About
How this started.
I never set out to be a growth consultant. I'm a negotiator by trade. What follows is the short version of how IGP came to exist, and why it may or may not be right for you.
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Jan Potgieter · Founder, IGP
The short version
Negotiator by trade. Operator by accident.
Twenty years at Imperium Negotiation Solutions. Three years inside AI as an operator. Two growth engines built from scratch — my own practice, then Linda Paige's. One productised system spun out so other solo professionals can have the same. The longer version is below.
I've spent the last twenty years at Imperium Negotiation Solutions, teaching and leading dealmaking for professional firms, boardrooms, and sales teams. Before that I spent years in enterprise software sales, selling systems to people who already thought in systems. That taught me something I never forgot: software is a slave to business process, not the other way round. Most software ages badly because it solves the wrong problem first.
I've always loved tech. I never learned to code. Those two things used to be in tension. AI changed that. Now I can build things I used to only be able to sketch.
I did not immediately know what to build. I tried the other options first. Agencies. Freelancers. Every AI tool that promised to automate the hard parts. I spent about three years on this problem at real cost, across real businesses, before I had a system worth trusting. Most of the tools I tried are gone or unrecognisable now. The ones worth keeping turned out to be a short list. More importantly, I realised the tools were not the point. The architecture was. Which tool you use matters far less than what you build, how the components talk to each other, and whether you own the result when things change. That is what I call the Growth Infrastructure Method. It is not a tool stack. It is a set of architectural decisions that hold regardless of which tools sit underneath them.
A few years ago I started building a machine for Imperium. A content engine trained on my own voice. A scorecard that qualified prospects before I wasted time on calls. A website that spoke the language I'd spent twenty years refining. The stack wasn't revolutionary. It was just mine, and it worked.
Then I built the same kind of machine for my ex-wife's business. A style consultancy serving professional women over 45. Different audience, different voice, same shape underneath. It worked there too.
By early 2026 I had two live engines running. Different audiences, different methods, same shape. That's when I realised what I'd actually built wasn't a pair of bespoke tools. It was a productisable system, a growth engine for solo professionals, that I could offer to others.
So I spun it out. That's what this is. Early days. Founder pricing for the first few clients, standard pricing after that. If you're reading this and thinking about it, you're early.
The insight underneath
The real thing I discovered through all of this isn't "AI does content." Plenty of agencies are saying that and getting paid badly for it.
The real thing is that AI has turned negotiation into infrastructure.
Every piece of copy a professional puts in front of a prospect is a negotiation. Every email. Every headline. Every scorecard question. Every ad. The close comes at the end of a chain that started with a search. For twenty years that chain has been handled by people. Slowly, inconsistently, expensively. AI now lets it be built once and run at scale, without losing the quality of the dealmaking at any step.
That's what IGP builds. Dealmaking infrastructure for solo professionals. A system that carries the quality of a senior negotiator's hand, at a price a solo practice can afford, on a stack you own from day one.
I built it for myself. I built it for my ex-wife's business. Now I'm opening it up to others.
Jan.
The credentials behind this
Twenty years of real dealmaking.
Imperium Negotiation Solutions, the practice IGP grew out of, has delivered dealmaking training and consulting to enterprise teams at bp, Hilton, NHS, Pfizer, Vodafone, John Deere, Adidas, and LaLiga, among others. IGP is the same thinking, productised and re-aimed at solo professionals.
Visit Imperium Negotiation Solutions →How I work
The character of the working relationship.
Before any document, before any scope or number, this is how I intend to show up for you. The letter of the agreement is negotiable. The spirit isn't.
You're hiring an operator, not an agency.
You talk to Jan and his team directly. No account managers in between. No weekly status decks to sit through.
We work in approvals, not reports.
Nothing goes to the public without your yes. Every piece of content, every ad, every email sequence waits for you. Your name, your call.
We're partners in your scaling.
If the engine delivers, we both win. If it underperforms, we feel it with you, not above you. The 90-day guarantee exists because we mean this.
You own what we build from day one.
Your domain, your ad account, your email list, your content library. We operate on your accounts, not ours. Walk away any time, keep it all running.
Disputes are handled human-first.
If something breaks, the first move is a conversation. Not an email, not a clause. We talk, we find it, we fix it.
We operate the way we'd want someone to operate on our behalf.
That's the test every decision about your engine passes through.
Jan Potgieter, Imperium Growth Partners.
Answered
The questions thoughtful prospects raise.
Every objection worth answering before a first call. If yours isn't here, email [email protected] and I'll answer it personally.
Who is Imperium Growth Partners?
Why Jan, not an established agency?
Have you done this for a therapist, lawyer, or advisor before?
Why is IGP cheaper than an established agency?
What happens if something happens to Jan?
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