Run the reputation engine
Watch the pipeline build
Growth is the monthly retainer that runs the Founder Visibility Stack™, online and offline, turning your refreshed foundation into a compounding stream of better-qualified client enquiries.
To grow your pipeline, you need consistent visibility where buyers already look for reassurance: trusted content, third-party signals, relevant industry presence, and targeted outreach. Growth builds that system month by month, helping more of the right people find you, recognise your credibility, and start better-qualified conversations.
Most founder-led firms win their first clients on reputation and referrals
The next ten require a different kind of infrastructure
A founder's first clients usually come from their personal network: existing reputation, peer referrals, the credibility of who they used to work with or for. That model gets a founder-led business off the ground. It rarely gets the next ten clients in, because those buyers do not yet know your name.
Most founder-led businesses know where their first ten clients came from: reputation, referrals, the founder's network, or an early credible client. That gets you started. The next stage of growth depends on being found and trusted by people who do not already know your name.
This needs a different infrastructure. Consistent, multi-channel reputation work that compounds over time, online and offline, so AI engines, search, press, peers, and industry events reinforce the same authority signal.
From referrals to repeatable growth
Most founder-led businesses cannot run this engine consistently themselves. The issue isn't a lack of know-how; managing LinkedIn, press, content, speaking opportunities, networking, and AI visibility every month is a separate job from running the business.
Growth is that work, done for you, in your founder's voice, on a monthly rhythm.
Each month builds on the last. Within ninety days, most clients begin appearing in AI-generated recommendations. Within six months, the pipeline impact starts to show: more enquiries, better-qualified conversations, and less reliance on referrals.
Your reputation engine, running across both halves of the Founder Visibility Stack™
Every month, Growth delivers a coordinated programme of content, press, real-world positioning, thought leadership, AI visibility measurement, marketing and business development support, all aligned to your current pipeline priorities. The work is structured around the Founder Visibility Stack™ and the founder's voice, with a written recommendations note at the end of each month naming next month's priorities.
Growth is built for outcomes, not hours. The retainer delivers a structured set of monthly outputs designed to compound, with strategic adjustment each month so the work stays aligned with your pipeline priorities as they evolve.
Strategy keeps the work pointed at the right outcomes. Online positioning builds the AI-visible authority layer. Earned media adds the third-party validation layer. Real-world positioning builds the offline reputation that compounds the online work. AI visibility measurement shows what is moving. Marketing and business development support converts the visibility into pipeline.
What's included, every month
Strategy
- Monthly strategy call to align the month's work with your current pipeline priorities
- A short written recommendations note at the end of each month, naming next month's priorities
Online positioning
- Eight LinkedIn posts each month, ghost-written in the founder's voice
- One long-form piece each month, for the blog, the newsletter, or both
Earned media
- One press release per quarter, with PR Fire UK distribution
- One white paper per year, designed to anchor the year's thought leadership and earn citation
Real-world positioning
- Identification and pursuit of speaker opportunities relevant to the founder's sector and pipeline priorities
- Identification of networking, partnership, and peer recognition opportunities, with introductions where possible
- Ongoing positioning support for any speaking, panel, or industry events the founder takes on
AI visibility measurement
- Monthly AI visibility report across the major AI platforms
- Quarterly competitor benchmark on AI visibility movement
Marketing and BD Support
- Optional
A monthly rhythm of strategy, execution, and review
Every month follows the same rhythm: strategy call at the start, planned execution across both halves of the Founder Visibility Stack™ through the middle, AI visibility measurement, and an end-of-month recommendations note naming priorities for the following month. The work compounds because the rhythm is consistent.
Strategy call
A 45 to 60-minute call to align the month's work with your current pipeline priorities. We review what shifted in the previous month, what AI engines now say about you and your competitors, and what to prioritise this month. The output is a written month plan with named deliverables.
Execution
Eight LinkedIn posts ghost-written in your voice, one long-form piece for the blog or newsletter, ongoing identification of speaker, networking, and partnership opportunities, LinkedIn Sales Navigator outreach support, and (in the relevant month) the quarterly press release or annual white paper. The AI visibility report runs once during the month.
Review and recommendations
A short written note naming what moved, what AI engines now say about you, and the priorities for the month ahead. The recommendations note is the bridge from one month into the next, so the work compounds rather than restarts.
When Growth is the right next step
Growth is the delivery phase, so the right starting point is when Discovery and Strategy and Foundation are already in place, even if those were delivered in reduced scope. If positioning, messaging, content credibility, and AI-readable infrastructure are not yet in place, those come first; Growth runs on top of them, not in place of them.
You have a Foundation in place, but no engine running it
Your website is AI-ready, your LinkedIn reflects current positioning, your messaging is documented. What you do not have is the consistent monthly work that turns infrastructure into pipeline. Growth runs the engine.
You are referral-dependent and want to diversify
Your pipeline today comes overwhelmingly from referrals. You want to build a second, independent channel of enquiries from buyers who find you through their own research, on AI engines, peer recommendations, search, or industry events. Growth is the work that builds that channel.
