# Schmidt Consulting Group: Full Content Index > Agency growth consulting for founder-led agencies, professional services firms, and consulting firms. Positioning, pricing, pipeline, and AI capacity work that helps agency founders build predictable, founder-independent growth. Schmidt Consulting Group (SCG) is a boutique consulting practice led by Kurt Schmidt, president of a 2x Inc. 5000 agency and an agency growth consultant and advisor with 25+ years in the agency industry. SCG works with founder-led agencies, professional services firms, and consulting firms. The core thesis is that most founder-led agencies stall on one of four growth leaks: positioning, pricing, pipeline, or AI capacity. The work is identifying which one is active and fixing it. ## About Kurt Schmidt Kurt Schmidt is an agency growth consultant and advisor, fractional CMO, and 3x published author based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He spent 2017-2024 as President & Partner at Foundry, a Minneapolis-based digital design and development agency that made the Inc. 5000 list twice (ranked #2,839 in 2020 and #2,108 in 2021). He co-founded Standard Byke Company in 1991, a BMX manufacturer known for US-made frames. He has worked with 150+ agencies over 25+ years on positioning, pricing, and commercial systems. His books (The Attraction Agency, The Little Book of Networking, and The TEN-TEN-TEN Blueprint) map his frameworks for authority building, relationship systems, and strategic planning. Profile: https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/about/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/-kurtschmidt/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RoadMapKurtSchmidt ## Agency Positioning Strategy https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/agency-positioning/ Agency positioning is the upstream constraint most founder-led agencies haven't solved. Vague positioning drives every buyer conversation back to rate, forces the founder to pitch every deal personally, and makes the team's answers to "what do you do" diverge over time. SCG's positioning work produces a positioning statement, target client profile, proof points, messaging hierarchy, sales talking points, and a rollout plan. The engagement runs with the founder and one or two senior people. Sharp positioning is the pre-condition for value-based pricing and founder-independent BD. ## Agency Pricing Models https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/agency-pricing-models/ Most founder-led agencies are losing margin on hourly billing without knowing it: scope expands, rates don't, and the time lost to over-servicing doesn't show up in the P&L until it's systemic. SCG's pricing rebuild moves agencies from hourly or loosely-defined retainers toward outcome-anchored pricing with acceptance criteria built into the proposal. The core work includes a 12-month pricing audit, new rate sheets and productized package definitions, scoping templates, proposal architecture, a pricing playbook, and a rollout plan. AI compression raises the urgency of this work for agencies deploying AI tools on client work. ## Agency Pipeline & Business Development https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/agency-pipeline/ Founder-led agency pipelines stall when the trust transfer requires the founder in the room. Proposals don't carry. Discovery becomes price-shopping. The BD hire isn't producing, not because of the hire, but because the architecture they're running on can't close without the founder. SCG's pipeline architecture work rebuilds the underlying system: trust transfer mechanisms, proposal architecture, referral system design, and BD role definition the BD hire can actually operate. The output is a pipeline that compounds when the founder isn't present. ## AI for Agencies https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/ai-for-agencies/ AI is compressing the labor cost of work agencies already sell. The agencies holding margin are the ones that rebuild pricing around outcomes before AI compression shows up in their numbers. This is not a technology adoption question. It's a pricing and margin architecture question. SCG's AI work helps founder-led agencies answer: what to charge for AI-assisted work, whether to disclose AI use and what the price story looks like either way, and how to restructure retainers so the margin gap from lower delivery cost becomes profit instead of discount. ## How to Choose an Agency Growth Consultant https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/agency-growth-consultant/ A buyer's guide for founder-led agency owners evaluating agency growth consultants, coaches, and fractional CMOs. Covers the four common growth constraints (positioning, pricing, pipeline, AI capacity), the four hiring options with typical cost ranges, the five practitioners who work in this space (Karl Sakas, Jason Swenk, AMI/Drew McLellan, Haus Advisors, and SCG), what a growth engagement should produce (positioning artifact, pricing rebuild, BD system, content engine plan, or