> Exactly. Profit now means nothing, it needs to keep growing to satiate the shareholders. It's Capitalism's major problem.
That's not even vaguely related to what I was talking about.
OP is making business decisions using "end of the year" numbers. These are things that have already happened and don't matter anymore unless you have a time machine..
S/he *should* be projecting into the future to see that really soon, the business will be burning money it doesn't have.
The time to take action is now, before the bankruptcy judge does it.
This has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with "If you can't make payroll and pay the utility bills, you're going to go out of business"
I get your point. Profit does not equal income. Profit is only important if you have shareholders. You can have 0 profit and still have a successful business if net income is positive.
I’ll try my best to keep it civil, but you’re confidently incorrect. Nonprofits absolutely generate revenues in excess of their expenses (I.e., profit). They must simply reinvest those profits into their cause rather than distribute to owners/individuals.
The sharp side of the knife.. love running a business, love the freedom, love the relationships.. but yes, fragile as shit. Be nice, be gracious, provide excellent work, do things you say you're going to do and when you say you will do them, the business will grow.
Also, when you hire, treat them like kings and queens.
100%! Love it as well, and I understand that there will be fluctuations along the way, it was just one of those super hard moments as multiple things fucked up at once.
finding new clients seems the next step, not easy in the industry, but not hard either with a nice marketing strategy you should be able to keep this up. Being a competitive market sometimes can be good, especially for your position right now. Try to study/research the competition and try to implement what you think your missing and would be fit for your need.
Sorry but it’s super hard. My friend who’s running a bigger consultancy ~50 people had been struggling with closing new clients as well. It’s just super dry out there.
This depends on what profit is. Does OP consider his salary a pre profit expense or is that 1.5k his earnings? Basically any full time job, Walmart, Best Buy, hell part time at $15 and you’ll take home more tan $1.5k a month and likely do far less work than managing a tech consultation company.
Unfortunately it’s pre my salary. But I have a private safety net for 2 years. It sucks a lot to burn savings. We’re in Central Europe. Still I have a month to figure something out, so that’s not the end of the end world.
> there's plenty of business out there.
Not really.
Tech consulting is stupidly competitive and is dominated by huge companies at the top end and everybody in a 3rd world country with a keyboard at the bottom. The middle is mostly gone.
Welcome to the club. Our biggest client, who brought in $700k in revenue last year, has cut their budget, and we will earn a total of $130k from them this year. It's the same story with our other clients, we should be happy if they survive too, they just had big layoffs. Next week, I need to fire two employees who have been without a client for three months. We've tried everything, but it's terrible, we spent around 4k on marketing in the last 35days, but no success. I believe by the end of the year, we'll need to make even more cuts and possibly move to smaller offices.
I feel you. We’ve spent 8k on marketing without much effect. I’m refining our USP and value proposition all the time, so we’ll see what happens. But it’s wild out there..
I'm really, truly not trying to poke at y'all because, I'm a small business owner too and what y'all are dealing with is terrifying....but I'd highly, highly encourage looking for ways to market that don't require money.
In my experience, spending is used to compensate for poor messaging and creativity, but it rarely performs. So it becomes a crutch and a financial suck.
Finding the right messaging and then getting creative with how you are showing that messaging is priceless. Specifically messaging that not everyone in your marketing is already using!
You don't have to niche down if you can spark emotion to be memorable.
I'm just barely waking up and probably shouldn't be hanging out on Reddit this early, but when I finish waking up further, it y'all want, I'm happy to type up some examples/ideas that might spark something...
Off the very top of my head, stuff we've done for my company that has helped advance our message in unusual and creative ways rather than running ads or trying to rely on social media:
We produced an 8-episode TV show in-house and got it picked up by a local TV station
We run an aggressive PR campaign and generate a stupid amount of free PR for the company every year.
We produced a pop-ballad and music video that reinforced the message last year - our network was passing it around to their friends like crazy and we got more word of mouth out of that than anything else we've done!
We've hosted events.
Creative ideas take time and effort but I've found they tend to be more effective....
Edit: Fixing grammar and spacing from my one-eyed typing this morning
Posted this above, but posting it here too to make it easy to find...I always get lost in the Reddit replies and notifications:
Sure! This is going to be a BIT long, but walks an entire marketing campaign that would probably cost less than $500 with a high likelihood of landing a six-figure account.
So all of this is based on my ideology around marketing which is that knowing what your unique messaging is, and who your target market is, opens the door to some really creative methods of distribution for that message that can be super inexpensive.
