Sales · Importer
About 40× turnover
An importer grew its turnover about fortyfold in three years.
SGS Advisory · Sell more, and keep what you sell.
For owner-managed and mid-sized businesses in the EU, the UK and the UAE
SGS Advisory is a consultancy firm for sales performance. Our specialists in sales and marketing, operations and AI, finance and HR, and compliance and quality work with owners and their sales teams, led by our Managing Director, Stefan Gauci Scicluna.
The first 30 minutes are free, by video call. You tell us where things stand, and we tell you honestly whether the paid diagnostic is worth doing.
An importer grew its turnover about fortyfold in three years after working with us.
Figure reported by the client · More client results
Jobs from our own record, sales first. Client names are left out, and every figure is the one the client reported to us.
Sales · Importer
About 40× turnover
An importer grew its turnover about fortyfold in three years.
Sales · Professional services
+50% sales a year
Professional services companies we worked with put on around half again in sales, year after year.
Sales · Estate agency
6 to 20+ properties a year
An estate agency was selling six properties a year. It now sells more than twenty.
Quality
80% fewer returns
A distributor of industrial components had slow processes, and its departments barely spoke to each other. We rebuilt the work around a single workflow, from order to invoice, with one set of records everyone used. Six months later returns were down 80%, and the cash flow had settled.
Working to a standard
A 12-month qualification, passed
A global semiconductor manufacturer needed a moisture-controlled bag qualified for sensitive components. We delivered it on a documented control process, and it passed after a twelve-month testing cycle.
Governance and funding
Cases built for due diligence
For a property developer we built a five-year cash flow model to raise bank and investor funding. For an installations firm we ran a government investment incentive claim from start to finish, and the claim was secured.
How did they get there? The same way each time. First the diagnostic. Out of that came a sales strategy, written down. Then new technology, where the old way was costing sales, and new people, hired because the strategy said that was the job to fill. After that, a meeting every week with the new hires to see how they and the new tools were getting on, small changes, and the same again the following week, until sales were where the owner wanted them.
How we get there
We look at who you sell to, what you charge and how a proposal leaves the building.
Sales performance →We fix the handover after the deal is signed, and pass the dull admin to software.
Operations and AI →AI agents, governed →We check which deals make money, and make sure the next hire is the right one.
Fractional COO →We cut the refunds and complaints, so customers order again.
Compliance →Quality →We run each engagement in the same order, and you are free to stop after any stage. If the Sales Performance Diagnostic shows that you need nothing more, we will tell you so.
Before any fee: a free 30-minute call. We talk by video call for 30 minutes, at no charge. You tell us what worries you, and we tell you whether a diagnostic is worth doing. If it is not, we say so, and that is the end of it. Book it here.
Start with the Sales Performance Diagnostic if you are not sure. Half the point of it is to find out whether you need a project in the first place. If you sign a Build project within 60 days of the findings call, we credit the Sales Performance Diagnostic fee in full against the project fee. For the detail, go to the compliance management page or the quality assurance page.
Our own method
Every diagnostic and every engagement we run follows the 8X Method. We built it from our own work with owners, directors and managers, and we have sharpened it client by client.
How the method works →Fractional COO
In some firms the owner does the operations job at night, after everything else. The fractional COO role is for that firm. It is one to eight days a month, part on site and part off site. On those days we chair the monthly review and go through the processes and the registers with the people who own them. We look at suppliers and at staff sign-offs. You get one report from us every month. Nobody from the firm is appointed as a director, and we do not take a role that needs a regulator's approval.
Fractional COO Packages and pricesThe firm
Stefan Gauci Scicluna is our Managing Director. He brings in people from the team according to what your business needs, so you might work with a sales specialist one month and a finance one the next. You meet Stefan on the first call and he stays with you until the work is signed off. Nothing the team writes reaches you before he has read it. Everyone on the team has a degree and has done the job they now advise on, and we tell you who they are before they start.
The firm is run from inside the EU, and we are in the United Kingdom regularly. We take work in the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. Our Managing Director owns other businesses, so before we accept an engagement we check it for a conflict of interest with any of them. How an engagement runs, and what happens to your information, is on the Trust page. There is more about the firm and the team on our About page.
Stefan also coaches owners and managers one to one, on how they lead their teams and their sales. More about coaching.
Free tools
We built these for founders who want a straight answer on their own. They are free and need no sign-up, and the health check runs in your browser, so your answers stay with you.
New: free sales tools
Twelve questions, a score out of 24 and the area we would look at first.
Open →02See how many selling hours a year you would win back.
Open →03See what share of last year’s sales never stayed in the business.
Open →04Check whether your open deals can get you to this period’s target.
Open →Our clients are businesses in the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, and businesses that want to sell into those markets. Large customers, public buyers and regulators in all three expect suppliers to show how they manage compliance and quality. The standards we work to, ISO 9001, ISO 37301 and ISO 31000, are international, so one well-run system answers those questions wherever you sell.
For firms based in the EU, or winning customers there. The firm is run from inside the EU, so EU rules and EU buyers are home ground.
For UK firms, and for firms that want UK customers. The same systems, built with UK law and UK buyers in mind.
For businesses in the UAE, and for firms selling there. Compliance and quality systems that give customers and partners the proof they ask for.
Ahead of the local competition
In many local markets, few firms have anyone looking after compliance and quality properly.
When you can show a buyer your records in minutes, and your work comes out right the first time, you stand out against competitors who cannot. Where national law needs a specialist view, in an EU member state, the UK or the UAE, we work alongside a local adviser. None of this is legal advice.
We are a consultancy, and the thing we work on is sales. Most of our clients run owner-managed or mid-sized firms and want two things: more sales, and fewer of them coming back. Part of the job is in the sales team itself. The rest is wherever sales leak out, which can be a slow quote, a bad hire or a refund nobody followed up. Each plan is written for one business. If you want us inside the operation a few days a month, that is the Fractional COO role.
Because most lost sales are not lost in the sales meeting. They go in the slow quote, the late delivery, the wrong invoice, the refund in March, or the salesperson who spends half the week on admin. Our consultants in operations, finance, HR, compliance and quality look at those parts of the business with one question: does this help the firm sell more and keep what it sells? We cannot promise a figure. We can show you where we think sales are leaking and start with the biggest leak.
Our Managing Director, Stefan Gauci Scicluna, leads every engagement, and you deal with him from start to finish. Consultants from our team, each a specialist in one field, do much of the work with him, and we tell you who is working on yours before it starts.
For compliance or quality work, we recommend starting with the Sales Performance Diagnostic. It takes two or three days of our time, costs a fixed €2,250 excluding VAT, and leaves you with scored findings and a 90-day plan. If you want a fractional COO, you start with the Operations Diagnostic instead: one day or four days, at the fixed fees on the packages page, credited in full against your first package if you sign up within 60 days. If you already know what you need, skip both and use the contact page. We will want to know who you are, what is putting you under pressure and when it has to be done. You will usually hear back within a couple of working days.
The EU, the UK and the UAE. The firm is run from inside the EU. We work from the law of the place you trade in, and Scotland does some things differently from England. Our own ground is United Kingdom and European Union rules. For UAE law, or the national law of another EU member state, we work alongside a local adviser.
Start a conversation
Tell us where your sales are now and where you want them to be. You will get a plain yes or no on whether we are the right firm for it, and if we are, how we would go about it.