How to Scale Your 1-Man Consulting Practice Without Sacrificing Your Life and Time
Because there is a natural limit to our willingness to sacrifice.
Consulting, regardless of niche, is a service-based business. We are selling our knowledge, expertise, and know-how through time.
And that is the tricky part of running a 1-man consulting practice. We want to scale. We want more clients.
More clients = Higher revenue.
But there is a natural limit to exchanging time for money. There is, after all, only so much time at our disposal.
How can we scale our consulting business without committing an extra hour, minute, or second of our time?
You Need to Find Leverage
You must have heard of the word leverage many times.
Every industry, business, and individual seeks leverage in different ways. Context is everything. I will explain how leverage can be applied to the 1-man consulting practice to help grow our business.
Convert 1-to-1 Service to 1-to-Many Workshops
This is the easiest way to think about leverage.
We work with the circumstances we are dealt with. Are you a consultant on the side with only 4 hours to spare every evening?
If so, you need to serve more customers at the same time. I used to run LinkedIn coaching workshops for 2 hours per customer per evening. After 2 months, I realized that I was repeating myself to different customers on different days.
I decided to reclaim some of my time back. I pulled my customers together to form workshops. A couple who are uncomfortable working in a group stayed solo.
As a result of that working model adjustment, my pricing model changed.
- Cost to attend a 5-person workshop: Cheapest.
- Cost to attend a 3-person workshop: Affordable.
- 1-on-1 coaching: Premium pricing.
The goal is not to forsake 1-on-1 work completely. No. We must find ways to serve more clients given limited time.
Look. There is no difference in serving 1 or 5 customers within 2 hours. It is the same 2 hours.
Invite Customers to Events Where You Will Be Speaking
“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
If you must speak to customers, why not speak to them all at once?
Of course, you should not apply this mindset to customer complaints. You will be overwhelmed.
You want to be where the audience is if you are involved in knowledge dissemination and thought leadership. I am referring to seminars, webinars, and speaking events. And this works to our advantage.
Let us assume that your sales conversion rate is 10%. 10% of 100 people is vastly different from 10% of 10 people.
There is another plus. You can invite your existing customers to the event. Update them with your latest findings, papers, products, and services with the other attendees.
It gives them the impression that you are well sought after. There are many more people listening to you speak, am I right?
People are impressionistic. They seek social validation. Trust me on this one.
Clone Yourself. Technically Speaking, You Want to Clone What You Can Do.
How do you clone yourself?
I do not refer to cloning in a scientific manner. I am referring to our business thinking. A clear understanding of what we do as consultants is required before identifying the pockets of value to be cloned.
The Product Strategy
My mentor taught me this strategy when I first started out as a consultant on the side. I never failed to rebel against his teachings.
“But we are in the consulting business! We are all about service!”
BK chewed me out and corrected my thinking. He made it clear that I was naïve.
“Yes, we are about the service. Our products are the result of our service. It helps us serve our customers when we are not with them.”
The emphasis is when we are not with them. Chances are, we spend more time away from them. Customers can continue to soak up our knowledge through our products.
Different consulting niches will require different types of supplementary products. Invest time and choose the best products to capture your thinking, ideas, and implementation know-how.
YouTube channels, articles, e-Books, and physical books are my go-to’s.
Author’s Note: I have a bias for digital products because I can perform version updates at no cost to my customers.From Services to Products to 1 Holistic Offer
Your consulting business is set to scale when you have services and products in your offer catalog. Why so? Because you can reach out to customers with different budgets.
Those with a limited budget can access your work via your products. Think about it this way. Books are cheaper than a 1-to-1 consulting session. Your YouTube channel can be subscribed to for free.
And the buck does not end there. Giving people access to your knowledge for free or at a lower price should be part of your customer nurturing program.
Your goal is to get them to love and trust you via your products. And when they are ready to meet you in person, they will write you an email.
This nurturing program will work its magic while you are busy serving customers. You get 2 things done at the same time.
This is efficiency and productivity combined into one package.
In Conclusion
Time is a constraint. It is also an asset.
It is the only asset we can never buy back.
As such, we must learn to be time-savvy as consultants on the side. Think about it. 4 hours per evening to work on our consulting practice is not a lot of time.
We need to build leverage into our business.
When we do, we grow our customer portfolio without spending more time. Expressed differently, that means higher revenue with the same time commitment.
And that, to me, is worth striving for as a 1-man consultant on the side.
Other Stories To Help You Grow Your Consultant Side-Hustle:
On starting your Consulting Practice.
On building credentials.
On the toolbox you need.
On pricing strategies.
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure. Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
