A simplified approach to growth that focuses on four core levers.
Strategy
Most plans fail before they're put on paper because they seek to answer "how we grow" before asking "growth in what, funded how, and protecting what". We build the second answer first to make a plan you can actually execute.
Talent
Any growth plan is only as good as the people accountable for each piece of it. We don't start with org charts but start with what the strategy actually needs, then find or reshape roles to suit it, with a pinch of honestly about who's in the wrong seat.
Technology
We're not interested in adding more tools for the sake of it. Instead we're focused on using technology to remove the friction that's quietly costing you margin and slowing you down - only adding what earns its keep.
Culture
Strategy survives Monday morning, or it doesn't. Culture is the difference. Once the plan and the people are right, we help make sure day-to-day behaviour aligns with the demands of the strategy - not a values poster, but an operating philosophy.
Ensuring every function plays its part in delivering growth.
Marketing
Marketing is usually the only growth lever a business pulls – which is exactly why it’s under so much pressure to do the heavy lifting: build demand, protect the brand, keep CAC low, lift LTV. But you can’t get more from marketing through brute force alone, it requires considered optimisation.
Sales
Where there’s a B2B side to the business, sales is often the least examined function – and the one with the most margin ready to capture. Tighter customer relationships and steadier ordering patterns aren’t just commercial wins – they’re what give you the confidence to invest elsewhere.
Customer Service
Customer service is usually viewed as a cost centre and run that way. Done properly, it’s where you learn why customers really leave, and it’s one of the cheapest levers you have to strengthen repeat purchase rate and lifetime value.
Procurement
Procurement rarely gets strategic attention in growing a business despite sitting directly on margin. Sharper supplier terms and better payment structures don’t simply protect profit – they fund the next phase of growth without you needing to raise it.
Product
Product is where price sensitivity and differentiation actually gets settled, long before marketing ever touches it. Get this wrong and no amount of clever marketing fixes it; get it right and customer service’s job gets easier too.
Leadership
Nothing holds together without leadership setting the direction and holding the line when it gets noisy. This is the function that keeps revenue and profit growing in tandem, rather than trading one for the other every time it gets hard.
All too often, growing businesses get pushed into false choices: revenue or profit, speed or stability, ambition or control. The result is a cycle of surges and corrections that looks like progress from the outside and feels fragile from within.
Over fourteen years, I’ve formed a simple belief: sustainable growth doesn’t have to mean cautious growth, and bold growth doesn’t have to mean risky growth. The aim is balance – growth that funds itself, protects itself, and compounds.
Getting there means moving past the most common trap at this stage: a team that’s grown, an ambition that’s real, but no one yet senior enough to join the dots across the whole business – so marketing ends up treated as the only growth engine you have. Not because marketing isn’t vital – it is – but because no single function can carry the full weight of growth alone. When it’s forced to, growth becomes expensive, stressful, and increasingly unpredictable to plan around.
Growth holds together when the whole business is aligned – marketing, sales, customer service, procurement, product, and leadership – each given clear expectations and proper attention. That’s what stops you relying on one function, and starts building a business where revenue and profit grow together, in a way that’s far harder to knock off course.
Across every function, I come back to the same four levers: strategy to set the direction, talent to put the right people in the right seats, technology to scale without ballooning cost, and culture to make sure behaviour follows strategy even when things get noisy.
At Ostrich and Zebra, we help businesses at this stage feel bold again – but boldness only holds if it’s resilient too. That happens when no single function carries disproportionate weight, and the strategy is backed by the right people, technology, and culture to deliver it.
Trusted by movers and shakers from 100’s of brands
“Through a cross-function approach that focuses on both profitability and revenue, Ashton has given us the confidence to invest more and achieve more ambitious growth.”
Freya NicholsonCo-founder
“Ashton has quickly become a partner that we know we can rely on to be proactive and thorough. The results he delivers are outstanding and we trust him implicitly.”
Katherine HeathCreative Strategist
“Ashton is a never-ending treasure trove of knowledge and one of the most conscientious, responsive, and efficient consultants I've had the pleasure to work with.”
Liane AbramsFounder
Build a bold yet resilient business in as few as 90-days.
Diagnostic
£2,999
A 90-day sprint to find out what’s actually holding growth back, and leave you with a 12-month roadmap your team can run with confidently – whether or not you work with us again afterwards.
Advisory
£1,500/ month
For founders who’ve already got clarity on the plan, or completed the Diagnostic, and need an outside lens on execution – keeping every function pulling in the same direction without us running it day to day.
Leadership
£4,000/ month
For founders facing systemic hurdles or preparing for a sale, where we sit inside the senior team and own the growth agenda directly, rather than advising from outside it.