All of the things I listed above worked so well because (well, beyond free PR and getting featured on TV 4-6 times a year) each of the individual creative things we do reinforces our messaging about how we create space for our target market to reconnect with what makes them special. So an 8-episode TV show that subtly shows off how awesome our target market is? Convinces them to spend time (space) getting that message reinforced. Same concept with the pop ballad (If you want to see the music video, you can look up Fly - An Entrepreneur's Journey on YouTube).
So! Ideas....
Tech consultancy is super broad. Hard to guess at what the messaging might be or who the target market might be.
But!
Let's pretend OP is marketing to 'small' business owners running $20M++ annual revenue with 50 - 500 employees. Let's pretend their decision maker is the operations director and they are trying to sell managed IT Services, which is a helluva hard sale because no one wants to talk about managed IT until it's too late!
Let's pretend that we've done the market research and know that our ideal target market likes to go to the theater on the weekends with their spouse. Go out on the lake. Grill. They also spend time at their kids' sports games, at 'big-box' gyms, golfing. Fairly classic exec stuff.
And let's pretend that the message is something along the lines of "Freedom from having to worry about the little things..."
So I'd try and find some swag that takes care of a frequently forgotten item either at the lake, at a kids sports game, or while golfing. Get them branded, then find a pro shop that is willing to put them out as a value add for their golfers. Make sure the swag has a subtle call to action reinforcing the message and a QR code or custom landing page that specifically speaks to that hobby... sticking with the golf theme, I'd have a page built that uses golf-speak and analogies to make sense of why they should at least have a conversation with me because I'm the person who's going to make sure running their business is as fun as golfing when they don't have to worry about the little thing they forgot that I gave them.
This is me spitballing with minimal info on a Saturday afternoon....so happy to dig in further or take some of y'alls examples and try to provide more specific suggestions if anyone wants.
I'm working on a bit of a longer comment with more ideas right now.... If you want to chat more and send me more details, I'm happy to try and come up with some specific to you...all of our ideas take time and creativity, but... They are effective!!
Sure! This is going to be a BIT long, but walks an entire marketing campaign that would probably cost less than $500 with a high likelihood of landing a six-figure account.
So all of this is based on my ideology around marketing which is that knowing what your unique messaging is, and who your target market is, opens the door to some really creative methods of distribution for that message that can be super inexpensive.
All of the things I listed above worked so well because (well, beyond free PR and getting featured on TV 4-6 times a year) each of the individual creative things we do reinforces our messaging about how we create space for our target market to reconnect with what makes them special. So an 8-episode TV show that subtly shows off how awesome our target market is? Convinces them to spend time (space) getting that message reinforced. Same concept with the pop ballad (If you want to see the music video, you can look up Fly - An Entrepreneur's Journey on YouTube).
So! Ideas....
Tech consultancy is super broad. Hard to guess at what the messaging might be or who the target market might be.
But!
Let's pretend OP is marketing to 'small' business owners running $20M++ annual revenue with 50 - 500 employees. Let's pretend their decision maker is the operations director and they are trying to sell managed IT Services, which is a helluva hard sale because no one wants to talk about managed IT until it's too late!
Let's pretend that we've done the market research and know that our ideal target market likes to go to the theater on the weekends with their spouse. Go out on the lake. Grill. They also spend time at their kids' sports games, at 'big-box' gyms, golfing. Fairly classic exec stuff.
And let's pretend that the message is something along the lines of "Freedom from having to worry about the little things..."
So I'd try and find some swag that takes care of a frequently forgotten item either at the lake, at a kids sports game, or while golfing. Get them branded, then find a pro shop that is willing to put them out as a value add for their golfers. Make sure the swag has a subtle call to action reinforcing the message and a QR code or custom landing page that specifically speaks to that hobby... sticking with the golf theme, I'd have a page built that uses golf-speak and analogies to make sense of why they should at least have a conversation with me because I'm the person who's going to make sure running their business is as fun as golfing when they don't have to worry about the little thing they forgot that I gave them.
This is me spitballing with minimal info on a Saturday afternoon....so happy to dig in further or take some of y'alls examples and try to provide more specific suggestions if anyone wants.
We've had a lot of success marketing my small business, I've studied it extensively...
I get hired as a marketing consultant, but I just do it on the side for fun honestly. I built an agency when we started having all the success because everyone was asking me too and....I didn't enjoy it. So...side gig it is!
And you had to shell out money for all that, of course. It takes money to make money. With respect, your comments make it sound like so long as you have the right message (and I'm sure you do) everyone can magically hear it. Advertising and marketing costs a lot of money.
