can create enduring value through better people, leaders and systems
We are in the corner of small business owners.
Big companies have boards, advisors and whole departments working out the next move. Many owners have themselves, a laptop and a late night.
That has never sat right with us.
Good advice has always existed, but it lived behind fees and firms built for companies ten times the typical SME in Australia.
So we bring the proven strategy, leadership skills, and the systems to owner-run businesses, so yours can grow past one person and create enduring value that lasts beyond you.
To get started, take our complementary diagnostic. We built it for SME owners during our residency at the Innovation Campus, bringing decades of small business growth strategy into a single, Australian-first tool.
Dr Mitch CatterallManaging PartnerBen CharltonFounding Partner
Businesses we have worked with
Georgiou (Strabag Group)VertechLocal Fire ProtectionThe Ad JungleDarby JonesZenias ConsultingDr Lightning ElectricalBeyond BrilliantHaztech SolutionsOracle GroupPressure DynamicsCessCon DecomAspire LawyersMcKinley PlowmanMarr Family LawyersCarter Ferguson SolicitorsHeard McEwan LegalLaw Society of NSWMCC Sustainable FuturesWorkplace AdvantageShape HRMobilize RecruitmentTeams SquaredWorkit SpacesThe Maintain AppCommunication Skills AcademyComplet-EDElevation LabsClimate CleverRig SurveysNati Access CompanyIndoor GardensThe Artisan CoLime TheoryRefresh MarketingNew Word OrderLoopliReel ResultsAdapt
Owner Dependency Is Holding You Back
If you ever want to sell, owner dependency is the first thing a buyer looks for. A business that cannot run without you is a risk to them, and they take a steep discount off the price to cover it. Long before any sale, the same problem shows up every day.
Buyers discount the business heavily if you ever sell
Every decision comes back to your desk
Growth stops where your capacity stops
New hires take months to become useful
You cannot take a real break
There’s a plan somewhere, and none of it got built
The reason why: Your craft is not the problem. Whether your business is law, trades, accounting or technology, that is your domain and you have it covered. What decides whether the business grows is everything built around it, and that is what we work on.
We work with a range of industries, from professional services to skilled trades. Even if yours isn’t listed below, there’s a fair chance we’ve worked with a business like it.
Law Firms
Family, injury and multi-disciplinary practices where the principal is still the hub.
Skilled Trades
Electrical, fire, industrial services: trades with a specialty and a growing crew.
HR Providers
Specialist HR firms that advise everyone else on structure and need their own.
Industrial Contractors
Site-based businesses tendering for work that is bigger than the owner's reach.
Consultants
Advisory practices where the owner's name is the value above the door.
Accountants
Firms where every client relationship and every hard call runs through the partner.
A team of at least five, but talk to us if you are earlier than that and we may be able to meet you where you are
Too much sits with one person and the business feels it
No high performing leadership team yet, so the senior calls still land on the owner
Already profitable and willing to invest for a bigger return
An owner who is hungry and looking at the growth horizon
We also support early-stage founders, under specific circumstances and in specific industries. Not there yet, or not quite a fit? Run the diagnostic anyway, or contact us for a quote.
Strategy, People and Systems
These are the three areas we work on that have the greatest growth leverage in the current Australian market.
01
Where You’re Going
Direction and strategyToday
You know roughly where you want to end up, but it lives in your head and it moves. Nobody else in the business can say what this year is aiming at, so nobody can help you get there.
What we build with you
Vision and five year direction
Five year to one year translation
Objectives and targets everyone can see
The strategic roadmap
02
Who’s Going with You
People and leadershipToday
The people are mostly good, but the results are uneven. Work gets done differently depending on who does it, nobody can say what good looks like, and the same problems come back around.
What we build with you
Values and behaviours
Behavioural and psychometric profiling
Leadership capability and executive coaching
Owner independence
03
How It Works Without You
Systems and numbersToday
Every call comes back to your desk. The same work gets rebuilt from scratch each time, nothing can be handed to a new person cleanly, and you cannot see far enough ahead to make a call with confidence.
What we build with you
Processes and procedures mapped into one centre of truth
Our methods aren’t theoretical, and are not one-off flukes: they come out of the 22 businesses we have owned and run between us. Every system and every hard call we walk you through has been tested inside a business one of us owned, then set up to run without us.
We also chose to work with owner-run Australian businesses on purpose: we give a shit about the people who built them, how they help local communities, and what happens to those businesses when the owner finally steps back, because that is the world we come from and believe in.
22 businesses owned across the Unveil team over 20 years, held through ownership and leadership.
39% average enterprise value uplift within the first 12 months of working with Unveil.
67% average cultural uplift and job satisfaction within the first 12 months of working with Unveil.
$65M across 12 exits we have led and taken part in.
Vertech
An industrial rope access business we helped scale from domestic to international, then led an 8-figure exit. Clear proof of how our method builds something you can hand over.
Haztech
Leadership and recruitment rebuilt into documented systems the team run themselves. The business now grows without the owner in every decision, and tenders for larger projects.
Aspire Lawyers
A law firm rebuilt so it no longer needs billable owner hours to grow. Revenue has doubled while headcount came down, and the value now sits in the structure of the firm.
How Our Business Advisory Works
Many of the owners we work with have had a plan at some stage, stored somewhere and eventually forgotten.
The gap with any strategic plan is getting it built into the business, with your people trained to run it and the systems left behind so it keeps working properly when you decide to step back.
Every engagement we run starts with the diagnostic, so we can properly measure where you are. From there, every business is different, but the core rhythm that we know works typically stays the same. This is also what lets us work across so many industries: we leave your specialised craft alone and build the business around it.
