One of the most common growth blockers for a small business is the feast or famine cycle.
Project-based work such as consulting, custom software development, and agency/creative work are in this seemingly never ending cycle all the time. When a client comes in, your hours are taken up by a new business that you want to give all of your attention to. You end up being heads down, all in for this project (as you should). You're doing a lot of work and billing for a lot of hours (the feast).
The problem is that the project has an expiration date. Those countless hours of work start to dwindle down. And when the project is done, you're left waiting for a new client or searching for one (the famine).
These are billable hours down the drain.
Small businesses don't have unlimited bandwidth for new business. But that doesn't mean you can't have a manageable pipeline of 10-15 prospects that you are nurturing while working on other big projects. When a big project ends, you want the ability to jump right into active conversations with multiple potential clients without skipping a beat. Hopefully, some of those conversations will turn into your next big projects. By doing this, you will have less down time between projects, which can drastically increase annual revenue while also removing uncertainty.
There are easy ways to make sure that you’re developing your client base while still focusing on your current projects:
Put a system in place to consistently post content on your site, social media profiles, etc.
Be a guest speaker at a conference or webinar.
Reach out to prospects on LinkedIn for an hour a day to build some momentum.
Regardless of which option you choose, make sure you’re doing something so you aren’t left empty handed once your most recent projects wrap up.
As a small business, you have to keep moving from one venture to the next rather than have wasted downtime in between. To avoid throwing away billable hours, break the feast or famine cycle. It will be a godsend to have even a modest pipeline in place when your next project ends.