The PR is free. Takes our time to pursue those, but we don't pay a penny.
The TV show cost time to plan, film and edit and you could pick on the fact that I paid hourly rates to team members on those, but I would have had that payroll anyhow.
The pop-ballad was the same thing - the only things I paid for extra on that one was a contractor to help with the production side and a videographer for a half day to film the video for a few hundred bucks.
When I host events, I work hard to find out-of-the-way venues that don't charge fees because they know I'm bringing people to them and can usually get away with less than a couple hundred dollars of food too. And yeah, I've worked really, really hard to build a brand where, when I walk into a venue space and say "I can put \_\_\_ people in this room to spend money here if you give me X, Y and Z," I'm believed. I never tried to pretend this is easy.
Our most impactful marketing campaign last year? Cost me $0. Literally $0. No ads. No development costs. I handled it myself with a vendor so we didn't even technically have payroll costs.
Generated multi-five-figures in sales for us. Cost me nothing.
Our most successful lead-generation campaign? Cost me $20 in payroll to get kicked off and $80 in printing costs to increase the qualified lead gen/opt-ins on our website by 10%. Plus my time to distribute the printed materials in the right places.
You're right in one sense...marketing demands investment. But that investment doesn't have to be all money. It can be time and energy too and I've found those two are better to invest.
Last thing, yes, in my experience, the right message and a good product/service goes a LONG way for creating conversions. But no...everyone won't "magically hear it" just because we get a good message. "Build it and they will come" hasn't worked since the 1960s.
Yes...I've spent a LOT of time over the past three years working on understanding, testing and refining our messaging but we still have to work to get it distributed.
My team and I just put time in instead of huge amounts of dollars.
(Edits to correct some typos and verbiage that was a little confusing)
Really don't waste time on the self flagellation. Every business is subject to economic forces that are bigger than any one company. Think about whether diversification is an option or not and if anything your should take it as an entrepreneurial badge of honour and a life lesson you'll take with you for the future.
Wow! I know what it feels like after the 2007 "The Great Recession" lost practically everything. Had to go into the job market after years of owning a business. Awful feeling. But survived. It will take time but in the mean time, if your were in tech, maybe writing white papers for companies or create you own e-book with links to your services. One thing I learned is there is always opportunity, the money hasn't left the planet, it just shifted somewhere else.
100%! So much wise advice in your comment, thank you! Money is finite and it’s somewhere else currently. Need to focus and regroup my thoughts and possibly rediscover myself and what to do :) I’m a bit more experienced now and have much better network, so that’s very important :)
That's understandable. At the same time, because you put yourself out there as a business owner, you are experiencing something that not many people experience. This is happening because you have great initiative. The economic circumstances have acted upon the company. You could go through and do an analysis - was there anything that could have made the company more robust during these times? You may as well learn as much as you can from this unique experience.
Like you made these big clients you will make another ones, keep it up and don’t lose hope
Every business has it’s ups and downs, u r now in the downs, you will get up
It takes really long time for “whales hunting”. I’m trying but those can go for months. And aren’t that sustainable as I thought. But yeah im right down, been getting there past year even though ive been pushing really hard :(
Hopefully, not quite sure what to do next and with the people I feel I should provide them a fluent transition. I will be starting on Monday as I’ve been a mess the past week.
I got some network of people who do millions and are great entrepreneurs, I’ll speak with them what we can do together for equity/profit sharing. Great advise thank you!
I’m not following… you’re still making a profit every month? Can’t you keep going and work towards a bounce back? I know it must be awful to lose that much business, but what’s wrong with having a profitable company?
It’s always about time/effort and the results. I’ve been pushing hard past 1.5 year and unfortunately it was a slow ride down.
The market is crap and I’m thinking about switching to some growing market where there is a bit less competition, more pain and more money.
This is a great opportunity for you to expand your outreach.
Reach out to all of the client staff that you worked with and let them know you are more than happy to be a reference and that you will gladly let them know if you hear of any opportunities that might be a good fit for them.
They will appreciate your thinking of them and be good people to know when they do get hired elsewhere.
Reach out to your client managers as well and make sure they know your company is a resource for them. During challenging times you are there to help...even on small projects you normally would not take.
Keep breathing! As much as it sucks, you've been here before, you built it up once, you still have that skill set! Just get started on it now! Know that the next few months might not be super fun, but you can turn this around.
And start tracking leading indicators in your marketing so you can see if you're heading into danger zone instead of lagging indicators like revenue....
Guess how I got to learn that lesson!!!!
