SSK #23: Turn 15 Hours a Week into $20K a Month

3 WAYS I CAN HELP YOU

Read time: 3 minutes.

I make a bold claim on my LinkedIn profile: 15 hrs/week = $20k/moAnd I get daily DMs asking for more details.I thought I would share some behind-the-scenes of that claim and how I can run an 86% profit margin solo consulting business. I was a founder and a co-founder of 3 marketing agencies and scaled them very efficiently to 6 figures...per month.I know exactly what it means to wake up at 4 am, work multiple timezones, deal with teams, hire, fire, bonuses, conflict, account management, sell your services and everything else that comes with the territory of running big operations and working with tens of clients.The marketing agencies I built were profitable and worked like well-oiled machines.But I didn't like how scaling and selling worked:

• We were closing a fraction of leads (despite being great at what we do)
• More closed clients = more account management
• More headache
• Lower margins
• Bigger team

All of this led to building a MONSTER of a business. A monster that was hungry for resources and assets.While we did everything we could to optimize our operations and delivery, I knew there was something wrong with our product-market fit.As an "efficiency freak", I spent some time analyzing the problem and came to a conclusion I called -

The Leaky Bucket Problem:

Despite attracting traffic and leads, a significant portion doesn't convert to paying clients. 

And that's a massive waste of time, resources and growth potential.What you need to do to fix it is simple - find a product-market fit. A product-market fit exists when your product fixes a problem your audience has AND wants to fix AND is willing to pay money for that fix.

• An audience has a problem they want to fix.
• Your audience wants to pay for that fix.
• You have a fix for the problem.

The plug for the leaky bucket is quite simple - instead of offering the done-for-you (DFY) service, you offer a done-with-you (DWY) service where you teach your audience how to fix their problem. At a fraction of the price of your DFY service.For example:

• Instead of running Facebook ads for your clients, you teach them how to do it
• Instead of doing email marketing for them, you teach them the frameworks

You get the idea.Another IMPORTANT aspect is you offer the DWY in a group setting. You move from working 1-1 with clients on their bespoke projects (remember, bespoke doesn't scale!) to working 1-many with multiple clients at the same time.I tested this approach back in 2016 when I started pitching the DWY offer to leads who didn't have the money to pay for our DFY services. The DWY quickly turned out to be our best money-making service surpassing our "main" offer, despite cutting the price of DWY in half. I then moved completely from DFY to DWY in my consulting business.15 hours per week = $20k per month (and more..) is absolutely doable with the group consulting/coaching approach.And yes, it applies to most businesses, no matter what you offer.
It's just a matter of proper structure and changing HOW you deliver your service.Plugging the Leaky Bucket fixed my marketing agency businesses and it helped me build and grow my solo consulting business.Perhaps it's a good fit for you as well?

If you're interested in learning more about the Leaky Bucket and how to fix it here is a LINK to a full training video I recorded the other day:

• all details
• financials
• calculations
• case studies

Have any questions? Shoot me an email or message me on LinkedIn!