Podcast Episode 12: Proven growth formula to grow a successful consultancy

I LOVE working with HR consultants.

And over the years, I have had the absolute privilege of consulting with some incredibly successful consultants both sides of the Atlantic.

From start ups, all the way to multi-million dollar consultancies.

Thinking about it now...

I've easily had THOUSANDS of different conversations with consultancy owners over the years which is mental.

When you speak to loads of consultants like I have, you end up hearing the same stories.

And you build up a really good picture up in your head of the typical consultants journey.

For instance, pretty much every consultant I speak to started their consultancy because they were...

Sick of being employed.

Sick of being the leadership team's puppet.

They wanted to do HR in the right way.

They actually wanted to make a difference.

And they wanted better work life balance.

You then hear the same evolution story...

So most consultants I know started out working by themselves.

Most of you are working mums, so you fitted work around looking after your children.

Very much a lifestyle business to begin with.

And there's no negative connotation to using that term.

Then, as your family life has quietened down, maybe your children have gone to school or university, you had more time to take on work.

You maybe worked off an associate model when you had more work coming in.

And your consultancy has grown through word of mouth and referrals.

And then you hear the same big success stories.

So for the big consultancies that are 500k plus, they all share the same growth journey too.

There's a tried and tested formula that they've all followed to achieve the success that they've had.

So what I've done is mapped out what they've done and created a growth formula for you to follow.

And in today's podcast episode, I'm going to talk you through each step of growth formula so that you can replicate it in your own consultancy.

So let's get started.

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Step 1 is to believe in the value that you provide.

I started the growth formula with this step because I think it's really important and I see it as a really big issue in the industry.

Most HR consultants I speak to have forgotten the value they provide.

And they allow business owners to push them around.

Instead, I want you to remember that you're a strategic partner.

Business owners don't get HR like you do.

And that's why you need to educate them.

You need to challenge them when they say stupid stuff.

And you need to consult with them, like a strategic partner does, so that they can see the bigger picture.

You can then embed yourself as an important part in their business.

Not as just some operational support they can access via your hourly rate on the side.

The most successful consultants I work with know this.

They have confidence in themselves.

And they have confidence to consult and challenge business owners in the correct way.

Moving onto step two now and that's to have a clear life vision.

Your life vision should always come first.

And your business is there to provide you with the personal and financial freedom you wanted when you first started out.

Your business should not trap you inside, working crazy hours and being underpaid for the work that you're doing.

Which is sadly where most consultants I speak to get stuck.

The most successful consultants I know have a very clear life vision.

They know what they want from life.

They know what they need from the business in order to achieve it.

And they do not allow themselves to lose this clarity.

Step 3 is to package HR up in the right way.

Most consultants get stuck selling their time.

And they go into a buisness and try to sell this big chunk of HR on a retained basis.

But this is a really bad way to sell HR.

And this caps their earning ability and the scalability of their consultancy.

The successful consultants I speak to know that this is a trap.

They know they can earn way more money by packaging up their services in different ways.

They have HR software packages.

They have peace of mind packages.

They have recruitment packages.

They have HR Audit packages.

And they have a nice mix of revenue.

Passive, subscription, time based and one off.

They also know that they can value stack different packages on top of one another to increase client's average spend.

And they know that by creating packages, they can more easily delegate the work out to other people

Which leads us nicely onto step 4 and that's to create the right people plan for your consultancy.

As part of your day job, you've created lots of different people plans for your clients over the years.

But when was the last time you looked at your own consultancy to see if you've got the right people in the right places?

You sit at director level.

Yet you're maybe spending a lot of your time delivering work at admin, advisory and management levels.

This is massively reducing your blended rate.

And you aren't making as much money as you should be as a result.

The successful consultants I know understand this.

And they delegate the work to someone that sits at the right level.

Therefore optimising their blended rate and profit in alignment with the work that's coming in.

Once you've packaged up your services in the right way and you've got the right people delivering the work.

It's time for you to free yourself from client delivery and this is step 5.

This is one of the most important things you can do as a consultancy owner.

As this gives you the time and energy you need to be the face of the business and to drive it forward.

All of the successful consultants I know have done this.

As a result, they've been able to quickly scale the business.

While giving them the personal and financial freedom they originally wanted when they started all of those years ago.

Once you've given yourself the time to focus to work ON the business.

You can then focus on growing your consultancy's revenue.

And there are 3 ways to increase revenue.

The first is to get new clients.

The second is to get existing clients to spend more with you.

And the third is to get existing clients to spend more with, more often.

Getting new clients is the hardest way for you to grow revenue.

And that's why I always advise to get started by selling more to existing clients.

Which is step 6.

One of the first things you could do is increase your prices.

A lot of consultancies I know are massively undercharging.

So have the confidence to look at your prices and increase them to where they should be.