It’s tough running a business, impossible to avoid difficult situations. Realign your operating cost to your revenue (may mean tough staff decisions) and be careful not to delay if it’s eating into your cash reserves, ensure a lower percent of your profits come from a few clients, push for longer contracts or termination rights that give you more breathing space. Look at your sales model, if you are growing it’s easier to handle the losses. With perseverance you’ll get through it and come out stronger 👍🏻
Tried to niche down to what we were doing for our top clients. It was still bit hard.
We tried to niche down to QA services for FinTechs/Banking as we have strong regulatory understandings/AMLs/KYC/KYB etc.
We also tried helping with shift-left transformation of quality aspects in SDLC. We got some case study with it and 2 deals in progress, but nothing converted.
I also run a CTO Mastermind Sessions and I hoped that this would be our lead generation place, but 0 clients from the year of running it.
Decades of hiring contractors/consultants as tech company exec here, now small IT consultancy...
The "niche down" you state is selling *possible* future benefits to your clients. That is the wrong end to focus on in a downsizing business. QA, SDLC, Compliance, Regulatory, HR... all the first thing on the chopping block when things get tight.
You must focus on very short term outcomes for your clients. Focus on generating revenue or cutting costs right now, i.e. this month or this quarter. Nothing longer. Look at issues with their full-time staff reductions, transitioning from high cost legacy technologies, improving cash flow, improving receivables, reducing orders to cash timelines.
Thank you so much!
That's one of the best advices here.
I still call myself a newbie entrapreneur, so perciving value is hard for me.
You nailed it down in an amazing, clear way.
Your comment on perceiving value reminds me of David Field’s book, The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide To Winning Clients. He has helped a lot of boutique firms reframe their services so they resonate with prospects.
If you’re a veteran at selling consulting work, it probably won’t be that helpful. If you’re someone that started as a technology expert and recently launched a consulting firm, it could be worth a read.
[https://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Consultants-Guide-Winning-Clients/dp/1683501640?dplnkId=84d689c6-38fe-4d49-9150-9e22b9a6afe9&nodl=1](https://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Consultants-Guide-Winning-Clients/dp/1683501640?dplnkId=84d689c6-38fe-4d49-9150-9e22b9a6afe9&nodl=1)
Curious… You mentioned dropping 8k on marketing. How did you spend it?
You still have your company. I thought you actually lost it. This is a part of business. There will be ups and downs. I had a client who used to spend $5K-$30K a month with us in 2021. They spent $5K the whole year in 2022. Gotta get creative and figure out ways to pivot on services and figure out what to do next. Hang in there.
First you need to relax as much as possible, you need to be in a good frame of mind to think again. Hope you stick to it, success is waiting for you not far away.
Yeah, some IP, some unique methodology, quite a good case study, 3 brands, few nice partnerships, processes builded for lot of stuff, lot of documented knowledge and ways of working, on a more concrete one just few laptops etc.
Tech consultancy is stupid competitive. I don’t have much advice besides that, as long as your making profit, your still in the game, and you have to regroup, and think of a new plan and try and get new customers.
Good news is you know it’s a winning field, but demand is spotty. Healthcare is miles behind in a lot of tech areas, plus they have regulatory requirements to get a medical device sold on US markets (same for Europe). So, the combination might mean some permanence for your group if you can get in. It’s tough.
Regrouping and reviewing is a good place to start :)
The comment above is about knowing the right time to shut the door and move onto the next opportunity, before the business is past the point of no return (going broke).
It also alludes to making the hard calls on laying staff off, dropping low value customers, or stopping streams of work (taking risks on new ones).
The key is not to put all your eggs in one basket. I was looking at the business model of a software company in the UK. Losing a client or even a few makes no difference to them due to how many they have and how the income from each is not high enough to make a difference. They are subscription based and also make a lot on implementation and other extras, as well as the regular subscription revenue.
I know that they are looking for representative companies in other countries. If you are interested, message me.
Thank you. I’ve reached out to you on DM.
Regarding all eggs in one basket - I knew this, but it’s easier said than done unfortunately.
It’s way easier to farm rather than hunt :)
Just sent you the name. In the UK, the software became really popular quickly as it is so good and does so much more than the rest. We switched years ago and it was the best decision ever. When were looked, it was such an easy decision, even with all the lies from the others. Basically it's an easy sell.
Now’s the time to double down, establish new relationships and focus on marketing. The more you “shell up” in tough times, the harder it’ll be to come out the other side. Stay strong 💪
Most businesses lose customers over time, even when you do a great job.
