– MARGIE SMOLAREK
Multidisciplinary business consultant and creative problem-solver for founder-led companies. I don’t look at one symptom in isolation — I look at the system around it, and find the small number of changes that make the biggest difference.
• WHERE PEOPLE USUALLY START
You don’t need a perfectly defined problem. In many of the situations I’m good at, the first task is defining the problem properly.
Some of these fit in one session. Others need a deeper review of one area. The format should match the problem, not the other way around.
• HOW I THINK
When I receive information, I start building a mental map: what connects to what, which decisions depend on other decisions, what the company intends to do, what is actually happening — and where the two stop matching.
I start with the founder and the bigger picture — what you want from the business and where you believe it is going. Then I compare that intention with the current reality.
I hold several perspectives at once: what the company intends and what the client experiences; what the process says should happen and what people actually do. The gaps between them are where the useful work begins.
Then we prioritise by impact and resources — time, money, people, tools, execution capacity. The best improvement is not automatically the most impressive one. It is the one that makes sense now.
If a company has a meeting every Monday, I want to know what it is supposed to achieve, what decisions come out of it, who needs to be there, and what would happen if it disappeared. If nobody can answer, the meeting itself is part of the problem.
Founders attach meaning to an action because they are already thinking several steps ahead. A campaign is not just a campaign; in their mind it is future cash flow and the next stage of the company. I help separate the actual information from the plan built on top of it.
• WHY I THINK THIS WAY
I am autistic and have ADHD. I don’t present that as a claim that neurodivergent people are automatically better at business. I mention it because it explains something specific: when I take in a lot of information, I see existing relationships and possible relationships at the same time. A process, a person, a brand message, a resource constraint and a client reaction may all sit on the same mental map, because they can affect one another.
I also have a strong need for logic. “This is just how we do it” is not a sufficient answer, which makes me naturally interested in inconsistencies, unclear ownership and decisions that exist without a purpose.
It has limits, and I design my work around them. I am at my best in diagnosis, design, improvement and strategic oversight. I can advise during implementation, review outputs and help select specialists — but I don’t want to become the permanent operational owner of every solution I recommend.
• WHAT I CAN HELP WITH
These are not separate services that happen to share a website. The common denominator is how I look at a problem.
Finding the real source of a problem rather than the first explanation. Process and workflow design, unnecessary steps, unclear handovers, and deciding what should become a standard so the company stops solving the same problem from scratch.
Your brand as a client actually meets it — website, messaging, onboarding, the path to purchase. I compare what you want to communicate with what a potential client sees, understands and expects. Less “does it look nice,” more “is it coherent and does it match the promise.”
Testing an app, product or document against the promise the brand makes to the user. Then the standard that protects it: quality is work meeting criteria you chose deliberately, not vague perfectionism.
A decision, a partnership, a new market, a direction that has stalled. I map the second-order effects, test the assumptions, and ask the questions that need answering before a commitment is made.
• WAYS TO WORK WITH ME
Not every founder needs a programme, and not every problem should be squeezed into a 90-minute call.
90 minutes on one specific decision, problem, idea or bottleneck. Clarify the situation, test the logic, find what was missed, leave with a concrete direction.
The deeper programme for founder-led companies that need the wider view rather than a single fix. Connects the founder, business and client perspectives across four stages: Find, Link, Optimise, Win.
Your brand reviewed from the outside: first impression, positioning, messaging, offer, calls to action and the path to purchase — then the changes with the highest likely impact.
For founders whose own name carries the business: what you stand for, why it matters to the people you want, and language a client recognises themselves in.
Your product, app or digital experience tested against the promise you are making to the user, with structured feedback on where it holds and where it breaks.
Ongoing oversight once you know what good looks like: developing standards and SOPs, reviewing how they are actually applied, and keeping improvement a practice rather than a project.
Reframing the problem to find the options that were not obvious at first — angles, concepts and alternatives when the current direction has stopped producing movement.
An external pair of eyes on high-value output — presentations, documents, materials — plus the clearer standards that make the same problems happen less often.
If you think my brain could be useful for something, ask me.
• WHAT CHANGES
The ideal long-term result is a company that becomes better at improving itself.
• WHAT I DO NOT DO
• EVIDENCE
Marzena is the person who sees beyond the box, beyond the limitations you sometimes put on yourself. She is not only a great strategist but also a visionary who knows how to execute things right away.
It was such a pleasure to work with her because I could focus on my creative work in front of the ‘camera,’ while she was the brain behind all the systems and technical stuff.
She is great at motivating you, believing in you and your vision, and helping you see the bigger picture. She is also not afraid to be honest and give you real, honest feedback.
Below are worked examples of how I approach a problem — not client results. Where I have real before-and-after evidence, I show that instead. Proof should be real.
“Our conversion is low.”
I wouldn’t start by recommending more traffic. First: where people drop out, whether the offer is clear, whether trust is built, whether the message reflects the real value, whether follow-up works — and whether the client is being asked to make too large a leap between interest and purchase.
“I can’t create content.”
If you already write strong long-form pieces, the missing thing isn’t creativity. It’s a production system: how one long idea becomes several platform-specific pieces without creating a second full-time job.
“Onboarding works, but it feels clumsy.”
If every handover needs an email before and after to confirm the same information, I would ask whether the first message creates value at all. The improvement may be one deleted step rather than a new tool.
• RANGE
I don’t present this as deep technical expertise in every industry. The value is exposure — it trained me to separate the universal management questions from the parts that genuinely need a specialist. When specialist knowledge is required, I say so.
• START HERE
You don’t need a defined brief. A question, a problem, an idea or a messy situation is enough — creating the clean brief is often part of the work.
Also, because a brand should feel like a person: I have a dog — Labrador, German Shepherd and Husky mix. Not positioning. Texture.
