| I'm not sure I'm in the "heathy pipeline" stage. But I have a small number of repeat clients, and have landed a good number of $49k to $60k projects over the last five years. I currently do most of the work and use 2-3 subcontractors as needed. And during year one I did a lot of sub-contracts for 5-10 person shops. So I've been able to see what works. I guess the TLDR version is that you need partnerships. For example, if you are working primarily with AWS or Oracle or whatever, you need to have really good relationships with their account executives. You'll also need partnerships with other agencies. For example, if your projects are often referrals from marketing or web design shops, you'll need to cultivate relationships with several of those. And that usually means referring web-design projects to them as well. (I'm not great at sales, so many of my projects came from this source.) But if your projects run <$50k each, you'll never build a $1M sales pipeline without a sales team. Hire somebody with existing relationships in your industry, so they can open up their address book and land 1-3 clients right out of the gate. My partner account execs are constantly telling me to focus on a niche. I work with a specific SAAS product that's a bit higher-priced. So that naturally brings me clients with some semblance of a budget. But they recommend even more specialization, such as "growth clients in the fintech space with A round funding". That's tough for me, since I'm a generalist and like to work everywhere. Lastly, remember that it's ok to be small. If you don't have a huge team, you can pick and choose projects to ensure maximum success and minimal stress. People always ask me "what's your growth plan", and are surprised when I tell them that I don't plan to grow this year. Good luck! |