Who is Imperium Growth Partners?

Imperium Growth Partners (IGP) is a productised growth consultancy for solo professionals, built by Jan Potgieter. Jan has spent twenty years at Imperium Negotiation Solutions, the parent brand, leading dealmaking training for bp, Hilton, NHS, Pfizer, Vodafone, John Deere, Adidas and LaLiga. IGP is the same dealmaking instinct, re-pointed at the growth engine around a practitioner's craft. Built in Johannesburg. Delivered globally.

Have you done this for a therapist, lawyer, or advisor before?

Not yet. IGP's first pilot client is a clinical psychologist. What we have done: the same system runs live for Imperium Negotiation Solutions (B2B professional services) and Linda Paige Executive Coaching (B2C executive coaching for women 45 to 60). Different audiences, same shape underneath. That's why pilot pricing exists. The first three clients in a new vertical absorb the productisation cost and earn founder-rate access.

What's actually in the 30-day build?

Week 1: kickoff discovery, scaling product design, positioning, voice capture, accounts set up. Week 2: website deployed, scorecard drafted, email platform configured, content engine trained on your recorded voice. Week 3: scorecard live, first content pieces approved, ad creative drafted, Meta configured. Week 4: soft launch. Ads running, first content publishing, scorecard submissions flowing, go-live declared. Fully operational in 30 days. Compounding improvement thereafter.

What's the difference between Foundation, Growth Engine, and Signature?

Foundation is for early-career practices: one scaling product architected (you execute), 5-page site, branded scorecard, 2 content pieces a month, 3-month minimum. Growth Engine is the sweet spot: one scaling product designed AND co-executed, 7-page site, 4 content pieces a month, active ads management, quarterly strategy with Jan. Signature is for authorities: four scaling products a year, monthly strategy, full Mass Control launches, priority queue, 12-month engagement.

Track A or Track B: which one should I choose?

Track A (Client-Owned) is the default. Every account runs in your name, you pay vendors directly, IGP operates as a user. Cleanest for regulated professionals and anyone who wants zero captivity risk. Track B (Turnkey Managed) is for clients who want one invoice and zero operational exposure. IGP registers and runs the infrastructure, backed by the Transfer Guarantee. Foundation is Track A only. Signature is Track B only. Growth Engine is either.

How much of my time does this actually take?

Fourteen hours total over the four-week build. Week 1: 8 hours (2-hour discovery, voice capture, account setup). Weeks 2 to 4: 2 hours each for approvals. Post-launch: under 2 hours a week for content approvals and one monthly strategy review. Your time on the craft itself doesn't change. This is the whole point.

Do I have to do the voice capture?

Yes. It is the single most important hour of the engagement. Ninety minutes of you talking into a phone recorder, across eight prompts, on your own. No interviewer, no camera, no performance. That raw audio is what makes the content sound like you instead of like a marketing template. Skip it and the content is generic. Do it and clients say 'this sounds exactly like Dr X.'

Do you understand HPCSA, LPC, and FSCA compliance?

Yes. Compliance is a capability IGP flexes for regulated clients. Jan has drafted a full IP, Attribution and Content Approval annex for the Opperman pilot covering clinical advertising restrictions, method-attribution rules, pre-publication review by the practitioner or assistant, and the firm boundary between promoting a practice (yes) and teaching a regulated method (never). All content substantively referencing a regulated method waits on the practitioner's approval before publication.

What's the guarantee?

The 90-Day Pipeline Guarantee: an agreed lead volume by day 90 or we continue operating the engine at zero retainer until we hit it. Volume is agreed in writing at kickoff based on your scaling product, ad spend, and market. If the numbers don't land the retainer carry falls on us, not you. Your setup fee covers the build regardless of outcome.

What if I want to leave?

After the minimum term (3 months Foundation or Growth Engine, 12 months Signature) every engagement rolls to month-to-month with 30 days' notice. Under Track A you revoke our access and keep running. Under Track B the Transfer Guarantee kicks in. A flat migration fee moves infrastructure to accounts in your name, with 30 days of handover support. You are never locked in. No annual renewal traps.