You have ambitions to be cited in your category
You want to be the founder-led business that AI engines recommend, that peers refer to, that press calls when the sector is in the news. That kind of reputation is the cumulative result of consistent, multi-channel work over time. Growth is the structured way to build it.
"I have learnt a lot from working with Jessica about what executive profiling can do and she has been nothing short of exceptional. She has had a huge impact on my social media profile. It's been a fantastic experience working with her."
Chief Product Supply Chain Officer, Unilever
The trajectory most Growth clients follow
Growth is a compounding service, so different outcomes show up at different stages: AI-engine visibility within 90 days, pipeline impact between months three and six, and a fundamentally different reputation position by month twelve. The work does not start producing results all at once; it compounds month on month.
Month 1–3
AI visibility begins to shift as your monthly content stream gives engines more material to parse and cite. Within 90 days, most clients begin appearing in AI-generated recommendations they did not appear in before.
Month 3–6
Pipeline impact starts to show. More enquiries, better-qualified conversations, faster sales cycles, lower referral dependence. Peer recognition and speaker opportunities begin to follow from the content and the AI visibility, which compounds both.
Month 6 and beyond
The retainer settles into a sustained reputation engine. By month twelve, most clients are unrecognisable from where they started: an established voice in their category, regularly cited, regularly invited, with a pipeline that no longer depends on referrals alone.
Run the reputation engine
Watch the pipeline build
Growth is the monthly retainer that turns your refreshed foundation into a compounding stream of better-qualified client enquiries. No long-term contract, 30 days' notice either side.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Typical PR retainers focus on earned media: press releases, journalist outreach, opinion pieces. Growth works across the full Founder Visibility Stack™, online and offline: LinkedIn content, long-form thought leadership, press, real-world positioning (speaker circuits, networking, partnerships), AI visibility measurement, and business development support. It is structured around how B2B buyers actually research and shortlist today, not how journalists worked twenty years ago. The PRCA's UK PR and Communications Census 2025 puts the average UK PR retainer at around £4,700 per month;[1] Growth works in the same category but priced to be accessible for founder-led businesses.
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Yes. Discovery and Strategy and Foundation are required before Growth, because Growth is the delivery phase: the consistent monthly work that runs the engine you have built. Without the right positioning and messaging from Discovery and Strategy, and without the AI-readable, content-credible infrastructure from Foundation, the monthly work has nothing to compound on.
If you have done significant equivalent work elsewhere, the Discovery and Strategy and Foundation engagements can be reduced in scope; but the methodology still needs to be applied to confirm positioning, messaging, and tactics are right before Growth begins. We will discuss the best path on the initial call.
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We ghost-write in your voice, not ours. Each month begins with a topic plan tied to your pipeline priorities. We draft the eight posts and the one long-form piece, you review and approve, and we schedule publication. Most founders spend roughly 30 minutes per week reviewing and refining content. The voice gets sharper as the relationship develops.
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The quarterly press release is drafted in your name, then distributed through PR Fire, a UK regional and trade press distribution service with established relationships across thousands of UK journalists and trade publications. We choose the timing of each quarterly release to align with a moment that genuinely matters: a milestone, an industry-event opinion, a launch, or a research piece. Distribution is paid directly to PR Fire.
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Each month, your business and three chosen competitors are queried across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overview for the keywords and key phrases you want to be known for. The report shows where you appear, where competitors appear, and how the picture has shifted from the previous month. The quarterly version adds a deeper benchmark and a trend analysis.
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One per year, produced over roughly eight to ten weeks within the retainer period of your choosing. Usually built around a research question or methodology piece distinctive to your business, designed to anchor the year's thought leadership and to be the kind of substantive, citable content AI engines and peers reference repeatedly. PR Fire distribution and a real world event (if relevant) for the content launch campaign are quoted separately.
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Yes. We embrace the ethical use of AI and use multiple platforms extensively, not just for visibility audits but also in research, planning, account management, and content creation. What makes the approach different is that every tool is reviewed, challenged, and critiqued by an industry expert with 30 years of experience, so the output is refined to an exceptional standard rather than accepted at face value. We use premium-subscription tools and memory features where appropriate outside model training, so clients benefit from both advanced systems and experienced human judgement.
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You can give 30 days' notice to pause or end at any time. Many clients pause for a month or two during a particularly busy operational quarter (a fundraise, an acquisition, a major launch) and restart afterwards. There is no penalty and no minimum commitment beyond the 30-day notice period.
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Monthly retainer, scoped on a call, with the work tailored to your business stage and pipeline ambitions. Each It's a Shovel service is a standalone engagement, priced and paid for separately; there is no long-term commitment and no fee credits between services. Growth is invoiced monthly in advance, with 30 days' notice to pause or end on either side.
For clients that go through our whole process (Audit, Discovery & Strategy, Foundation and Growth (with marketing and business development included) we option put a portion of the retainer at risk for an upside benefit for work won.