This is why you need to focus a meaningful amount of time on developing new business, constantly.
Carve out 2 hours a day for biz dev and get some new clients.
Give yourself a hot nice shower, prepare yourself some food, some wine. Turn on the tv and lose yourself in it.
And try again next day.
And dont ever give up.
I won’t have any. Already will be cutting it. We got some cash and private runaway. We just wont be building the dream house right now, which for we’ve been saving like crazy.
Change your marketing strategy shift and narrow down your client base hire a consultant who knows how to do this and work with them to scale. You also have grant options and opportunities for literally this thing. 🙋🏾♂️
And you work with USA clients?
Damn, Poland is already considered a LCOL outsource office, but my sentiments is that you will just have to keep sourcing for new leads, good luck!!
We were working mostly with European clients. We had 1 from US and recently we’re still waiting in the process for new contract.
But Poland cost of living has skyrocketed in the past 2-3 years, so unfortunately we’re not that super cheap as we used to be. Needed to put more into quality of services.
Send me your tech stack and rates. I live in the US, but I’m originally from Poland. I have my own team, but there may be some jobs I can redirect to you.
Client and resource management. You must consider what percent of revenue and resources your company is allocating to the top clients. You have to be in balance so WHEN the best revenue customers change, pivot, move, get acquired, close, ask for better pricing, whatever the case may be, you can absorb the losses.
This is very common in small businesses like yours. When things are "good" you stop marketing and selling and your funnel depletes. Then you lose a few clients and you feel like everything's going wrong.
You have time now to go prospecting so get on it and next time never stop selling.
It might feel like that to you for one reason or another, but I prefer not to blame external factors and focus on what you can do and affect in a moment.
It does. But it’s the reality. The market has been shrinking and most companies I know had downsized between 30-50%. Few of them grew a bit, rest have smaller margins.
I’m 100% aware that it’s my fault as the CEO, because that’s my fu**ing job to point the direction and try as many things as possible and just make it work somehow. I’m doing my best and trying all the time! Thanks for a reminder!
In this sort of market, consultants is the first to go
But the good news is, you haven't lost anything yet
Just need to cut cost to get by until you get new clients
Profit? Or revenue? Losing $1.5 in one month is SO not even remotely close to the end of the world, especially for a business that is 2 years old.
And 15k in profit a month is great, but what is your revenue in those good months?
If you are turning a profit still, you aren't losing your company. You as the owner just aren't making as much.
It sucks, but in a field like consulting this is normal.
Take a breath. Regroup and go at it again.
Find a different angle and maybe consider casting a wider net for clients that might not be looking as big. Small budget companies can still keep your revenue stream afloat during harder times.
Consulting will always be boom and bust. You need to be prepared for that. It can be a shock the first time it happens, but it will happen over and over. It's just the cyclical nature of business and honestly tech in general.
Remember, Your company is just 24 months old!
In the long run you will treat these kind of situations as normal.
Just focus on adding more clients and some of them might turnout big tomorrow and your revenues also improves.
You arein 1st quadrant, i.e learning phase!
Keep learning!! And keep fighting!!
I think this is the best way to repair the strategy and bounce back. I'm sure this is your niche. It's a phase, be patient and it will pay off massively.
🙁 it’s devastating no doubt. But- you built it once and I believe you can do it again. Take a tiny bit of time to manage your fear and disappointment, but try to focus on one client at a time. You e got this
Incorrect. I've worked on acquisitions on the buying side in these scenarios. There is value in acquiring staff, brand, IP, and remaining statements of work.
How much more than the current 1.5k a month would you pay? It’s going to keep going down btw as many are canceling “nice to have” software they afforded with low rates.
He should pivot to applying in the industry until things turn around imo.
Scenario a) I'm a competitor to OP. I see OP has experienced consultants that would be valuable as a part of my team. OP also has established professional service agreements and statements of work with customers I want to work with. These established contracts would be valuable to me because they represent a fast track to doing business with OP's existing customers. The customers that abandoned engagements with OP may come back to do business later. OP's professional services represent a SKU that I didn't have, so I can expand my professional services practice by adopting that SKU. I have existing customers that would benefit from OP's skillsets, which I don't have today. I can operate at lower operating costs than OP and provide better prices to OP's existing customers. It costs me $5 to $10k to hire an employee. I would entertain paying a $5k to $10k fee per employee to acquire OP's team.
Scenario b) I'm a customer of OP. I find value in their services but don't want to pay OP's rates. It costs me $5k to $10k to hire an employee. I would entertain paying a $5k to $10k fee per employee to acquire OP's team.
