Alex Dukes.

The business I run

I own and run a windows and doors installation business in the UK. It’s a working firm: enquiries to answer, surveys to book, fitting teams to keep moving, suppliers to manage and customers to look after through to completion.

I don’t name the firm here — this site is about the consulting. What matters is the experience behind it: the decisions, trade-offs and pressures I deal with in my own business are the same ones you deal with in yours.

Sold, surveyed, managed

I’m not advising on this work from the outside. I’ve sold it — priced jobs, presented quotes, won some and lost some. I’ve surveyed it, and lived with what happens when a survey isn’t right. And I’ve managed installations: the diary, the fitting teams, the suppliers, the remedials and the sign-offs.

Doing those jobs yourself changes the advice. When we talk about follow-up, or scheduling, or holding a price, I know how those things feel in practice — including the parts that are harder than they sound in a plan.

Why consultancy

There isn’t an obvious place for the owner of a windows and doors firm to go for advice. General business consultants rarely know the trade. Suppliers give advice with a product behind it. Other installers are competitors.

ADDW Consulting is my answer to that gap: advice from someone who knows the trade first-hand, with no supplier interest behind it and no agenda beyond making your business work better.

How I work with owners

Consulting, as I do it, means spending time in the business, understanding how it really runs, and being straightforward about what I would change and in what order. Not a slide deck — a plan you can act on, and help putting it into practice.

You know your business better than I ever will. My job is to bring an outside pair of eyes that knows what it’s looking at — and to say plainly what I see.