Two women engaging in conversation at a social event, one wearing a leather jacket and the other holding a wine glass with a name tag that reads "Sarah Colgate, The Star Collecting, SELLER". In the background, several other people are visible, some standing around tables.

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers about how I work, what it costs, and the problems I get asked about most.

Working with Sarah

  • I run independent business analysis and improvement for established businesses turning over $1.5M and above. I find out where the profit is leaking, quantify it in dollars, and then work with the owner to fix it.

  • Both, in that order, and only when the work calls for it. I start as a consultant, measuring the business and reporting on what I find, and I move into coaching once we know what needs to change.

  • Established owners turning over $1.5M or more, in any industry. Most of them are past the survival stage and stuck on a harder problem, which is that the business works and it still does not pay them properly.

  • No. My background is 25 years in travel, tourism and hospitality, and I do work with tourism operators through Exceptional Experiences, but the analysis work applies to any business of this size.

  • I am based on the Gold Coast and I work across South East Queensland, including Brisbane, as well as remotely with clients elsewhere in Australia. The 90-minute interpretation session is worth doing in person wherever that is possible.

  • A small number at a time. Unlimited access is part of what I offer, and that only works if I am not overloaded.

  • A 15-minute conversation. No report, no pitch, no obligation. We work out whether what I do is right for your business or whether something else is.

The Business Analysis

  • A structured diagnostic of your entire business, built from three sources of evidence: your own numbers, a 273-question review of how the business runs, and market research interviews with twelve people who deal with you. It produces a report of 120 pages or more that quantifies where your profit is leaking and what each fix is worth.

  • About six weeks from signing to the interpretation session. Owners who let the questionnaire drift are the ones who take ten.

  • Around eight to ten hours in total, spread across the six weeks. The biggest single piece is the questionnaire, which takes four hours or more.

  • You, your sales, your leads and prospects, your competitors, your cost of sales, your gross margins, your team productivity and your overheads. It is 273 questions, roughly 60% about how the business works and 40% hard numbers.

  • Because the gap between how you see the business and how they see it is usually the most useful finding in the report. You nominate twelve referees, six customers and six suppliers, and I make every call myself.

  • Almost none object. Most are flattered to be asked, and several will use it to tell you something they have been sitting on for years.

  • Increase prices, reactivate lapsed customers, generate referrals and testimonials, win new customers, sell more to existing customers, reduce cost of sales, reduce inventory costs, improve team productivity, reduce financial overheads, cut communication costs, reduce occupancy costs, and eliminate other wastage. Every business gets the same twelve examined and a different set of answers.

  • No. I need accurate figures, and those come from you through the questionnaire.

  • A Business Analysis Report of 120 pages or more, and a 90-minute session where I take you through it. The report identifies the leaks, quantifies each opportunity in dollars, shows the arithmetic behind every line, and puts them in priority order.

  • Nothing, unless the report supports it. If ongoing coaching would help you action the findings, I will say so, and that is a separate decision and a separate conversation.

Cost and value

  • $6,000. For businesses turning over $1M or more it carries a 10 to 1 guarantee: if the report does not identify at least $60,000 in profit currently leaking out of your business, based entirely on your own numbers, you do not pay for it.

  • $3,000 to $4,400 a month. That includes unlimited access to me, a weekly commitment and a real accountability partner, not a monthly catch-up.

  • Hourly work runs $150 to $500. Ongoing one-to-one work with an established business is usually $2,500 to $5,000 a month, with the most common band sitting at $2,500 to $4,000.

  • Generally yes, as a business expense. At a 30% tax rate, $3,000 a month is closer to $2,100 out of pocket, but confirm your own position with your accountant.

  • Do the sum on your own numbers. One point of net margin on a $1.5M business is $15,000 a year, every year, and it lifts what the business is worth when you sell it.

  • If your books are two years behind, if you already know exactly what is wrong, if you are in genuine financial distress, or if you are not going to act on what the report says. I would rather tell you on the first call than take your money.

Growth and profit

  • Almost always because the profit is leaking somewhere specific and nobody has looked. The usual suspects are pricing that has not moved in years, one division or product quietly losing money, and cost of sales that has crept up unnoticed.

  • Four ways, and only four: sell more to the customers you have, win more customers, add products or services, or expand into new locations or businesses. Most owners reach for the last two when the first two are cheaper and faster.

  • Mindset. The owner's default answer to a new idea sets the culture of the whole business, and moving from "no" to "I will consider it" changes more than any strategy document.

  • Money. Every time I have seen a business get into trouble, it ran out of cash, and around 47% of Australian SME insolvencies name poor cash flow or financial management as a contributing factor.

  • Three. They do not manage cash through the growth, they underestimate what the expansion actually costs, and they do not tell the team what is coming.

  • Profitability matters in the short, medium and long term, and the only real question is by how much in each. Growth should extend a profitable business, not be funded by making it unprofitable.

  • It depends heavily on your industry, but most established Australian businesses at this size sit somewhere between 5% and 10%. If you are below that, the gap is usually recoverable rather than structural.

  • When you have been doing the same thing repeatedly without growth or profit. Persistence and stubbornness look identical from the inside, and the numbers are the only reliable way to tell them apart.

  • Everything still goes through you, small decisions stall while people wait for an answer, and processes designed for a much smaller business are now costing money. What worked at $600,000 will actively lose you money at $1.5M.

Sales, marketing and customers

  • Show people clearly and visually why you are different, and aim at a specific niche rather than the mainstream. Trying to appeal to everyone is what makes a market feel crowded.

  • Put your energy into your product, your brand and your point of difference rather than watching your competitors. Competing on price is a race you win by going out of business slightly slower than the other person.

  • Start with the customers you already have and ask them honestly why they buy from you. The answer is usually more specific and more useful than the market description in your business plan.

  • Track every channel separately and compare the same period year on year. Most owners know their total and cannot tell you the split, and the split is where the decisions are.

  • Ask open questions until you understand what the objection actually is, because the stated objection and the real one are frequently different. Then decide whether it is answered by changing the product, the service or the explanation.

Team, leadership and owner load

  • Communication, ahead of everything else. When you communicate openly and often, you create the chance for people to contribute, and when you do not, they guess.

  • Work out which decisions genuinely require you and hand back the ones that do not. In 2026, 31.7% of Australian small business owners had never taken a full week off, which is a structural problem in the business rather than a stamina problem in the owner.

  • When you are spending most of your week on work that somebody else could do and the growth has stalled because of it. The cost of the hire is usually less than the cost of you continuing to do it.

  • Believing you can handle what is in front of you, which comes from having handled things before. Self belief builds resilience, and resilience lets you get through almost anything.

Exit, sale and succession

  • A plan for how you eventually leave the business, whether by selling, bringing in partners, or handing day-to-day control to a management team. Without one, the business stays dependent on you, which limits both what it is worth and what your life looks like.

  • Margin and structure, in that order. A buyer pays for profit that does not depend on you personally, and improving both 18 months before a sale is worth far more than trying to fix them during due diligence.

  • Two to three years out. Roughly 75% of acquisitions fail to return value to the buyer, and the businesses that sell well are the ones where someone did the work early.

Still have a question?

Ask me directly. Call 0491 729 043 or book a 15-minute conversation at sarahcolgate.com.au.