In this week’s episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick chats to Stephen Aldridge, Managing Director at financial modelling consultancy, Numeritas.

If you’re a regular listener of the podcast, you’ll know that we often explore the different routes to success that many of our guests have followed. Stephen’s journey has been one of the most interesting we’ve encountered, taking him from factory-based engineering to running his own successful boutique consultancy – with a stint as a painter and decorator thrown in for good measure! 

During his time as an engineer, Stephen got to know his products inside out, but he soon began to crave a more commercial role. He moved into sales and marketing, before discovering his true passion – financial modelling. He then spent several successful years at KPMG and Deloitte – where the prospect of making Partner was dangled in front of him more than once – before making the leap into running Numeritas with his business partner, Denver McCann.

That was almost 20 years ago. Now, as Numeritas approaches two successful decades in business, Nick catches up with Stephen to find out more about his journey and the lessons he’s learned along the way, including:

• What makes a successful partnership and his advice for anyone building a consultancy with a co-founder or founders

• Stephen’s lessons from 20 years in business, what’s helped Numeritas accelerate their success and what pitfalls you should watch out for if you’re at the start of building your own consultancy
  
• How taking a structured approach to marketing led to a 40% increase in sales and why Stephen sees marketing as a critical part of their business.
  
• And why Numertias choose to outsource all but core consulting functions and the lessons you can learn to help you improve your own consultancy.

Whether you’re interested in starting your own consultancy, thinking of making the leap from the ‘Big Four’ to a boutique, or simply enjoy a cracking interview, you’ll love listening to this episode of Climb in Consulting.  

We hope you enjoy the show!

Reach out to Stephen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenaldridge/ 

Learn more about Numeritas: https://www.numeritas.co.uk/

Books mentioned in the show

The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals – Sean Covey and Chris McChesney  

Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman

Noise –  Daniel Kahneman

Stephen’s Recommended Reads

Thinking and forecasting:

Superforecasting – Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner 

The Signal and the Noise – Nate Silver  

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness – Richard H. Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein

How To Make The World Add Up – Tim Harford 

The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme – Prof Steve Peters

Time to think – Nancy Kline

Influence and negotiating:

Never Split The Difference – Chris Voss 

Influence – Robert Cialdini 

Pre-suasion – Robert Cialdini 

How To Fail At Almost Everything And Still Win Big – Scott Adams 

 Loserthink – Scott Adams 

 Win Bigly – Scott Adams

Other favourites: 

Rebel Ideas – Matthew Syed 

Black Box Thinking – Matthew Syed 

Messy – Tim Harford 

The Undercover Economist – Tim Harford