Many advisory practices tend to grow quickly to a certain size then get stuck there, unable to grow past some invisible barrier.

I have long observed that in the creative and marketing space there’s a strong pattern of a firm’s growth plateauing around the seven-year mark. The reasons aren’t clear to me.

It may be that seven years is roughly the point at which the founder has tapped out their network. David C. Baker has suggested it may also be the declining effect of passive referrals. (We only take referrals from people we look up to or see as peers, therefore they are “handed down” and run out.)

The Other Plateau

While both of these might be factors at the seven-year plateau, many successful firms plateau later, at a larger size. And these cases have a pretty obvious common cause: they are firms that have grown as far as the founder alone can take them.

Getting to the next level requires a sharing of the sales load across the broader team. The senior leadership team needs to step up on the new business front, and the client services team needs to step up on growing existing accounts.

Everyone tries—with new plans, pep talks and reports—but it doesn’t work. The founder cannot seem to impart to the broader team a skill that is so natural and intuitive to them.

The Mediocre One

Wayne Gretzky was the greatest hockey player to ever lace up skates, but he was a sub-par coach. I imagine him in the dressing room, addressing his players in exasperation, “Guys, it’s not that hard!”

Uhh, yeah Gretz, it is. We’re not you.

“Just do what I do” isn’t good direction, but it is the goal. And while few of your people will be able to do what you do to the level you do it, enough of them can do it well enough to get you through the plateau and back to growing again.

A Path Back to Growth

Let’s get this team turned around. Here are some structural issues to consider first:

  • If everyone’s chasing utilization targets, look no further for the main culprit. The more you push the team to bill hours the harder it will be to scale sales—a non-billable activity.
  • Incentives matter. Look at how your people earn their money and ask if the incentives are aligned to your growth goal or if they need to change. Revisit incentives carefully, and in combination with utilization targets.
  • A handful of people being 75% as good as you at selling is a massive unlock. While there are some advantages to trying to bring the whole team along, I recommend you identify the smallest group of key people that could unlock a new level of growth. The rest will follow if you succeed with these leaders.

With those structural issues considered, let’s plot the path back to growth. 

Step One: Train the Core

Those key people you identified? Give them to me. I’ll teach them a model of principles and frameworks that lets them bring their expert self to the sales role, instead of trying to be the clichéd salesperson they are not.

The principles you’ll recognize as the things you do intuitively but have never codified. The frameworks are the tools they’ll use to navigate through the sale without going into pitch mode or writing unnecessary decks or ridiculously long proposals.

You may be Wayne Gretzky, but I’m Scotty Bowman. (IYKYK)

Step Two: Support the Core

Everyone who goes through training now gets free lifetime access to the new Win Without Pitching Academy, where my team and I support them for as long as they want.

In the Academy and mobile app they will find:

  • Their training materials and tools
  • A global discussion forum of their peers
  • My daily blog, weekly blog, podcasts and videos
  • Monthly AMAs with me
  • Live guest interviews
  • Access to one-on-one coaching ($)

Think of the Academy as insurance on your training investment, except it’s free for life. The Academy is where I live these days.

The Rest Will Follow

A small group of inspired, trained and supported individuals is enough to kick-start growth and seed more ambition into the culture of the firm. Once they validate the approach and shine with an enthusiasm for their new skills, others will want to play too. Start small.

The need to replicate the sales success of the founder is one of the most common challenges cited by those who reach out to us.

If that’s your challenge too, let’s talk.

-Blair