Yesterday, a consultant asked me, "Am I being realistic? Can I grow to $1,000,000 in 12 months?"

Here's how the conversation went.

How much are your retainers? $3-$5K/month.

Can I use $3,333.33/month ($40K/year), just because it makes the math easy? Yes

Pretend that you could get 2 new retainer clients in March. You'd be at $80K/year, right? Right.

What if you did the same thing in April and May? Where would you be then? $20K/month - $240K/year.

Last math question: Supposing you kept doing that for 9 more months? Supposing you added two $40K clients/month for 12 months straight? How much business would you have? He said, "2 times 12 times $40K = $960,000 > A Million!"

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So, then the question becomes what does he need to do to get 2 new clients/month? What's their persona? What problem are they trying to solve? Where are they? Are they searching? Do they know they have a problem? Do they know there's a solution? Do they care? How do you attract them? How many blog posts do you have to write? How do you get your content in front of them? Are they on LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, elsewhere? Can you get referred? Recommended? Introduced?

During our conversation, I asked the consultant how many people knew somebody that he knows? 1.5 Million! Then I asked him to search the the 1.5 million for the occupation of his ideal persona. 1,597. Then I showed him how to get his content in front of each one of the 1,597. Question: How many ideal prospects saw your content last month? Last quarter? Last year?

OK. Let's be realistic.

How many hours doing the right stuff will it take to get a client (and what is the right stuff for you and your ideal client)? 40? 50? 60?

When you get that ideal client, how many hours will you need every month to deliver what they expect for $3,333? 10? 20? 30?

Where is your equilibrium? and how will it change with each new client?

Last line of questions begins with:

When you have 6 clients paying $40K/year, you'll be at capacity? How will you grow beyond that?

My response is two-fold.

Wouldn't being 'stuck' at $250K/year be a good problem to have?

How hard will it be to find a couple of consultants that are good at what you do, but can't find their own clients that would be willing to deliver on your behalf under your supervision for $50-$60K/year?

Want to have your own conversation?