Another thing you could do is look at your pay as you go clients and get them onto your peace of mind subscription based package.

As a strategic partner, you should be meeting with your clients on a regular basis to consult with them on their goals.

This is a great opportunity for you to up and cross sell additional services to them.

Successful consutlancy's I know understand the importance of account management.

And they'll spend a lot of time account managing their clients in the correct way to increase average spend.

Once you're managing your existing clients in the right way, you can then move your attention to marketing.

And this brings us nicely on to step 7.

And that's to market your consultancy on a consistent basis, even if you're super busy.

Why?

Because this keeps your brand awareness ticking over

And this keeps your pipeline topped up at all times.

The big consultancy's I know have learnt from their mistakes.

In the past they've been super busy.

They haven't done any marketing.

They then go through a quiet patch.

And they regret not doing anything.

This is where the HR Marketing Box comes in.

It's a online content library full of ready to use content and ideas to help you increase your brand awareness and get new clients.

It saves you loads of times, it's a thousand times cheaper than hiring your own content writer and it saves you the stress of writing all of your own content.

And now we can move onto our final and 8th step which is to get expert support.

You're an expert HR consultant.

Yet when you become a consultancy owner, you're required to become

A finance expert.

A marketing expert.

A sales expert.

A software expert.

You have to develop so many skills.

And that's why you need to learn from specialists.

One of the biggest hacks you can do is find guidance and mentorship from experts in their field and let them support your growth.

And that brings us to the end of the proven growth formula for building a successful consultancy.

So let me wrap up by summarising these steps again.

Step 1 is to believe in the value you provide.
Step 2 is to have a clear life vision. 
Step 3 is to move away from a time based model and package up HR in the right way
Step 4 is create a people plan for your consultancy  
Step 5 is to free yourself from client delivery 
Step 6 is to sell more to existing clients 
Step 7 is to market your consultancy consistently, even when you're busy 
And step 8 is to get expert help when you need it.

When thinking about how you're growing your consultancy,

I highly recommend that you review each of these steps and use them to create your very own growth plan.

I'm 32 now and I say that I'm living in my James point 3 era.  

I look at my friends who have done the typical. 

They've got into a relationship. 

They've got a dog. 

They get a house. 

And they seem to have just glided through life without any big emotional interventions.

And I sometimes feel envious of their stability. 

Because I feel like I have been on a whirlwind journey where I've had to constantly evolve. 

Some of it has been really uncomfortable. 

But then I'm also grateful because I'm really starting to love who I'm becoming. 

I feel a sense of security within myself that I maybe didn't have before. 

And I definitiely feel like I'm pushing myself, which is providing me with the type of lifestyle that I want for myself.  

One of the things that I've learnt in my 30s is the power of staying in your own lane. 

And this is one of the things that I absolutely love about myself.

I love my own little bubble. 

I have laser focus on what I want to achieve in my life. 

I know what I want from a relationship. 

I know what I want from my business. 

And I purposely remove anything from my life that could possibly steer me off course. 

Social media being one of them.

I deleted Facebook years ago. 

Ever since I watched the great hack on netflix about Cambridge Analytica.

If you've not watched it, you totally should. 

It's really scary.  

And then I deleted Instagram on new years day of 2024. 

I haven't missed it one bit. 

Having deleted it now, I realised how much i was being triggered on a daily basis. 

It was making me feel lonely. 

It was making me feel like I wasn't having a good life. 

It was making me buy crazy things like an electrical grounding mat.

I only have LinkedIn for work purposes.  

And I've even had to unfollow a few people on LinkedIn. 

Not because of what they were doing.

There's no juicy gossip to share. 

I removed them because they just made me feel a certain pressure.  

It's probably a me problem and I'm totally cool to admit that. 

And i think you should have the same honesty with yourself.  

So why am I sharing this with you today?

Well, I think as humans, it's in our DNA to be influenced by people. 

To get FOMO. 

To feel the pressure of doing this and that because you see other people doing it. 

And you take action that isn't right for you doesn't necessarily make you happy. 

As business owners, we can easily get distracted by what's happening around us. 

People who we collaborate with. 

Our competitors. 

Our clients. 

And their influence can sometimes take us off course.

And this can stop you from growing and evolving as you should.  

So what I like to do check back in with myself on a regular basis. 

And just see if what I'm doing is aligned with what I want to achieve. 

For a lot of consultants I speak to, they take on way more than what they should. 

"Steve Jobs once said, 'Focus is about saying no.' 

Knowing when to say no to distractions is a huge flex. 

Allowing you to say yes to what really matters for your business.

So that's why I'd like to finish this podcast episode by empowering you to stay in your own lane. 

When you stay in your own lane, you find your power.

And this is one of the most important things you can do as a consultancy owner to keep your eyes on the prize and get there as quickly as possible.