Imperium Growth Partners

A sub-brand of Imperium Negotiation Solutions

For solo experts whose websites still rely on Google

AI search is rewriting how solo professionals get found.

Here is what changed, what to do about it, and how the Growth Infrastructure Method handles it as part of the 30-day build.

What changed in AI search

Four shifts that decide whether you get cited.

01
The first 60 words decide everything
AI engines lift the first 60-100 words of a page as their citation chunk. If your opener is throat-clearing, you do not get cited. If your opener is a direct definition ("X is the practice of..."), it gets pulled verbatim. The Wikipedia opener pattern wins consistently across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
02
FAQ schema is the highest-leverage move
Pages with FAQPage schema are cited at 41% rate vs 15% without (per recent AEO research). The schema is invisible to humans but legible to AI engines. Each FAQ entry should match an actual prospect query verbatim. Not paraphrased.
03
Named methodologies enter the corpus
Daniel Priestley's "Key Person of Influence" appears in AI answers without prompting because thousands of articles, podcasts, and blog posts repeat the term. Hormozi's "Grand Slam Offer" works the same way. For solo experts, naming your methodology and getting it cited on third-party domains is what makes you AI-discoverable in your category.
04
llms.txt is the new robots.txt
An llms.txt file at the root of your domain gives AI engines a structured summary of who you are, what you do, and how to cite you. It is becoming standard. AI engines that find an llms.txt cite the entity defined there preferentially over inferring from page content.

What this means for your profession

The architecture is universal. The schema is profession-specific.

Therapists, psychologists, clinicians

Person schema with credentials, MedicalBusiness or HealthAndBeautyBusiness schema, FAQ pages for each modality you practice. Educational content that defines your method (CBT, ACT, IFS) wins citation when prospects ask the broad questions. The directory listings (Psychology Today, GoodTherapy) lose share; your own AI-optimised site gains it.

Solo lawyers and advocates

LegalService schema per practice area, Person schema with bar credentials, geographic targeting via areaServed. Educational posts that define legal terms in plain language win citations because that is what most prospects ask. The compliance disclaimers should be present but not at the top of the page.

Financial advisors and accountants

FinancialService schema, Person schema with credentials and disclosure, FAQ pages that pre-empt compliance questions. The named-methodology play is harder for advisors because of compliance constraints, but possible: a clearly defined process or framework, consistently named, gets cited.

Consultants, coaches, image experts

Service schema, Person schema, named-methodology entity saturation across guest posts and podcasts. Consultants and coaches have the most freedom to operate the full AEO playbook because compliance constraints are minimal. The frameworks you name and defend become your category-defining entities.

Late-career experts pivoting to a new offer

The opportunity is largest here. AI engines have no prior entity associations for someone re-entering with a new offer, which means a clean AEO build can establish your category presence quickly. The downside: starting from zero requires the full third-party repetition campaign. The upside: no legacy positioning to overcome.

Answered

Twelve questions every solo expert should ask about AI search.

Profession-specific. Schema-grade. Direct answers with the entity names that AI engines lift verbatim.

Will AI Overviews kill my therapist directory traffic?

Not entirely, but it will compress it. Google AI Overviews answer common questions (what is CBT, how does therapy work, what is the cost of therapy) without sending the click. The traffic that survives is intent-driven (a specific therapist, a specific modality, a specific city). The fix is restructuring your site so AI engines cite YOU by name when a prospect asks the question your work answers, instead of a generic Healthline article.

Should solo lawyers worry about AI search?

Yes, more than most professions. Legal informational queries are where AI engines invest hardest because they pay the highest CPC in traditional search. ChatGPT now answers most "what does X mean in law" queries directly. The lawyers who will keep getting cited are those whose sites are structured for answer-engine extraction: clear definitions, FAQ schema, named methodology, attribution-friendly opening paragraphs.

What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)?

