Stop Chasing Small Projects | EP 185

All right, so let's do this.

The first thing I want to talk to you about in today's episode is, I guess, why a full calendar of work, why heaps of small projects in your business and working with a team is not the same as a growing business.

Because small projects, small jobs, they feel like progress.

You're moving things forward, you're working on stuff, your team's busy, there's action happening in the business.

But small projects is actually one of the biggest things keeping your consultancy stuck.

I get it, like small jobs, and particularly when you're starting out, they give you that quick hit, like it's a fast yes from the client, usually you're too cheap in the first place, so quick work, a quick yes from the client, you do the work quickly, fast invoice back to the client, although side note, most of those clients take forever to pay.

You've got that instant feeling of momentum happening in your business.

But I want you to realize that volume of projects doesn't necessarily equate to growth in your business.

Like 10 small jobs over here can actually make you less profit than one big project and 10 times more of the headaches than if you were to work on like one really good medium size or big size project.

A full workload in your business tricks you into thinking that you're doing well.

It tricks you into thinking that you're busy and you never really stop to actually ask yourself whether you're working on the right projects and doing the right kind of work.

So every small job you take on in the business, it fills a slot with the team, it keeps people busy, keeps the brain up here thinking that you're moving things forward and growing your business.

But they're actually taking up the space that a bigger, better, more profitable, longer term project could have filled.

And the busier you get on that low value work, the less time and energy you have to go and actually win the good stuff.

So I just want you to stop and sort of think about your project load at the moment, what you're saying yes to, whether you've got clients out there that just keep giving you good, sorry, keep giving you repeat small work that you're not making any money on.

I want you to think about if your diary's full, the calendar's full, the team's busy and running around like headless chooks, but the business isn't actually moving forward, stop, pause, ask yourself, am I actually growing, am I working on the right projects, or am I just busy? Okay, so the second thing I want to talk to you about is Really, I've got you a bit agitated if you're like, oh, but you know, like this is where the cream is in our business.

And don't get me wrong, some businesses are set up very, very well to deliver small projects really well.

But the percentage of those that I come across in the industry would be in the single digits.

There's not many businesses out there that are set up well to deliver small projects.

And you've got to stop and sit back and go, OK, well, what's our niche in the market? Like I know businesses out there that their niche is minor works, packages, quick turnaround, but they have built their business around that.

And they do make good margin on that.

But like I said, most of the consultancies out there are just doing that work to kind of fill a gap in their bigger project workload.

And I don't think a lot of businesses out there actually stop and step back and go, what's this costing me to actually run and deliver these projects? Because it's never just the fee that you get on those projects.

Like every, I want you to stop and think about like every job, that you do in your business, it typically carries the same admin load, whether it's a small project or a big project, you've got to do the proposal, there's a setup cost in the business, there's invoicing, there's chasing payments, all those sorts of things.

They are typically the same in your business, whether it's a 5K job or a 150K job.