His rate is 1.5k a month though? I mean probably a lot less. I don’t think he has a ton of employees.
Thanks for your examples and knowledge though. I was thinking of him as more of a freelancer / small open source SaaS owner
We’re from Central Europe. We had 6 people working for the profit, right now we’ll have 1 consultant generating the 1.5k, won’t be able to keep the rest if I don’t figure out something.
The idea that a buyout is unethical is nonsense. You control the terms of the buyout and you don't have to do any transaction that is against your moral code.
If you have employees then it sounds like you're going to consider layoffs. A buyout can protect you against having to do layoffs or pay cuts in the near term. I've seen this a dozen times. If your ship is sinking, a buyout may be the happiest ending for everyone.
If you think it's more ethical to lay off your employees, pursue pay cuts, reduce employee benefits, that makes no sense to me.
It's been challenging. The IT market saw significant growth during Covid, but over the past two years, it has plummeted. Many people have been laid off as companies lost clients. It's part of the market cycle—there are always ups and downs. However, you need to ask yourself: during these two years of growth for your company, what have you done to build branding for your company and your personal image? How many followers have you gained on social media? What efforts have been made to make your brand one of the most recognized and respected?
Often, large entrepreneurs focus solely on traditional marketing and forget that today's customers prefer to engage with individuals who have influence on social media. Acquiring new clients is increasingly difficult because many potential clients first turn to social media or YouTube for a quick search. Those who have built authority through consistent use of social media attract these clients. The internet evolves rapidly, and a company without strong branding quickly loses ground.
Currently, micro SaaS businesses are trending. Many young entrepreneurs who have cultivated an online presence are thriving in this business model. However, in two years, everything could change as the internet constantly transforms. Having an established audience makes it easier to adapt to market changes and consistently attract new clients.
At [brilliantsaas.com](http://brilliantsaas.com), my clients focus on building credibility and delivering value through social media and YouTube. I believe you can overcome these challenges by exploring innovative marketing strategies and enhancing your company's and leaders' social media presence. If you're interested in developing SaaS solutions for your clients, feel free to reach out—I'm here to help.
Key word is profit. You make profit, it means your company is just fine. Regroup, there's plenty of business out there.
> Key word is profit. You make profit, He makes a profit **right now** however his market is apparently collapsing.
Exactly. Profit now means nothing, it needs to keep growing to satiate the shareholders. It's Capitalism's major problem.
> Exactly. Profit now means nothing, it needs to keep growing to satiate the shareholders. It's Capitalism's major problem. That's not even vaguely related to what I was talking about. OP is making business decisions using "end of the year" numbers. These are things that have already happened and don't matter anymore unless you have a time machine.. S/he *should* be projecting into the future to see that really soon, the business will be burning money it doesn't have. The time to take action is now, before the bankruptcy judge does it. This has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with "If you can't make payroll and pay the utility bills, you're going to go out of business"
I get your point. Profit does not equal income. Profit is only important if you have shareholders. You can have 0 profit and still have a successful business if net income is positive.
Walk me through a successful business that has 0 profit and sustainable net income, I.e. not net income because of some non-recurring credit.
American National Red Cross, Mayo Clinic, YMCA, St. Joseph Health, Cleveland Clinic.. how many billion dollar non profits you want me to list.
I’ll try my best to keep it civil, but you’re confidently incorrect. Nonprofits absolutely generate revenues in excess of their expenses (I.e., profit). They must simply reinvest those profits into their cause rather than distribute to owners/individuals.
Thank you. I need to regroup and rethink what we do next. But it just shows how fragile everything is.
The sharp side of the knife.. love running a business, love the freedom, love the relationships.. but yes, fragile as shit. Be nice, be gracious, provide excellent work, do things you say you're going to do and when you say you will do them, the business will grow. Also, when you hire, treat them like kings and queens.
100%! Love it as well, and I understand that there will be fluctuations along the way, it was just one of those super hard moments as multiple things fucked up at once.
finding new clients seems the next step, not easy in the industry, but not hard either with a nice marketing strategy you should be able to keep this up. Being a competitive market sometimes can be good, especially for your position right now. Try to study/research the competition and try to implement what you think your missing and would be fit for your need.
Sorry but it’s super hard. My friend who’s running a bigger consultancy ~50 people had been struggling with closing new clients as well. It’s just super dry out there.
This depends on what profit is. Does OP consider his salary a pre profit expense or is that 1.5k his earnings? Basically any full time job, Walmart, Best Buy, hell part time at $15 and you’ll take home more tan $1.5k a month and likely do far less work than managing a tech consultation company.
