How to Scale Your Consulting Business

Successful consultants often face significant challenges when trying to expand their practices. Many eventually consider hiring support to help them scale quickly, as they are typically consumed with back-to-back client projects and have little time left to focus on growth and long-term development.

This article examines the primary business models available to consultants, outlining the advantages and disadvantages of each.

It also discusses strategies for moving from a solo practice to building a consulting team and offers practical advice on how to leverage assistants, processes, and systems to operate more efficiently and scale your business to new heights.

Models for Scaling a Consulting Business

Consulting businesses come in more varieties than many realize. Recognizing this diversity is critical, as selecting the right model can support sustainable growth and personal satisfaction. Importantly, there is no single “best” model—the right choice depends on your vision and goals.

Do you want to work closely with clients on complex, high-impact projects that allow you to solve significant problems and leave a lasting mark?

Do you aspire to lead a team of talented consultants and run a well-established firm, with the opportunities and responsibilities of a Managing Director or CEO?

Or would you rather avoid lengthy sales cycles and complex proposals by turning your expertise into an innovative product or service?

Your answers to these questions will help you identify which model best aligns with the growth and success of your consulting practice. The three main models are outlined below.

1. The Consulting Firm Model

This is the traditional model in which consultants are hired to deliver projects and are typically paid by the hour or the day. As the owner, you earn a profit margin on their work. The model is scalable and well-positioned for growth.

Running a consulting firm means you will not always engage directly with clients on every project. Instead, your focus shifts to business development—acquiring new projects, expanding the firm, and hiring additional consultants. As a result, your income becomes less dependent on the time you personally spend on delivery and generally increases with every new consultant you employ.

Here’s an example of what the organizational structure might look like in a consulting firm, described by Barc Holmes:

“We have an office manager specializing in billing and collections, who also arranges initial interviews when additional resources are needed. We also have a full-time recruiter managing hiring operations.

In addition, we rely on a support team consisting of an accountant, a lawyer, a financial advisor, and a banker specializing in loans, since many companies only pay their dues after 90 days.

As for the field team, it consists of around twelve people working with different clients, mainly in project management roles, along with designers, product experts, and finance specialists.” — Barc Holmes.

You can focus on expanding the firm by hiring multiple consultants and building a strong support infrastructure. Whether you pursue high-value projects or plan to eventually sell the company, the consulting firm model provides a solid foundation for long-term growth.

2. The Productized Consulting Model

This innovative approach transforms your expertise into packaged products. These might include information products, training programs, online courses, books, subscriptions, or other scalable offerings.

Instead of writing customized proposals and negotiating complex pricing, you package your services at a fixed rate, deliver them in product form, and market them efficiently. This model allows you to serve clients more consistently while avoiding the delays of long sales cycles.

Nothing prevents you from productizing your knowledge if you are a subject-matter expert. While it may feel unusual at first—especially if you are used to highly customized consulting—you can start with something simple, such as offering a discovery session that showcases your knowledge in a concise format.

3. The Customized Consulting Model

The customized model, common among solo consultants, involves tailoring solutions to each client's unique needs. It offers complete freedom in choosing clients, setting fees, and designing solutions.

However, this flexibility comes with challenges. Workloads often fluctuate, and without standardized processes, each new project may require creating fresh proposals and solutions from scratch. To maintain profitability, you must charge higher fees, yet the risk of burnout remains high.

The greatest drawback of this model is its limited scalability. Still, not all consultants aspire to rapid expansion; some prefer maintaining a small, lifestyle-friendly practice. Even a bespoke consulting business can achieve steady growth with the right strategies.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Consulting Model

Every consulting model offers growth potential, but each also comes with trade-offs. Below is a breakdown to help you determine which approach best matches your goals and lifestyle.

Consulting Firm Model

Advantages

• Ability to delegate tasks you prefer not to handle personally.
• Businesses can operate without your daily involvement once established.
• Builds a valuable asset that is worth more than a solo practice if sold.

Disadvantages

• Ongoing responsibility for staff salaries.
• Heavy emphasis on business development, which may leave less time for actual consulting.
• Dependence on your leadership and management skills to guide employees.

Productized Consulting Model

Advantages

• Scalable, as revenue is no longer tied directly to your billable hours.
• Positions you as a recognized expert with established systems and repeatable processes.
• Creates a valuable, transferable asset that may operate independently of your daily oversight.

Disadvantages

• Some consultants may grow bored with delivering the same product or service repeatedly.
• May require a larger client base to reach higher income levels, and initial earnings can sometimes be lower.

Customized Consulting Model

Advantages

• Highly lifestyle-friendly.
• High profit margins, since you keep 100% of your earnings.
• No need to manage other people.

Disadvantages

• Some consultants may struggle with motivation and productivity when working alone.
• Difficult to sell the business, since revenue and client relationships depend entirely on you.
• Tendency to take less time off, as income feels tied directly to constant work.