AI capability plan), and the failure patterns most engagements run into. Written by Kurt Schmidt from direct observation across multiple agency engagements. ## Agency Growth Leaks https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/agency-growth-leaks/ Founder-led agency growth stalls in one of four shapes: positioning (the agency means something different to every buyer), pricing (margin leaking through hourly billing and scope creep), pipeline (trust transfer requires the founder in every deal), or AI capacity (delivery costs dropping faster than the pricing model adapts). Most agencies have two of these active at the same time. This page is a diagnostic tool: it names the four shapes and helps the founder recognize which one fits before booking a call. ## Mentorship https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/mentorship/ Mentorship is a standing read on the decisions in front of the founder: pricing a deal, making a hire, a client winding down, a positioning call. Two 60-minute video sessions a month, with the founder setting the agenda, plus questions answered async within one business day. Questions and reads, not deliverables. The founder and their team do the work. ## Advisory https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/advisory/ Advisory is a written plan, one priority a week, reviewed every week against what the agency actually shipped. Weekly 60-minute video session, deal reviews when a deal is live, and the same one business day async. Direction and accountability, not a sounding board. SCG does not write the proposals or run the pipeline. The engagement makes sure the founder does, and that they are right. ## Fractional Partner https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/fractional-partner/ Fractional Partner is where SCG owns the outcome inside the business. Two shapes, one engagement. In the first, SCG leads on growth strategy, pricing, go to market, and marketing direction, in the room with the client's sales and delivery leads, while the client's team produces. In the second, SCG runs the marketing function with its own production team: writing, podcast, social, email, and outreach. Every engagement starts by meeting the client's team and their current sales and marketing leads before changing anything. ## Solo Club https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/solo-club/ Solo Club is SCG's membership for owners of solo and very small professional service firms: consultants, advisors, and specialists selling their own expertise. Membership costs $19 a month (or $190 a year) and includes three short tactical tips a week, a working system handed over twice a month (the pricing tools and AI workflows Kurt Schmidt uses in his own practice), and one live group call a month. It is the entry point for people who want the thinking behind SCG's consulting work without a consulting engagement. ## Blog https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/blog/ The SCG blog covers agency growth strategy, positioning, pricing, pipeline, AI economics, and founder leadership. Articles are written by Kurt Schmidt and draw on 25+ years of agency-side experience and 150+ agency engagements. Categories include: Agency Growth & Scaling, Agency Positioning & Niching, Agency Finance & Profitability, Business Development & Sales, Agency Operations & Systems, AI for Agencies, Leadership & Culture. ## Books by Kurt Schmidt ### The Attraction Agency https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/books/the-attraction-agency/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G47N5LT6 How to build an agency that draws clients in instead of chasing them. The Attraction Agency maps the frameworks for authority building, public value creation, and the positioning work that makes inbound possible. Designed for founder-led agency owners who are tired of referral dependency and want a repeatable model for being found and chosen by the right clients. ### The Little Book of Networking Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Networking-Career-Conversation/dp/1634895835 A practical networking handbook built around the Pipeline/Database/Goal Group framework. Designed for professionals who have loose contacts but no system for turning them into a working network. Covers the relationship cadence and the practical mechanics of staying in touch at scale without it feeling transactional. ### The TEN-TEN-TEN Blueprint Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/TEN-TEN-TEN-Blueprint-Craft-Strategic-Precision-ebook/dp/B0D2C61THR A strategic planning framework built on 10-year, 10-month, and 10-week time horizons. Designed for founders and business leaders who want daily and weekly decisions to connect to long-term outcomes without complex planning systems. ## Contact & Social Website: https://www.schmidtconsulting.group LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/-kurtschmidt/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RoadMapKurtSchmidt ## Sitemap https://www.schmidtconsulting.group/sitemap-index.xml