[brudgers]

There's no overcoming the limitations other than the options you mention. That's the structural nature of your business...it scales linearly with available billable hours (or its equivalent). It's why business models that scale linearly are usually unattractive to Silicon Valley venture capital. In a sense, scaling nonlinearly is what separates a startup from an ordinary new business.

Traditionally, one way to (linearly) scale a consulting business is by partnership with other consulting principals. Doe Consulting, Inc becomes Doe, Moe, & Joe Consulting Group, LLC. This distributes management of sales, technical leadership, and staff management among several people and makes adding employees and feeding the project pipeline more manageable because they can execute simultaneously among Doe, Moe, and Joe.

One way to scale revenue without expanding is to raise your rates. Higher rates screen for better paying clients. Good consultants are not fungible with bad consultants and clients who want you to compete with free are either bluffing or don't have critical problems that need solving.

Good luck.