How did you scale up your consultancy business?

I would like to hear some advice/feedback from someone who has been in this situation before.

I work as a freelance digital marketing consultant since a few years (overall, over 15 years in the industry already, previously working for different companies) and I am now on a sweet and though spot at the same time: I am receiving more job offers than I can currently satisfy (I am already working more than 8 hours a day, which is something I don't want to become normal), so if I want to keep all these prospects/clients, I'll need to hire someone to help me with the workload.

Here's the thing: I do both SEO and SEM, but of course I do it my way. SEO or SEM aren't rocket science, and each consultant has its own way of approaching problems and provide solutions. Also, during the years I've standardized some process and documents (technical SEO audits, link profile audits, basic Bing/Google Ads set-ups, Data Studio dashboards, etc.) and I would like to provide the same quality level to my clients.

So, here is (are) the dilemma(s): should I keep just the best paying clients (or the ones with whom I have already a long lasting relationship) and pass those new leads to fellow consultants as I am doing now or should I hire someone?

Money wise I am already in a confortable situation, but I see there is a opportunity for extra growth, but I am not sure if the effort (train this person, manage him/her, doing more project management) is worth it.

If someone has already been there, I would appreciate some advice.

PS: I am not looking for a freelancer from the forum. In case I'll hire someone, it will be someone from the area where I live.

no signature to promote like everyone else?

I joined forces with my wife. She does social media for is and for our clients and clears obstacles to allow me to only do the PPC part, which takes most of out time and earns most of the money.

So if I were you, I'd either take someone to take care of billing, recruiting clients, working with the accountant, and similar things. Another thing you can do is to hire a sub contractor to take care of backstage things such as account setup.

johnyow said:

no signature to promote like everyone else?

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You're here for 4 months and still haven't made the connection between having a blue name and the existence of a signature?

Signatures are available for those who upgraded to a paid account. You already qualify for it, so if you want, you can check out the account upgrades page for more info.

More clients = More business = More money. However, do not forget that SEO and SEM which you mentioned that you do, are nowadays highly specialized activities. So, nowadays the strategies used especially for SEO are very dynamic in nature. If you hire a person or people, they may not employ effective SEO strategies to fit into what works these days. Ofcourse, you can train them and keep training them. But, do not forget that they will learn and then replicate what you are doing and they will leave you and start their freelancing SEO careers. And, also most probably take away (steal) a few clients of your's too. Don't forget that when an employee or hired person is doing SEO, he or she gets to know for which client the work is being done for (the client's website itself is the "leak"). So, weigh the pros and cons before you hire people for SEO, because these days everyone is business minded with a goal to become self-employed or become a freelancer.

roydan said:

I joined forces with my wife. She does social media for is and for our clients and clears obstacles to allow me to only do the PPC part, which takes most of out time and earns most of the money.

So if I were you, I'd either take someone to take care of billing, recruiting clients, working with the accountant, and similar things. Another thing you can do is to hire a sub contractor to take care of backstage things such as account setup.

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Thanks @roydan for your feedback. This is actually one of the options I am considering. My wife have a full time job which she loves, BUT... no remote working for her, so working with me could change this and allow us to travel more (which is something we love to do).

Gotta say that she's more of a creative person than an analytical one (although she is very organized), so I guess I could pass her some task as content creation (instead of hiring a writer, which is what I am doing now for this particular task) and client management.

But right now she's reluctant to quit her job, which gave here a good salary and amazing extras, which is something I completely understand.

Also, I am not sure that working and living together is a great combination. Not for everyone at least.

Trust WorkShop said:

More clients = More business = More money. However, do not forget that SEO and SEM which you mentioned that you do, are nowadays highly specialized activities. So, nowadays the strategies used especially for SEO are very dynamic in nature. If you hire a person or people, they may not employ effective SEO strategies to fit into what works these days. Ofcourse, you can train them and keep training them. But, do not forget that they will learn and then replicate what you are doing and they will leave you and start their freelancing SEO careers. And, also most probably take away (steal) a few clients of your's too. Don't forget that when an employee or hired person is doing SEO, he or she gets to know for which client the work is being done for (the client's website itself is the "leak"). So, weigh the pros and cons before you hire people for SEO, because these days everyone is business minded with a goal to become self-employed or become a freelancer.

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Good advice here. It is actually one of the thing I am afraid of.

Guybrushthepirate said:

Thanks @roydan for your feedback. This is actually one of the options I am considering. My wife have a full time job which she loves, BUT... no remote working for her, so working with me could change this and allow us to travel more (which is something we love to do).

Gotta say that she's more of a creative person than an analytical one (although she is very organized), so I guess I could pass her some task as content creation (instead of hiring a writer, which is what I am doing now for this particular task) and client management.

But right now she's reluctant to quit her job, which gave here a good salary and amazing extras, which is something I completely understand.

Also, I am not sure that working and living together is a great combination. Not for everyone at least.

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So it sounds like you got to hire someone to take care of some of the things you do or start rejecting clients (which you can refer for a fee).

roydan said:

So it sounds like you got to hire someone to take care of some of the things you do or start rejecting clients (which you can refer for a fee).

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Rejecting projects (better said, pass it to fellow consultants) it is what I am doing now. I guess scaling up a business which involves a lot of manual work (consultancy) comes with some challenges.

Prior to that, I had a business with a partner, but it was a Saas what we were selling, so apart from developing the software and finding/maintaining clients we had nothing to do. But consultancy is another pair of shoes.