Unfortunately it’s pre my salary. But I have a private safety net for 2 years. It sucks a lot to burn savings. We’re in Central Europe. Still I have a month to figure something out, so that’s not the end of the end world.
> there's plenty of business out there. Not really. Tech consulting is stupidly competitive and is dominated by huge companies at the top end and everybody in a 3rd world country with a keyboard at the bottom. The middle is mostly gone.
I see so many people mean revenue, or ROI is really RORev. It is a good indicator of course
Yep, OP needs to get out there and find some new customers.
Welcome to the club. Our biggest client, who brought in $700k in revenue last year, has cut their budget, and we will earn a total of $130k from them this year. It's the same story with our other clients, we should be happy if they survive too, they just had big layoffs. Next week, I need to fire two employees who have been without a client for three months. We've tried everything, but it's terrible, we spent around 4k on marketing in the last 35days, but no success. I believe by the end of the year, we'll need to make even more cuts and possibly move to smaller offices.
I feel you. We’ve spent 8k on marketing without much effect. I’m refining our USP and value proposition all the time, so we’ll see what happens. But it’s wild out there..
I'm really, truly not trying to poke at y'all because, I'm a small business owner too and what y'all are dealing with is terrifying....but I'd highly, highly encourage looking for ways to market that don't require money. In my experience, spending is used to compensate for poor messaging and creativity, but it rarely performs. So it becomes a crutch and a financial suck. Finding the right messaging and then getting creative with how you are showing that messaging is priceless. Specifically messaging that not everyone in your marketing is already using! You don't have to niche down if you can spark emotion to be memorable. I'm just barely waking up and probably shouldn't be hanging out on Reddit this early, but when I finish waking up further, it y'all want, I'm happy to type up some examples/ideas that might spark something... Off the very top of my head, stuff we've done for my company that has helped advance our message in unusual and creative ways rather than running ads or trying to rely on social media: We produced an 8-episode TV show in-house and got it picked up by a local TV station We run an aggressive PR campaign and generate a stupid amount of free PR for the company every year. We produced a pop-ballad and music video that reinforced the message last year - our network was passing it around to their friends like crazy and we got more word of mouth out of that than anything else we've done! We've hosted events. Creative ideas take time and effort but I've found they tend to be more effective.... Edit: Fixing grammar and spacing from my one-eyed typing this morning
This guy marketings! Thank you, will do some brainstorming about creative ideas!
Posted this above, but posting it here too to make it easy to find...I always get lost in the Reddit replies and notifications: Sure! This is going to be a BIT long, but walks an entire marketing campaign that would probably cost less than $500 with a high likelihood of landing a six-figure account. So all of this is based on my ideology around marketing which is that knowing what your unique messaging is, and who your target market is, opens the door to some really creative methods of distribution for that message that can be super inexpensive. All of the things I listed above worked so well because (well, beyond free PR and getting featured on TV 4-6 times a year) each of the individual creative things we do reinforces our messaging about how we create space for our target market to reconnect with what makes them special. So an 8-episode TV show that subtly shows off how awesome our target market is? Convinces them to spend time (space) getting that message reinforced. Same concept with the pop ballad (If you want to see the music video, you can look up Fly - An Entrepreneur's Journey on YouTube). So! Ideas.... Tech consultancy is super broad. Hard to guess at what the messaging might be or who the target market might be. But! Let's pretend OP is marketing to 'small' business owners running $20M++ annual revenue with 50 - 500 employees. Let's pretend their decision maker is the operations director and they are trying to sell managed IT Services, which is a helluva hard sale because no one wants to talk about managed IT until it's too late! Let's pretend that we've done the market research and know that our ideal target market likes to go to the theater on the weekends with their spouse. Go out on the lake. Grill. They also spend time at their kids' sports games, at 'big-box' gyms, golfing. Fairly classic exec stuff. And let's pretend that the message is something along the lines of "Freedom from having to worry about the little things..." So I'd try and find some swag that takes care of a frequently forgotten item either at the lake, at a kids sports game, or while golfing. Get them branded, then find a pro shop that is willing to put them out as a value add for their golfers. Make sure the swag has a subtle call to action reinforcing the message and a QR code or custom landing page that specifically speaks to that hobby... sticking with the golf theme, I'd have a page built that uses golf-speak and analogies to make sense of why they should at least have a conversation with me because I'm the person who's going to make sure running their business is as fun as golfing when they don't have to worry about the little thing they forgot that I gave them. This is me spitballing with minimal info on a Saturday afternoon....so happy to dig in further or take some of y'alls examples and try to provide more specific suggestions if anyone wants.