These three models are starting points rather than rigid categories. In practice, many consultants combine elements to suit their needs. For example, a solo consultant may productize specific services, while a consulting firm owner might take on high-value bespoke projects or retainer contracts.

The key is not to restrict yourself to a single model. Multiple paths and opportunities exist, and with the right mix, you can scale your consulting business in ways that align with both your professional ambitions and lifestyle goals.

Delegating Tasks and Hiring Assistants to Scale Your Consulting Business

In his book 80/20 Sales and Marketing, Perry Marshall highlights an important principle: 20% of your work is responsible for 80% of your results. This is not just a rule of thumb but a tangible reality observable in every aspect of your business.

Consider this: some tasks you perform are vastly more valuable than others. An employee earning $20 per hour could sometimes produce results worth $1,000 per hour. By extension, a professional billing $200 per hour—whether a doctor, lawyer, or consultant—may, in effect, create value equivalent to $10,000 per hour. The implication is clear: concentrating on high-value activities and outsourcing lower-value work to others can dramatically increase your income.

What does it mean to suggest that a $20-per-hour employee could generate $1,000 of value in just one minute? Imagine you hire an assistant to manage outreach. While many of their emails or calls may go unanswered, one successful connection with a key decision-maker could lead to a $50,000 consulting engagement. The value of that single email or call would equate to $1,000—or more—per minute.

This is the 80/20 principle in action: focusing on high-value activities while delegating low-value ones to others at a lower cost enables remarkable results. This is where you begin to apply a growth plan for your consulting business.

To scale your consulting business, you should:

• Create a complete list of your business tasks.
• Sort tasks from lowest to highest value.
• Identify low-value tasks that can be delegated.
• Hire someone to complete those low-value tasks.

This is the essence of delegation—leveraging others to grow your consulting business.

By applying this, you can spend three hours a day on your highest-value activity instead of just 30 minutes, while someone else handles the low-value work. The return on investment will be clear: the time spent on your most valuable activities should easily cover the cost of contractors if you prioritize correctly.

For clarity, list every task you perform in your business, such as:

• Writing.
• Research.
• Conducting interviews.
• Public speaking.
• Sales presentations.
• Sales calls.
• Marketing.
• Invoicing.
• Accounting.

Place these into a spreadsheet, marking high-value tasks and highlighting low-value ones suitable for delegation. This simple but powerful visual exercise is one of the most important steps before hiring your first contractor.

Outsource repetitive tasks you don’t want to handle yourself. Use platforms like Upwork or Fiverr to find freelancers to perform them.

By delegating wisely, you invest your most valuable resource—your time—into activities that directly fuel the growth of your consulting practice.

Using Systems and Processes to Automate Your Consulting Business

When you examine repetitive tasks in your work, you’ll notice they follow consistent patterns. Instead of reinventing the wheel, you can design streamlined procedures to achieve reliable results.

To build effective processes, document every recurring task and the exact steps required to complete it. This transforms abstract routines into structured systems and forms the foundation of your consulting operations. Once documented, these procedures serve as a dependable reference.

These documented processes are known as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). They function as a roadmap, ensuring tasks are completed consistently, accurately, and efficiently. SOPs save time, reduce errors, and create predictability in business operations.

Formalized SOPs facilitate outsourcing. You enable contractors or employees to execute tasks with minimal training by providing them with clear, step-by-step instructions.

For example, if you hire a researcher to identify prospective clients, a well-documented SOP ensures they understand the process from the outset.

Over time, you and your team can refine and update these SOPs, adapting them to your business's evolving needs. This way, systems remain dynamic, supporting sustainable growth while ensuring consistency.

Whether you operate as a solo consultant or aim to productize your services, well-defined systems and processes are the backbone of scalable growth.

Conclusion

Developing a growth mindset is essential for scaling any consulting business. While many consultants desire to grow, only those with the discipline and determination to step outside their comfort zones succeed. Growth requires calculated risk-taking, bold decisions, and consistent action.

Consultants who scale successfully are driven by passion and invest the energy required to achieve their goals. They do not wait for opportunities to arise—they set objectives, establish timelines, and execute deliberate plans.

Cultivating a growth mindset also means confronting challenges head-on: delivering keynote speeches, publishing a book, launching a course, hiring a team, or managing payroll. Each step moves your practice to the next level.

Equally important, growth requires investment—in tools, people, marketing, and training. Adopting an abundance mindset, rather than a scarcity mindset, allows you to make these investments confidently. Without this shift, scaling becomes nearly impossible.

Remember, many have already reached the level of success you aspire to. By learning from their experience, you can more effectively overcome your own obstacles.

Ultimately, growth is not the result of quick fixes or isolated tactics. It is a mindset—a disciplined commitment to hard work, strategic thinking, creativity, and continuous learning.