Big Deal Energy

Growth vs. Scale: Designing a Business That Gives You Freedom

• Laura Khalil

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In this episode of Big Deal Energy, host Laura Khalil kicks off the new year with a powerful discussion about the difference between growing and scaling a consulting business—and why it matters.

Laura shares practical insights to help you:
 • Understand the key differences between growth and scale.
 • Identify the common income ceiling most consultants face and how to break through it.
 • Build a business model that prioritizes profitability and freedom over unnecessary complexity.

Whether you’re aiming for consistent $10K, $20K, or $30K months, or just trying to figure out your next steps, this episode will help you design a roadmap for success in 2025.

Plus, Laura invites you to her upcoming Revenue Roadmap Workshop (January 21, 2025), where she’ll help you:
 • Discover your freedom number.
 • Decide whether to grow or scale your business.
 • Map out the key steps to hit your revenue goals without burnout.

Register here: https://laura-khalil.com/revenue-roadmap/

If you’re ready to stop winging it and start building a business that works for you, this episode is for you!

Don’t miss this timely conversation. Hit play now, and let’s make 2025 your most profitable year yet!

🎧 Subscribe and share with fellow consultants and freelancers ready to scale smarter, not harder.


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Solo service providers can be just as profitable as million dollar businesses. You don't need more staff, more products, or a bigger audience. Join 1000+ email subscribers who are learning how to sign bigger contracts every week --> https://laurakhalil.ck.page/



Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Big Deal Energy. I am your host, laura Kalil, and we are recording this in January 2025. So if you are listening, then, happy new year. I hope you had a great break. I spent a couple of weeks off of work, which was amazing. I always get my best ideas, actually, when I'm not in the weeds of work.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if you're similar to that, but there's a question on everyone's mind and it's the topic we're going to focus on today which is how do I grow my business in 2025? What am I doing? And this is super timely at the start of the year. It's just one of those things that's in the zeitgeist, but you can come to this episode at any point in the year and listen to this, or re-listen to this, because I want to really help you understand today the difference between growing a consulting business and scaling a consulting business, because they really aren't the same, and we often will use these words growing, scaling interchangeably without understanding the implications of them, and so we're going to talk about what does it really mean? And if you are someone who is interested in bringing in more consistent revenue, having a fuller pipeline of leads to come in and you want to see those, be it 10K, 20k, 30k, 40k months in your business. I'm going to give you an opportunity to join me for a workshop. I'll talk about that later. It's also in the show notes. It's on this topic.

Speaker 1:

So what is growing and what is scaling? So here's the most common thing. When I talk to prospects, they will typically say to me Laura, I have clients, I'm so busy I don't see how I can possibly grow this business anymore, given that I have no more time to even find clients. I'm working all the time and it can be like a point of real frustration. Statistics that the average consultant can, their revenue can top out around about $115,000 a year, and that is where we typically see the exchange of time for money begin to break down, meaning we run out of time to exchange for more money. And so now the consultant or service provider has kind of a path that they can choose, right. So the path you can choose is you can grow or you can scale. And let me talk about the differences there.

Speaker 1:

A growing consultant may say I need to bring on more staff to take on some of this work. I need to expand my service offerings. I'm going to keep pricing the way that I'm pricing and ultimately, what they'll be doing is they'll be adding more complexity into the business process in order to grow the business. They're going to grow revenue, but they're also going to grow their costs as well and their expenses. That is growing a business.

Speaker 1:

Now, what is scaling a business? Scaling a business is working smarter, not harder. So it is saying I want to take what I do for clients and what I know I do really really well for clients, for clients, and what I know I do really really well for clients, and I want to look at the data and pieces of information in here and glean and put together a productized service that I can sell. Might have one, two, three productized services you can sell. So instead of recreating the wheel, instead of every time writing custom proposals, figuring out custom pricing, doing lots and lots of reps of sort of like mental gymnastics, we have it figured out and so then we sell that productized service to the client. When you have a productized service, your business can actually scale without necessarily needing more staff. Now there are times when you may need to do a little bit of growing. There are times when you may need to bring on a VA, you may need to bring on an assistant. Certainly, that is very normal, that's not weird. But if you want to run a highly profitable consulting business or service-based business that scales, productizing your services so that you can serve many people and you can learn how to serve them better, because you are repeating the same processes over and over and optimizing as you go so that the job gets easier, you get it done faster. You get more testimonials as a result of the great work you're doing. You get it done faster. You get more testimonials as a result of the great work you're doing. You are then able to raise your rates even further and build a business that doesn't run your life but gives you back your time to do the things you really love.