Generative engine optimisation is the practice of structuring web content so that generative AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) cite it when answering user questions. It overlaps with traditional SEO but optimises for a different output: an attributed citation in an AI answer rather than a blue link. GEO emphasises direct definitions, structured data (FAQPage, Article, Person, Organization), and entity saturation across third-party domains.

What is answer engine optimisation (AEO)?

Answer engine optimisation is functionally the same discipline as generative engine optimisation. The two terms are used interchangeably in 2026. Both describe the practice of making your site, schema, and external entity presence legible to AI engines so they pull and attribute your answers when prospects ask questions. AEO/GEO is what replaces what was called SEO for a meaningful share of high-intent professional-services queries.

How is AEO different from SEO?

SEO optimises for ranked links in a search engine results page. AEO optimises for cited extracts in an AI-generated answer. SEO rewards keyword density, backlinks, and dwell time. AEO rewards direct definitions in the first 60 words, FAQ-style structure, JSON-LD schema, named entities (proprietary methodologies and frameworks), and external repetition of those entities across third-party domains. The two disciplines share infrastructure but optimise for different output formats.

What is an llms.txt file and does my practice need one?

An llms.txt file is a markdown document at /llms.txt on your domain that gives AI engines a structured summary of your site, methodology, and offerings. It is the AI-search equivalent of robots.txt or sitemap.xml. For a solo expert, an llms.txt makes it easier for AI engines to summarise what you do without parsing your full site. It is becoming a standard expectation. IGP includes it on every client site as part of the 30-day build.

What schema does a therapist's website need for AI search?

At minimum: Person schema (you, with credentials), Organization schema (your practice), Service schema (each modality you offer), FAQPage schema (questions prospects ask), and Article schema (every blog post). Therapists with directory listings should also add MedicalBusiness or HealthAndBeautyBusiness schema. Each schema entity should have a stable @id so AI engines can dedupe references across pages. The Growth Infrastructure Method bakes this in as part of the 30-day infrastructure build.

What schema does a lawyer's website need for AI search?

LegalService schema (each practice area), Person schema with bar admission credentials, Organization schema for the firm, FAQPage schema for common legal questions, and Article schema for every educational post. Geographic targeting matters more for lawyers than for most professions, so areaServed and serviceArea fields should be populated precisely. Compliance disclaimers should be present in answers but should not occupy the first 60 words (which is what AI engines lift first).

Can I do AEO myself or do I need help?

The on-site work (FAQ schema, definition openers, llms.txt) is achievable solo if you have technical comfort and roughly 20 hours. The harder work is entity placement: getting your proprietary methodology names cited on 8-12 third-party domains so they enter the LLM corpus. That requires guest posts, podcast appearances, and a Wikipedia-style canonical definition page. The full job is what IGP does as part of the 30-day infrastructure build.

How long does it take to start getting AI citations?

On-site changes (FAQ schema, definition openers) are detected by AI crawlers within 14-30 days. Citation lift typically appears 60-90 days after deployment. Full entity capture (your proprietary terms appearing in AI answers without explicit prompting) takes 6-12 months and depends on third-party repetition. There is no shortcut. The compounding starts on day 30 and accelerates as your entity presence grows.

Will AI search replace Google for professional services?

Not replace, but compress. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini already capture an estimated 15-25 percent of high-intent professional-services queries. By 2027 that share will likely be 40-50 percent. Google itself has integrated AI Overviews above traditional results. The professional-services practices that thrive will treat AI search as the primary discovery surface, with traditional Google results as a secondary funnel.

What is the Growth Infrastructure Method?

The Growth Infrastructure Method (GIM) is the design system underneath every IGP engagement. Five architectural principles: own the data layer not the vendor, voice-first not tool-first, modular not monolithic, human judgement at the edges and automation at the middle, thirty days to live and compounding thereafter. Tool-agnostic by design, so the system survives the next AI tool cycle. AEO and GEO are baked into the infrastructure layer, not bolted on as a service line.

Find out where your site stands in AI search.

The Growth Readiness Scorecard takes three minutes. AEO readiness is one of the five dimensions we score on.

Take the scorecard →