Episode 38 - Adil Khan - Boxwood

Today’s guest is Adil Khan. Adil was one of the founding team of Boxwood, the business transformation consultancy that following years of successful growth was acquired by KPMG in 2015. Since leaving Boxwood Adil now spends his time advising Consulting entrepreneurs on how to successfully grow their businesses and focusing on his own start up, Lifefyle. The goal of Lifefyle is to provide people with a simple, organised platform for their life admin, to give them the freedom to unlock their potential and thrive. You can find out more about Lifefyle at www.lifefyle.com Adil’s story is rather different to what you might consider the typical journey of a Consulting entrepreneur. Unlike most, he didn’t have a long track record in Consulting, having only spent a short time in the indsutry before stepping out to found boxwood with his co-founders who had spent equally little time in Consulting. This limited time in the industry proved to be the key to their success as they set out to create something very different from the typical Consulting model that was common at the time. We go in to detail on some really key parts of the Boxwood journey that I know you’re going to find really interesting including: The importance of culture and how Adil and his co-founders defined their culture from the start and what they did to ensure it remained a core focus as they grew. The challenges of being responsible for both people and finance as Adil was. The natural tensions these functions often come up against and how Adil managed this.  The Boxwood approach to working with clients, why this was so unique and what Consultants in today’s Market could learn from it. And Adil’s contrarian view on building a Consulting business to sell, why expanding internationally can actually reduce the value of your business and the sale of Boxwood to KPMG. A process I know a number of you have wanted to hear more about. I really enjoyed this conversation and it was great to get the perspective of someone who took a less orthodox route to success in Consulting. If you’re not from the typical ‘big 4’ Consulting background and want to know how you can turn this to your advantage or even if you are and want to know how you can use the principle from Boxwood to grow your business or practice area I know you’re going to get a ton from this interview. You can get in touch with Adil through his LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adilkhan/ Or drop him an email - adil@blueastral.co.uk ----------- This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy. Digital Marketing has moved forward, but most consulting firms haven’t. Many Consulting firms still see their corporate blog as their sole Digital Marketing channel and find themselves frustrated when these blogs yield little if any results. To help those of you who want to harness the power of Digital Marketing to grow your Consulting Business but don’t have the knowledge, capacity or in-house capability to do so I launched Create Engage, the first Digital Marketing agency for the Management Consulting Industry. If you’d like to find out more about how Create Engage can help you use Digital Marketing to take your business to the next level then drop me an email at Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk or go to our website www.createengage.co.uk where you can download our free case study that breaks down down the Digital Marketing strategies used by one successful Consulting firm to help them grow over 400% in just 3 years and gives you the secrets they used, so that you can apply them in your own firm.