Key to a Million Dollar Agency is to Have Employees - NOT TRUE!

Build a million dollar agency…without employees?

Here’s something I hear a lot.

“I’m getting so busy with my projects, I need to take on an employee, so I can cope with it all…”

And it’s a logical step when you’re growing, right?

You’re maxed out with work, you’ve had to push back a couple of client deadlines, and you’re working all hours…it just makes sense!

Well, actually, it doesn’t.

You might be thinking “If I’m getting in more business than I can handle myself, then I’ll definitely make more with more people.”

But the thing almost everyone misses is that employees are hard to make profitable, especially if you’re just starting to expand.

Let me break it down.

What’s typically happening is that when you’re looking for employees, you’re really busy with work, but you’re not abundant with cash, and probably still living month to month.

From that position, yes, you can take on more work, but you’ll be keeping a lot less of your fee because a cut of that is going to someone’s paycheck.

And even though, in theory, it means you can hand off a bunch of stuff to a junior graphic designer, you still have to show up and manage those projects. The buck always stops with you.

Think about it.

How many times have you hired somebody to do something for you, but then you end up doing all the project management, having to fix things for them, managing that person, communicating with the client, managing the client's expectations, etc. etc.

All of that is a lot of your time. 

And while it may be less of your time than if you actually did the project, when you work this out, you’ll see that you're not making any more money. 

So the employee doesn't solve the problem. 

And the reason we know this? Because you’re not operating in a place of profitability. 

So how do you actually build a million dollar agency, without employees?

You focus on the profitability of the work. 

Let’s get one thing straight.

I’m not saying you should NEVER have anyone on payroll. You may want to in the future.

What I AM saying is that you need to build a solid, profitable model first, so that those employees actually make you money, and don't just run you ragged, and not make you any money. 

Remember, profitability is about the ratio between the price you charge and the amount of time that you spend on delivering your service. 

To get that dialed in, you get your profitability so high that you need fewer and fewer clients to make more and more money. 

Right now you're probably saying to yourself “How am I going to possibly make the amount of money I want to make without other people helping me?”

But that’s assuming you can only ever charge a certain amount, and that projects will ALWAYS take a certain amount of time.

What if you could charge more than you're charging now? 

And what if those projects took less time? 

Or what if you just charge what you're charging now, but projects took half 50% of the time they take now? That’s a quick way you can get twice as many projects as you're imagining, but not need anyone to help you, because it's taking so much less time. 

Bottom line? To do all of this without employees, get your processes and your systems nailed. 

I can almost guarantee that there are ways you can streamline, simplify and ‘templatize’ (is that even a word?) your business. And this is pretty much the No BS mission statement. 

Lead your clients with confidence, so that they are along for the ride, instead of dragging you off course constantly. 

Create a whole structure and system without a 4-year process, so that it's much, much more efficient. 

Everything will be repeatable and systematized. The creative work - the ‘magic’ your clients are paying you for - is the only part that should be different every time 

And that’s how you build a million dollar agency, without employees.