About Justin Smith — the School Income & Marketing Specialist

Chameleon Consultancy & Training is Justin Smith: a school income generation, bid writing and marketing consultant who spent 20+ years leading business management inside schools before advising them. Justin has secured over £8 million for schools so far.

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Justin's career started in private-sector business development and marketing — learning how organisations win customers, tell their story and grow revenue. Then, more than 25 years ago, he took those skills somewhere they were almost unheard of: into schools.

For over two decades he worked as a senior leader — Business Manager and School Business Professional — at three large secondary schools in Suffolk and Norfolk. Not observing school life, living it: balancing budgets that didn't balance, chasing funding for buildings that leaked, filling places in falling-roll years, and sitting in the governors' meetings where every one of those pressures lands at once.

Two things became obvious from that chair. First, schools sit on far more income potential than they ever claim — grants unapplied for, facilities under-let, communities never asked. Second, the support available was written for charities or businesses, never for the strange, wonderful, regulation-wrapped reality of schools. The gap between the two was a career.

In 2017 Justin founded Chameleon Consultancy & Training to close it — specialist income generation, bid writing and marketing support built exclusively for schools, academies and trusts, delivered by someone who has actually done the job. Since 2017 he's supported 120+ schools and trusts, secured more than £8m, and trained hundreds of school business professionals through masterclasses and courses.

Why "Chameleon"?

Because the work is adaptive by design. Every school's context — community, cohort, constraints — is different, and advice that ignores that is worthless. Adapt, evolve, succeed isn't a slogan so much as the method: understand the school as it actually is, then build income and marketing approaches that fit it.

The chair changes the advice

Advice sounds different when the adviser has sat in your seat. Justin has personally defended a marketing spend to sceptical governors; he's felt the term-time impossibility of writing a bid at 9pm; he's taken the call when a lettings booking went wrong on a Saturday. That experience shapes everything he recommends: plans sized for real school capacity, honest sequencing ("not this term — do this first"), and a total absence of consultant theatre.

It shows up in small ways schools notice. Meetings scheduled around the school day, not the consultant's. Reports short enough to actually be read. Recommendations with named owners and term-shaped deadlines. And when something's outside his lane — legal, structural, specialist design — he says so immediately and helps you find the right person instead.

Giving back to the profession

The consultancy sits inside a bigger commitment to school business leadership as a profession. Justin assesses the ILM Level 4 Diploma in School Business Management and the School Business Professional apprenticeship — the qualifications the next generation of SBMs train through. He serves on the ABMNS committee, volunteers as an enterprise advisor in local schools, and was appointed to the honorary advisory panel of the School Business Managers (UK) community. It keeps the work honest: the same standards he assesses are the ones he's held to.

A typical working week

Monday might be a masterclass room of SBMs building their first funder shortlists; Tuesday, a school visit walking a site with a head and premises manager to shape a capital bid; midweek, writing — a bid deadline, a strategy paper, a FundEd article; Thursday, trust leadership presenting an income roadmap to trustees; Friday, the calls — schools checking progress, funders asked the awkward eligibility questions, and the free conversations where new work starts. The mix is the point: consultancy informed by training rooms, training informed by live bids.

And through it all, the same schools calendar he lived by for two decades — because advice that ignores SATs week, census day or the Easter revision timetable was never going to survive contact with a real school.

No guarantees implied — outcomes vary by school, funder and project.

Who does Justin work with?

Primary and secondary schools, sixth-form and FE colleges, academies and multi-academy trusts across the UK — plus the PTAs and community groups that fundraise alongside them. If your organisation educates children, the work fits.

Where is Chameleon based?

Lowestoft, Suffolk — working with schools UK-wide, in person and online. Distance has never decided an engagement; fit has.

How do engagements start?

Always the same way: a free, no-pressure consultation about your situation. Sometimes that ends with a proposal; sometimes with honest advice that you don't need a consultant yet — both are good outcomes.

Is it really just one person?

Yes — deliberately. You get the specialist, not the pyramid. Where a project needs other skills (design, print, web build), Justin says so plainly and helps you brief trusted specialists — including the partners he works with regularly.

What if Justin's diary is full?

Then you'll be told straight away, with a realistic start date. Finite capacity is the quality control: work is only taken on when it can be delivered properly.

What does he charge?

Fees are flexible and depend entirely on scope — training day, single bid or year-long strategy. Everything is agreed up front in plain terms; start the consultation and you'll have a clear picture quickly.

Does Justin work with independent schools?

The core of the work is state schools, academies and trusts — but the income, bids and marketing challenges overlap heavily, and independent and FE settings are welcome to get in touch to check fit.

Can he speak at our event before we commit to anything bigger?

Very common route — many client relationships started with a conference session or INSET day. It's a low-risk way to gauge the style and substance before scoping a project.

How is Chameleon different from a marketing agency?

Agencies sell execution — design, campaigns, media. Justin sells judgement first: what your school actually needs, in what order, and what to skip. Where execution is needed he helps you brief it well, which usually saves more than his fee. The education-only focus is the other difference: no translation from retail case studies required.

What does success look like a year in?

Typically: one or two funded projects landed, an income plan the school owns, a trained person running it, and a story the school tells consistently. The £200k Burscough year is exceptional — but a school that's stopped leaving money unclaimed is the normal outcome.