£30k/m to £450k/m, step-by-step.

I ran my agency for 4 years before it was acquired.

That's quite a short time frame.

But actually, the majority of the growth came within the last 2 years.

The first 18-24 months were us finding market fit, checking we knew what we were doing, and happily growing organically.

But we knew we had an opportunity to be one of the winners in our niche. But to fully capitalise, we had to get much, much bigger. Quickly.

At the time we were doing around £30k per month of revenue. We wanted to get to £450k per month.

It was a bit daunting to say the least. A bit like that feeling where you have so many things on your to-do list that you can't actually get anything done. You're too busy thinking about how busy you are. It was a pretty demoralising feeling to see just how far we needed to grow, in just 24 months.

But, we decided to break down that growth into an annual target. And then again as a monthly target. And then again as a number of new clients per month. It turned an unimaginable task into a bit more of a realistic one. Thinking of a number of clients per month felt like less of a hurdle than pure financial goals.

We called it the stepping stone plan, and I've since worked with lots of other founders to help them do the same. In fact, it features in both of my new digital courses too, including the template I used - quick plug, check them out here...).

The hardest part about the rapid growth was keeping up with desk space!

Lets take a quick look at what I mean. I don't still have the exact numbers that we used, so the following is 'based on a true story'.

Month 1 - £30k revenue

Month 25 - £450k revenue

OK, still looking like a big, daunting jump.

Month 1 - £30k revenue

Month 13 - £200k revenue

Month 25 - £450k revenue

Looking any better yet? Now we only really need to worry about getting from £30k per month to £200k in the next 12 months. Still a big old leap though!

Let's think monthly then, rather than annually.

Month 1 - £30k revenue

Month 2 - £35k revenue

Month 3 - £40k revenue

Month 4 - £50k revenue

Month 5 - £60k revenue

Month 6 - £75k revenue

Month 7 - £90k revenue

Month 8 - £105k revenue

Month 9 - £120k revenue

Month 10 - £140k revenue

Month 11 - £160k revenue

Month 12 - £180k revenue

Month 13 - £200k revenue

Now imagine we had an average client retainer of £3k...

Month 1 - £30k revenue

Month 2 - 2 net new clients

Month 3 - 2 net new clients

Month 4 - 3 net new clients

Month 5 - 3 net new clients

Month 6 - 5 net new clients

Month 7 - 5 net new clients

Month 8 - 5 net new clients

Month 9 - 5 net new clients

Month 10 - 7 net new clients

Month 11 - 7 net new clients

Month 12 - 7 net new clients

Month 13 - £200k revenue

Suddenly all of the complications of running a business come down to one simple thing. We need to find a way to consistently win new clients. Not an enormous amount of new clients. But a small number, every month, consistently.

At the same time, we need to make sure that we're doing a great job of servicing them so that the clients stay. If we can upsell and grow their fee then great, we don't have to sign as many new clients. But if we don't and the clients churn, then we need to sign more.

Both options get us to the first year stepping stone, but one is obviously preferable than the other!

The way we did this was by splitting the responsibility at the top-level.

We had a management team of 4.

2 of us were solely focussed on bringing in the clients, without concern of how it would impact capacity and operations. 2 of us were solely focussed on retaining and growing clients, without concern of how we would sign new ones.

It meant that as individuals we were only having to worry about one half of the big complicated business that we were running. And we had very clear targets to hit.

You might be looking at the above numbers and thinking that they still look daunting. You should be. They are! The fact is that most businesses don't get acquired. Most businesses don't scale revenue quickly. You have to intentionally grow a business, it very rarely just happens organically.

Of course the reality wasn't quite as linear as the plan above. But the stepping stone plan gave us th confidence that we could take the giant leap. And without that confidence we would never have set the targets so high.

If you're running a business and planning to grow over the coming years, try breaking down the target into annual and then monthly steps. You might find that you're not being ambitious enough!