Stay Small. Stay Focused. Stay Premium.

Every consultant I know has the same dream.

Build the thing. Get some clients. Prove the model. Then scale. Hire a team. Build systems. Automate. Delegate. Step back. Watch it grow.

It's the dream, right? Build something bigger than yourself. Create jobs. Make an impact. Exit rich.

Except here's what actually happens.

You hire your first person. They're great, but they're not you. So you spend half your time training them, correcting their work, and explaining your thinking. The clients who hired you start getting them instead. You become a manager, not a maker.

You hire another person. Then another. Now you need systems. Project management software. Time tracking. HR policies. Health insurance. Office space. Suddenly you're spending more time managing people than doing the work you love.

The quality starts to slip. Not because your team is bad, but because you're not in the weeds anymore. You're in meetings. You're putting out fires. You're dealing with client complaints because the work isn't quite what they expected. Because it's not you anymore.

Revenue goes up, sure. But so do costs. Payroll. Benefits. Software licenses. Office Rents.

Effing software licenses and office rents… makes me insane.

Marketing to feed the machine. You're making more money, but keeping less. And working twice as hard to keep it all running.

This is the scale trap. And most people don't realize they're in it until it's too late.

The Lie We're All Told

We're told that growth is good. That bigger is better. That if you're not scaling, you're not serious.

We're told that real businesses have teams. That solo consultants are "freelancers" (said with a slight sneer). That if you want to be taken seriously, you need to look bigger than you are.

We're told that premium pricing requires scale. That you need a team to justify high fees. That clients want to see "bench strength" and "capacity."

It's All Bullshit

The best work I've ever seen came from small teams. Often just one or two people who knew exactly what they were doing and had the space to do it right.

The worst work I've ever seen came from agencies trying to be everything to everyone, staffing projects with whoever was available, and churning through deliverables to hit utilization targets.

Size doesn't equal quality. It usually equals dilution.

What Staying Small Actually Means

Staying small isn't about being afraid to grow. It's about being smart enough to know what growth costs.

When you stay small, you get to be selective. You don't need to take every project that comes your way because you don't have payroll to cover. You can say no to the bad fits, the difficult clients, the projects that drain your soul. You can say yes only to the work that energizes you.

When you stay small, you get to stay focused. You're not context-switching between ten different projects with ten different teams. You're deep in the work. You know every detail. You see every connection. The quality goes up because your attention isn't divided.

When you stay small, you get to charge premium prices. Because when clients hire you, they get you. Not your junior team. Not your account manager reading from a script. You. Your expertise. Your attention. Your judgment. That's worth paying for.

When you stay small, you get to stay sane. No HR drama. No office politics. No managing personalities. No lying awake at night worrying about making payroll. Just the work and the life you actually want.

The Math of Staying Small

Here's what most people miss about the economics of staying small.

Let's say you're billing $200 an hour as a solo consultant. You work 30 billable hours a week, 48 weeks a year. That's $288,000 in revenue. Subtract 30% for taxes and expenses, you're taking home about $200,000.

Now let's say you hire a team. Three people at $80k each. That's $240k in salaries, plus another 30% for benefits, taxes, insurance, call it $310k all-in. You need project management software, office space, a bookkeeper, liability insurance, maybe some marketing to feed the machine. Add another $50k. You're at $360k in fixed costs before you earn a dollar.

To take home that same $200k, you now need to generate $560k in revenue. That's almost double. And you're managing people, dealing with HR, worrying about utilization, and probably working more hours than you were before.

Or you could just stay small, keep your $200k, and work less.

The math gets even worse when you factor in your time. As a solo consultant, maybe 80% of your time is billable. As an agency owner, maybe 20% is billable and 80% is managing. You're making less money and doing less of the work you actually enjoy.

This is why so many agency owners are miserable. They built something that looks successful from the outside but feels like a trap from the inside.

Premium Pricing Without Scale

The biggest objection I hear is this: "But clients want to know you have capacity. They want to see a team. They won't pay premium prices to a solo consultant."

Wrong clients, maybe. The right clients don't care about your team size. They care about whether you can solve their problem.

In fact, premium clients often prefer smaller. They're tired of the agency bait-and-switch. They're tired of being sold by the A-team and serviced by the C-team. They're tired of account managers who don't understand their business and junior strategists cutting their teeth on their brand.

When you're small, you can charge premium prices precisely because they get all of you. Your experience. Your judgment. Your full attention. No handoffs. No dilution. No junior team learning on their dime.

The key is positioning. You're not a scrappy freelancer desperate for work. You're a selective expert who takes a limited number of projects because that's what quality requires. You're expensive because you're worth it. And you're small because that's the only way to maintain the standard.

Premium isn't about size. It's about value. And value comes from expertise, focus, and attention. All of which are easier to deliver when you're small.

No

Staying small gives you the most valuable thing in business: the power to say no.

No to bad clients. No to scope creep. No to rush jobs. No to projects that don't excite you. No to working weekends. No to checking email at 11pm. No to growth for growth's sake.

When you don't have overhead, you don't have desperation. You don't need every project. You don't need to bend over backwards to keep a difficult client. You don't need to sacrifice your standards to hit a revenue target.

You can be selective. You can maintain boundaries. You can do your best work because you only take on work that deserves your best.

This is the real freedom. Not the freedom that comes from selling your agency and retiring. The freedom that comes from building something sustainable that you actually want to run.

What This Looks Like in Practice

I know a consultant who's been solo for fifteen years. She bills $500 an hour. She takes ten projects a year. She works four days a week, takes three months off, and makes high six figures.

She's had dozens of offers to join agencies, start her own, take on partners. She says no to all of them. Because she's built exactly what she wants. And scaling would ruin it.

I know another consultant who ran a 30-person agency. Sold it for seven figures. Took a year off. Started consulting again. Solo. He told me, "I made more money with the agency, but I'm happier now than I've been in a decade."

These aren't cautionary tales. These are success stories. Just different definitions of success than the ones we're sold.

The Question You Need to Ask

Before you hire that first person. Before you sign that office lease. Before you commit to the scale path. Ask yourself this:

What do you actually want?

Do you want to build an empire? Manage people? Raise capital? Create jobs? Sell for eight figures? If yes, then scale. Build the thing. Chase the growth. Just know what you're signing up for.

But if what you want is to do great work, work with great clients, make great money, and have a great life, you might not need to scale at all.

You might just need to stay small. Stay focused. Stay premium.

And build exactly the thing you want to run.

The Reality

Most consultants and agencies scale because they think they're supposed to. Because everyone else is doing it. Because "real" businesses have teams. Because staying small feels like playing it safe.

But staying small isn't safe. It's strategic.

It's having the clarity to know what you want and the discipline to protect it. It's understanding that bigger isn't better, it's just bigger. It's recognizing that the best work comes from focus, not scale.

The irony is that staying small is actually the harder choice. It requires saying no constantly. It requires confidence in your positioning. It requires being okay with leaving money on the table. It requires being comfortable being small in a world that worships size.

But for the right people, it's the only choice that makes sense.

Do the damn math. Stay small. Stay focused. Stay premium.

That's the reality.

- DH