Speaker 1:

Most people I know do not get into business to work themselves into the ground. I mean, I think that's pretty fair. Most people I know get into business because they don't want to be chained to a desk, they don't want to feel like they have, you know, to report to a boss about. You know, can I go to a doctor's appointment, can I go to my brother-in-law's wedding or sister's wedding or whatever the hell? They want the freedom. They want the freedom to take off when they want to take off for the vacations to go to the kids. You know school recitals without feeling bad. You know people want more freedom and so really thinking about am I actually working towards building a business that can scale is a great question to begin to ask yourself. For example, one of my clients inside the Elevate Mastermind we helped her triple her rates, she increased her revenue by 245% and she reduced her client load by 61%. So she's earning more through productizing her service and by charging appropriately for it, while working less. Now that's not growth, that's scaling.

Speaker 1:

So, as you're thinking about your goals for this year, let me ask you what do you really want? And I want to give you three questions to help you figure it out. First question is like what is your real number? Now, I'm talking about the amount of money it is actually going to take to fund your dream life, all the fun stuff you want to do savings, retirement, someday goals. You know, maybe you have kids college retirements or kids college retirements, right? Kids college tuition. You want to pay for whatever it may be. That's the first question what is your real number? I call that your freedom number Okay. The next thing is do you actually need to grow bigger or do you just need to become more profitable?

Speaker 1:

Most consultants and service-based businesses can live an amazing life between $200,000 and $500,000 running a business that works very smoothly and runs like a well-oiled machine. And the third question I want to ask you is are you actually willing to change how you work? And the third question I want to ask you is are you actually willing to change how you work? Because scaling is going to require shifting away from hourly and actually embracing some value-based pricing. So I'll give you an example of this from my own life, because I've done this exercise for myself. When I look at how I want to live and what I want to make and what I want to take home from my business, my freedom number is around $175,000 a year. That pays for my mortgage, my investments, my vacations, my retirement all that's included. So for me that's about a $300,000 business with really strong margins and also money I can keep invested in the business. So that is a lot of people.

Speaker 1:

And I'm bringing this up because you're going to meet so many people on the Internet. You're going to hear so many things on the Internet about running a million dollar business which I say in quotes to a million dollars, does not necessarily mean you will be more profitable than a consultant who has scaled to two or three hundred thousand dollars a year. The take-home pay of a business that has grown to a million dollars the owner take-home can be anywhere from zero to, I don't know, two or 300,000. It really depends. My point is a lot of people think once I grow a million dollar business, then you know I'll have all my dreams met, but you're not thinking about all of the costs associated with getting to that point. So I am a big fan of scaling a consulting business through productized service, through value based pricing.

Speaker 1:

Now, if any of this is resonating with you and you're like, oh my God, like, what is my freedom number?

Speaker 1:

How do I figure this out?

Speaker 1:

How do I actually make this real?

Speaker 1:

I want to invite you to my Revenue Roadmap Workshop.

Speaker 1:

It is coming up January 21st 2025.

Speaker 1:

We are actually going to work together to answer these questions, starting with one of the most important, which is what do you actually want to make and how big does your business need to be to hit that number?

Speaker 1:

I'm going to help you figure that out. You're going to walk away with clarity on whether you're building to grow or scale, a breakdown of your ideal revenue number and what it means for your business, and I'm even going to give you a roadmap to hit your goals without unnecessary stress or complicated spreadsheets. Most importantly, you will leave knowing exactly what steps you need to take in Q1 to set yourself up for a more profitable and intentional year. So if you are tired of winging it, if you're tired of throwing random numbers on a vision board and they don't come true, then this is definitely for you. I'm going to put all of the details for this in the show notes because I really want to help you make 2025 the year when your business finally gives you the life you have been working towards. So thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.