Measure: where you are now
01Complementary
Complementary Diagnostic
Online and quick. It scores your business across Strategy, People, Execution, Capital and Structure, and shows you where the gaps sit.
02Paid, priced up front
Full Diagnostic and Roadmap
A detailed business audit and sessions with our senior team, to measure exactly where you are. We map how your week really runs, set where the business is going, and hand you a roadmap with the priorities in order. From here, you have a clear vision of the next 1, 3, 5 and 10 years.
Implement: built into the business
03
Implementation
This is where the real action begins. Owners and key leaders agree on an aligned plan: yearly goals, 90 day targets, a meeting rhythm and a clear map of who does what. This is digitised into a living system (Lumia), so the plan never gets forgotten again. What is Lumia?
04
Systems Build
You and your team build the roles, processes and numbers, with us alongside to make sure it is done right the first time. We keep focus on the areas your diagnostic revealed as having the most leverage and impact for you and your situation, not a generic, off-the-shelf process.
05
Handover
Your leadership team runs it and you step back into oversight. We rerun the audit against day one, and everything we built together stays yours.
Get started by taking our complementary version of the diagnostic.
“Unveil took the time to deeply understand our business, our people and our values. Their ability to listen, pivot and adapt is what made iGnite a real success.”
Georgiou Courtney Scott, National People & Capability Manager. Construction and engineering, National
“Unveil links the numbers to what's actually happening on the ground, and gets the human side of a firm. It's freed up my capacity as principal to deliberately focus on the business.”
Marr Family Lawyers Kate Marr, Principal. Family law, NSW
“A really good stare into the mirror. After 20 years in HR, it was incredible to find something that puts real data behind the things that matter. I've got clarity on where my business sits and I'm energised to increase its value.”
Shape HR Cam Shepherd. Specialised HR firm, VIC
“We tried onboarding someone before without the system and it fundamentally failed. This time, with the system Unveil built, we've actually made an improvement.”
Haztech Solutions Josh Gomes. HA electrical and instrumentation, WA
“I had big decisions weighing on me and no clear way through them. Unveil helped me get clarity and a way forward. Now I feel lighter and energised.”
Workplace Advantage Kristen Wall. SME HR experts, NSW
“It was awesome to get a picture of what the business is worth and why, but more importantly exactly what we can do to improve both the valuation and the business. They make it fun, too.”
New Word Order Scott Oxford. Brand agency, QLD
“The real value is the education and philosophy: the key drivers of a successful business, and the beliefs you actually need to run one well.”
Aspire Lawyers Shayne Bedford. Multi-disciplinary law firm, VIC
“Since meeting Ben, Mitch and the team at Unveil I've felt a security that I can call on any of them to discuss different matters, and they will always be there to help me out. Six months in, the impact on my personal life and my work life has been amazing.”
Indoor Gardens Scott Eastman, Director. Specialised indoor plant experts
“Looking at the strategy, making a plan and building a financial model around it with Unveil was super helpful.”
Loopli Jack Morgan. Marketing and website design, NSW
“Juggling a million things as a business owner is hard. Working with Mitch kept me focused on the right things, and I'm way more confident growing our business now.”
Reel Results Rod Uzun. Modern media, NSW
Meet Unveil
Dr Mitch Catterall
Managing Partner. Wollongong and Sydney
Runs the diagnostic and delivers the build. More than twenty years in education, a doctorate, and a decade of business mentorship, alongside five businesses of his own. In the room with owners and their teams every fortnight.
Ben Charlton
Founding Partner. Perth
Founded Unveil in 2017. Owner across 18 businesses, with 12 exits and roughly $65M in enterprise value behind them. The method Unveil runs came out of building and running that portfolio.
Our Promise
Your Craft Stays Yours
We do not touch the thing you are good at. We build everything around it.
Built with You, Not for You
We guide the process and hold the standard. Your team does the work inside the business, so they own it and can run it when we step back. Where a job needs heavier hands from us, that is scoped up front, not the default.
Coaching Alone Is Not Enough
Coaching stops working the day the invoices stop. So we work out the missing systems with you, guide the build, and test that they hold.
Senior Calls, Made with You
Most of the businesses we work with do not yet have a high performing leadership team. Until they do, we help make the senior-level decisions alongside the owner.
Everything Traces Back to Value
Every gap we close is one that made the business worth less. We measure the movement.
Our Partnership with Adapt
We deliver Adapt's Lumia platform. It is Australian-built, based on Succession Thinking™, and it moves a business from owner-run to owner-independent. It becomes the centre of truth for the business: the org map, the direction, the objectives and the roadmap all sitting in one place.
500+ owners worked with through Adapt
2900+ teams and leaders developed on the platform
Adapt platform figures across Australia, not Unveil client numbers. Explore the platform
Common Questions
How does the diagnostic work?
The assessment takes about five minutes and scores your business against the five parts of the SPECS model. If we can see a clear path to more value, we invite you into the full partner-led version.
How big does my business need to be?
For the monthly build, a team of at least five. Below that, we support early-stage founders under specific circumstances and in specific industries, so run the diagnostic and talk to us.
Will it work for my industry?
Yes. We have worked across construction, law, industrial services, HR and professional services. The method measures the value built around your craft, so the industry does not change how it works.
How are you different from a business coach?
We do coach, at executive level, and we are clear about what coaching does on its own. Coaching stops working the day the invoices stop. So alongside it we work out the missing systems with you, guide your team as they build them, and test that they hold up so they run without us.
What does an engagement cost?
Engagements run monthly and are scoped after the diagnostic, because a six-person firm and a forty-person firm are not the same build, and because it depends on how involved you want us to be. Most of the time we guide, your team builds. Where you want us in deeper, we scope that too. No lock-in. All figures are in Australian dollars and exclude GST.
Do you run leadership programs for larger organisations?
