This month’s Ask Nicole question comes from Sylvia, a public health professional who recently stepped out into the world of full time consulting as her consulting client roster has started to skyrocket:
What do you do when you find that you have too many clients?? Sounds ridiculous, as I’m sure this is a “problem” many consultants would love to have. I’m a solopreneur and I’m still establishing myself and my business systems. I’ve taken on more projects than I probably should have, and while this will prove to be a lesson learned for the future, I’m curious to hear from you on how you’ve tackled this.
Sylvia’s right.
Complaining about having too many clients does sound weird to someone who wishes they had even one client.
And I’m sure Sylvia did it in order to jump fully into her business so that she could leave her 9-to-5 behind. Building my client portfolio was a primary focus for me too, for both experience and confidence.
So… how many clients is “too many”?
Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. However, when your client roster feels overwhelming, consider the following common culprits. I’ve considered for myself when I start questioning my own client roster, and hopefully you can discover which one(s) are causing you to take on more clients than you should:
Is this an ideal client creep issue?
It’s best that you don’t work with everyone can comes to you for services. “Mission creep” is when the focus of your business or organization expands its mission beyond its original focus. I use this definition also for clients. One solution to consider is revising who you want to work with.
Who is your ideal client? What are their concerns and paint points? What communities do they work in and with? What are the identities of their staff and leadership? Do you want to only work with organizations who demonstrate equitable practices in their staff, leadership, and board of directors? Do you prefer small nonprofits or bigger institutions? Get clear on who your ideal client is. When you’re consistent in taking on clients that fit neatly within these parameters, it’ll be easier to turn down a client that doesn’t fit.
Is this a services structure issue?
Do you work “one-to-one” or “one-to-many”?
Working one-to-one means that you work directly with a client for one specific project. An issue that can arise when you work with multiple one-to-one clients who are asking for a large number of deliverables. A solution to this is to consider packaging your services in a one-to-many model, where you work with a large number of people for one service. An issue with this approach, however, it knowing what services you provide that could lend themselves well to this approach as well as knowing what your “sweet spot” is for the number of people to give this opportunity to.
How does this look?
- One-to-One: Working with a number of clients interested in developing a more comprehensive approach to developing and revision workshop and program curriculum, with each client having access to you for extensive periods.
- One-to-Many: Creating a webinar or in-person training series that breaks down your process of doing the above, with participants having access to you and the other participants in that period of time.
Likewise, if most of your work is one-to-many, consider trying out a one-to-one approach for at least one service, and assess how that goes for you.
Is this a capacity issue?
Being honest about your capacity is crucial to prevent overwhelm. Sometimes consultants may take on projects for financial reasons, complete disregarding their business’ mission and ideal client profile (I’ll touch on money later). If you think capacity is the culprit, consider the following question (which I go more into depth here):
- Where am I with my other projects?
- Do I realistically have the skillset the client is looking for?
- Can I realistically devote enough time to this project?
- How many clients do I realistically want right now?
- How else can I realistically assess my capacity?
Consider hiring a subcontractor, bring on (paid) interns to take on tasks that can be easily delegated, or focus on doing more partnership work. Hiring a subcontractor or interns for an already existing project allows for you to delegate tasks that you either don’t want to do or don’t have the capacity to do. Working on projects with a partner requires relationship building and networking on your end. Consider this for future projects.
Is this a timing issue?
Similar to understanding your capacity, understanding the actual time you can devote to your client projects is important. Understanding your capacity involves the amount of hours you can realistically devote to any project against what the project actually needs.
A solution for this is knowing the start and end dates for each project, where you are currently with each project, and staggering when you begin new projects. Did you just start several projects, or are they evenly spaced out to avoid doing labor-intensive work for multiple clients?
Is this an interest issue?
Similar to avoiding ideal client creep, working on projects that don’t interest you can lead to overwhelm. Not only are you doing uninteresting work, you now have deliverables to complete on top of it being uninteresting.
As you’re getting clear on your ideal client, get clear on the kinds of projects you want to work on. Do you want to more research? Meeting facilitations? Speaking engagements or panels? More workshops?
Is this a money issue?
Raise your rates That’s the only solution. Raising your hourly rate allows you to get paid your worth, and weeds out clients whose budgets can’t cover your rates AND projects that have lots of moving parts and deliverables but sucks up your time. This may cause you to lose out on certain projects, but as a business owner, you have financial goals for your business like a general business or a nonprofit does.
If the idea of raising your hourly rate gives you anxiety, research the average hourly rate for consultants doing similar work in your industry, and the number years they’ve been at it. This helps to provide justification for potential clients. You can also gauge how to raise your hourly rate based on the amount of time it takes to complete certain tasks. Use a time tracker to track the length of time it takes to complete a task.
If raising your rate is your biggest culprit, consider adjusting any of the following suggestions above as you work on getting clear of your new hourly rate. Then test out the new rate with prospective clients.
Key takeaway
Don’t take on more clients than you need to. Assess your capacity, hourly rates, project timing, service structure, and whether you’re working with your ideal clients and one projects that interest you. Make adjustments where needed, and hopefully your overwhelm subsides.
Raise Your Voice: Have you taken on too many clients? What steps did you take to prevent client overwhelm? Share below in the comments section.
