but the objective remains the same — to help your business grow from point A to point B, with the constraints of time and resources you are facing. And, we are most frequently confused with a marketing agency. If someone is kind enough, they would call us a ‘performance marketing agency’. But the fact is, both those definitions miss the soft-spot by a mile.

Oh, and before I go any further, I think I should underscore something I tell any entrepreneur/startup I have ever advised/mentored:

Your customer doesn’t care about the subtle differences your product has. If there is a way for him to compare you to something else, he will!

And that is exactly what we face. Every. Single. Day.

And that is fine, or so I tell myself. But, at the same time, I would be amiss if I didn’t take a moment to explain why a growth consulting business is an altogether different beast. So, here we go.

WHAT EXACTLY IS GROWTH CONSULTING? OR, A GROWTH AGENCY?

To put it in very mild terms, it is aligned with your overall business objectives. Your business is always looking to grow. A growth consultant works with you to understand the path the business has been on, and where it needs to get to, and then he works on a plan to get it to that point — in the most efficient way possible.

A growth consultant is focused on helping your business grow, in a way that is healthy for the business.

WAIT, ISN’T THAT EXACTLY WHAT A MARKETING AGENCY DOES AS WELL?

To be honest, No!

I have worked with a lot of marketing agencies while I ran my startups, or while I was working with some of the biggest names in the Indian startup ecosystem. The common theme that emerged out of all the engagements I have seen was that your marketing agency is there to…