Since getting involved with Rotherham United Women I’ve realised football and business have quite a lot in common.

One thing in particular: growth can hide a lot of problems.

At Rotherham United Women we’ve had the luxury of creating headlines whilst building the foundations at the same time. New people. Sponsors. Bigger crowds. Ambition. Plenty of noise.

You need that momentum.

But behind it we’re talking about the boring stuff. Infrastructure, commercial income, pathways, facilities and costs.

Because it’s no good looking brilliant for 12 months if what’s underneath can’t support where you want to go.

Business is exactly the same.

We love growth. Another acquisition. Another 100 advisers. Record recruitment. Another press release.

And don’t get me wrong, we’re the same. We’re investing heavily to grow.

But eventually somebody asks: “What did the growth actually cost?”

If your recruitment operation costs £1m a year and an adviser contributes £8,000 annually, you need 125 net new advisers every year just to cover recruitment.

Not 125 recruited. 125 net. Lose 40 and you need to recruit 165.

Then there’s time. An RI can easily take three months to recruit and onboard. A firm, with approvals, could be six. Then another three to six months before they’re properly producing.

So you’re potentially nine to 12 months before seeing any real return, having already paid recruitment, compliance, training and onboarding upfront.

The cost starts on day one. The return doesn’t.

Recruiters move too. We all know how short the lifespan can be. Spend two years building relationships, move to the firm down the road and you’re not starting again with a blank phone book.

So there’s a retention risk attached to the person doing the recruiting as well.

Nothing wrong with spending the money if the long-term value stacks up.

But know your numbers. Because when you do, you can see why acquiring an established business can sometimes look more attractive than trying to manufacture the same growth one adviser at a time.

Recruitment has a cost of acquisition. We just don’t like calling it one.

And somebody ultimately pays for it. The shareholder takes less return. The business gives up margin. The adviser pays more.

If that doesn’t work, eventually those horrible words start appearing:

Efficiency. Merger. Redundancy.

Because investors might enjoy the growth story. Ultimately, they want a return.

And this is where football really mirrors business. A club gets promoted. Then promoted again. Crowds grow. Sponsors arrive. Better players come in. Bigger people are recruited on bigger wages.

Everyone looks clever while you’re winning.

Then you hit your ceiling.

Maybe you get relegated. Crowds fall. Sponsors leave. Revenue drops.

But the big wages don’t disappear with them.

You’ve still got the people and overhead you brought in for the next level.

Suddenly you’re running a lower-level club with a higher-level cost base.

What happens next? Cut costs? Sell players? Merge roles? Redundancies?

Business isn’t much different. Growth can hide an expensive structure. It’s when growth stops that you find out what you’ve actually built.

Nobody knows what eventually tests the model. That’s rather the point.

The event doesn’t necessarily create the weakness. Sometimes it just exposes what was already there.

That’s when the headlines don’t matter anymore.

Somebody gets the calculator out. What did we spend? What did it produce? Where’s the margin? Where’s the EBITDA? Where’s the cash?

That’s why I’m becoming less impressed by headline adviser numbers.

Tell me you’ve recruited 200 advisers. Brilliant. Now tell me how many left. Tell me what they cost. Tell me when they started producing. Tell me when you get your money back.

Then I’ll understand the growth.

And I’m asking exactly the same questions of our own business.

I’m not anti-recruitment. I’m not anti-acquisition. I’m definitely not anti-growth. I want all three.

But I think the next few years will be less about who can make the most noise growing and more about who built something underneath it while they were doing it.

Rotherham United Women is teaching me that getting promoted isn’t actually the hard bit.

Building a club capable of staying there is.

Maybe business is exactly the same.

Growth gets you promoted. The foundations decide whether you stay there.

Scott Thorpe is CEO of TMG Mortgage Network