MAGE works with owner-managed businesses of five to forty staff where the founder is still in the day-to-day. The core work of pricing, operations, supply chain, margin and team structure applies across industries. Recruitment and lettings are where the track record runs deepest, and the sectors below show that work in detail, but they are proof points rather than a boundary. Different surface, same underlying problem: running the service is a different skill set from running the business, and there’s rarely time to do both.
Independently owned, typically 3–40 consultants, placing across any sector. Owner-director still in the day-to-day. Trading well, but profit isn’t matching revenue.
Independently owned, typically one to five branches, residential sales and/or lettings. Competing against online disruptors and a rising legislative burden with limited time to respond strategically.
For owner-operators of property portfolios: optimisation, capital allocation, asset efficiency, and the operating cadence that turns a collection of buildings into a coherent business. MAGE has supported a £10m portfolio over four years.
For founder-led services firms such as agencies, consultancies and specialist studios, where the work is good but the operating system has fallen behind it. The classic owner-managed problem: great delivery, fragile economics.
For early-stage SaaS, from pre-Series A through early scale, where the question is which market to chase and which to politely decline. MAGE has advised a technology start-up on identifying valuable niches and focusing resource on the most commercially attractive ones.
Different industries reward different surface tactics: landlord acquisition in lettings, BD cadence in recruitment, capital allocation in property, utilisation in services, niche selection in SaaS. Underneath, the disciplines that make the business durable are the same: pricing held, people developed, operations that don’t need the owner to function, and a clear weekly rhythm of decisions made on numbers rather than feel. If your sector isn’t listed above, the disciplines still travel.
