How do you get consistency in leads, sales, and income as a one-person business?

Whatever your plans are for the future, consistency matters. But how do you get all that when you're a one-person business with limited time and budget?

There's an abundance of resources and support for growing businesses. But what if you aren't at that point yet?

What if you're still figuring out how to get consistency? What if you're trapped in that dreaded feast-and-famine cycle, and hiring someone or outsourcing feels like too much of a risk?

Or what if you have no intentions of hiring? Maybe you're happy being a one-person business without the pressure of having to find salaries for a team of people each month.

It doesn't mean you don't want some stability and predictability in your business.

Whatever your plans are for the future - staying solo or world domination - getting consistency matters.

Consistency in leads.

Consistency in sales.

Consistency in quality.

And an income that consistently supports your goals.

So how do you get all that when you're a one-person business with limited time and budget?

Focus on one thing at a time

Getting control of your business requires you to work on lots of different elements. You need to get your pricing and positioning right. You need processes in place for enquiry management, follow-ups, and review requests. You need to get consistent with your marketing messages. You need to maximise conversion rates. You need to get your time management under control. And you need to make sure you deliver a great service.

But where do you begin? What do you fix first? How do you find time to work on your business without sacrificing billable hours?

It's not suprising that it can all feel a bit overwhelming.

And so what often happens is you do nothing.

There's too much to do, so nothing gets done.

But if you don't change anything, nothing changes.

So don't let it overwhelm you. Rather than focusing on the end goal, work on the small gains.

Make marginal improvements each week.

Start by blocking out one hour a week for business development. Then work on one thing at a time. Pick a problem and look at how you can fix it.

What you work on first will depend on where the biggest issues or gaps are in your business.

But remember, you don't have to fix every problem in one go. You can fix each one gradually. Make slight improvements to one area, then make a small improvement in another, then another, then come back to the first problem and improve it further.

That's what I did with my business.

I wish I could tell you I turned things around overnight, but I didn't. I just made gradual tweaks and changes until I had a business that worked the way I wanted it to work. A business that made me happy instead of a business that was running me into the ground.

Find the biggest gaps

What are your biggest challenges?

You don't get enough leads
The leads you get never go anywhere
You don't convert many leads into sales
You keep getting ghosted
You take on too much low-value work
Your clients are too demanding
You don't have many reviews
You get a lot of one-off projects
You're always busy with client work, but your turnover is low
You get a lot of last-minute work and constantly have to work extra hours
You have too many clients, all needing different things
You don't enjoy the work you're getting
You constantly have to chase payments
You can't keep on top of your admin tasks
Your cash flow is all over the place
You can never take more than a day off at a time
Holidays are out of the question

I can't address all of these issues individually in a single article, but the good news is most of these problems come down to one of the following.

Your marketing sucks

If you aren’t attracting the right type of enquiries, it’s because your messaging isn’t right. And that’s usually because you aren’t clear about who you help or what problems you solve for them. And if you aren’t attracting the right type of enquiries, you end up with time-wasters and tyre kickers. People who want to pump you for free advice or haggle you down on price.

Your sales process sucks

Maybe you get lots of enquiries but just can’t convert them into sales. You do free calls, free meetings, lengthy proposals, and polite follow-ups. And…nothing. It knocks your confidence, and you start to doubt yourself. But that only makes things worse. You don’t feel confident selling yourself, so prospects don’t feel confident buying. You stop valuing yourself and your skills, so you take on crappy projects or discount your rates.

Your clients suck

If you aren’t getting enquiries or clients, or you stop believing you offer something of value, you make do with whatever you can get, even if it isn’t quite what you want. So you end up with clients who don’t value your expertise or respect your boundaries. You stop enjoying what you do. You end up in the feast-and-famine cycle. You feel like you have no control over your business.

Your pricing and money management suck

If your prices are too low, you have to fill your time with low-paid work, so you never have time to work on getting those higher-paying clients. And if you aren't managing your money, you'll never have that buffer that allows you to take time off.

Your time management and business systems suck

When you don't manage your time or have simple systems and processes in place, you can end up in a mess. Invoices get missed. Client work gets rushed. Marketing gets neglected. You forget to ask for reviews. You don't follow up on proposals. You have to cancel meetings because you overloaded yourself with work. Deadlines get missed. And you start to feel overwhelmed.

Your boundaries suck

Too many business owners let their clients dictate how they run their business, and they end up miserable. If you don't want to work evenings and weekends, then don't work evenings and weekends. If you don't want to wait 60 days for payment, insist on payment up front. If you don't want clients who expect you to be on call 24/7, don't take on clients who expect you to be on call 24/7. You have a choice.

Make a plan (and stick to it)

Once you've figured out where the biggest gaps are (whether it's marketing, sales, pricing, time management or a little bit of everything), you need to start fixing the problem.

I struggled with many of those things myself, and I managed to turn things around. I promise it's doable if you are willing to put in a little bit of work.

You don't have to fix it in one go. It can be gradual improvements over time. The important thing is moving things in the right direction.

If your pricing is too low, start with a 10% increase for new projects, then increase it again next month. If you're getting a lot of late payers, start charging a 50% deposit, then move to 100% up front. If your marketing is inconsistent, start with a small goal (for example, two posts per week on social media), then increase it. If you neglect your admin, block out time to work on it each week.

Don't be too hard on yourself if you have one or two slip-ups. It can take time to build new routines or break old habits.

Get help

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my early years was trying to do everything alone. I didn't want to ask for help, so I just kept muddling through.

I ended up miserable. My business was running me, and I didn't know how to fix things.

I worked with two mentors. The first helped me get things back on track, and the second helped me build the business I wanted. Since 2021, I've been helping other freelancers and one-person businesses get consistency and control over their business.

I'm not saying you should get help from me. But I am saying get help. You'll get where you want to be much sooner if you work with someone who knows how to help you get there.

If you do want to work with me, I recommend starting with one of my 90-minute sessions. I'll help you figure out where the biggest gaps are, and we'll put together a realistic and manageable action plan to get you moving in the right direction.

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