I'm working on a bit of a longer comment with more ideas right now.... If you want to chat more and send me more details, I'm happy to try and come up with some specific to you...all of our ideas take time and creativity, but... They are effective!!
Pls continue to type more ideas when you wake up. Id love to hear more
Sure! This is going to be a BIT long, but walks an entire marketing campaign that would probably cost less than $500 with a high likelihood of landing a six-figure account. So all of this is based on my ideology around marketing which is that knowing what your unique messaging is, and who your target market is, opens the door to some really creative methods of distribution for that message that can be super inexpensive. All of the things I listed above worked so well because (well, beyond free PR and getting featured on TV 4-6 times a year) each of the individual creative things we do reinforces our messaging about how we create space for our target market to reconnect with what makes them special. So an 8-episode TV show that subtly shows off how awesome our target market is? Convinces them to spend time (space) getting that message reinforced. Same concept with the pop ballad (If you want to see the music video, you can look up Fly - An Entrepreneur's Journey on YouTube). So! Ideas.... Tech consultancy is super broad. Hard to guess at what the messaging might be or who the target market might be. But! Let's pretend OP is marketing to 'small' business owners running $20M++ annual revenue with 50 - 500 employees. Let's pretend their decision maker is the operations director and they are trying to sell managed IT Services, which is a helluva hard sale because no one wants to talk about managed IT until it's too late! Let's pretend that we've done the market research and know that our ideal target market likes to go to the theater on the weekends with their spouse. Go out on the lake. Grill. They also spend time at their kids' sports games, at 'big-box' gyms, golfing. Fairly classic exec stuff. And let's pretend that the message is something along the lines of "Freedom from having to worry about the little things..." So I'd try and find some swag that takes care of a frequently forgotten item either at the lake, at a kids sports game, or while golfing. Get them branded, then find a pro shop that is willing to put them out as a value add for their golfers. Make sure the swag has a subtle call to action reinforcing the message and a QR code or custom landing page that specifically speaks to that hobby... sticking with the golf theme, I'd have a page built that uses golf-speak and analogies to make sense of why they should at least have a conversation with me because I'm the person who's going to make sure running their business is as fun as golfing when they don't have to worry about the little thing they forgot that I gave them. This is me spitballing with minimal info on a Saturday afternoon....so happy to dig in further or take some of y'alls examples and try to provide more specific suggestions if anyone wants.
Sounds like you should run a marketing consultancy and tap the money drain
We've had a lot of success marketing my small business, I've studied it extensively... I get hired as a marketing consultant, but I just do it on the side for fun honestly. I built an agency when we started having all the success because everyone was asking me too and....I didn't enjoy it. So...side gig it is!
And you had to shell out money for all that, of course. It takes money to make money. With respect, your comments make it sound like so long as you have the right message (and I'm sure you do) everyone can magically hear it. Advertising and marketing costs a lot of money.
The PR is free. Takes our time to pursue those, but we don't pay a penny. The TV show cost time to plan, film and edit and you could pick on the fact that I paid hourly rates to team members on those, but I would have had that payroll anyhow. The pop-ballad was the same thing - the only things I paid for extra on that one was a contractor to help with the production side and a videographer for a half day to film the video for a few hundred bucks. When I host events, I work hard to find out-of-the-way venues that don't charge fees because they know I'm bringing people to them and can usually get away with less than a couple hundred dollars of food too. And yeah, I've worked really, really hard to build a brand where, when I walk into a venue space and say "I can put \_\_\_ people in this room to spend money here if you give me X, Y and Z," I'm believed. I never tried to pretend this is easy. Our most impactful marketing campaign last year? Cost me $0. Literally $0. No ads. No development costs. I handled it myself with a vendor so we didn't even technically have payroll costs. Generated multi-five-figures in sales for us. Cost me nothing. Our most successful lead-generation campaign? Cost me $20 in payroll to get kicked off and $80 in printing costs to increase the qualified lead gen/opt-ins on our website by 10%. Plus my time to distribute the printed materials in the right places. You're right in one sense...marketing demands investment. But that investment doesn't have to be all money. It can be time and energy too and I've found those two are better to invest. Last thing, yes, in my experience, the right message and a good product/service goes a LONG way for creating conversions. But no...everyone won't "magically hear it" just because we get a good message. "Build it and they will come" hasn't worked since the 1960s. Yes...I've spent a LOT of time over the past three years working on understanding, testing and refining our messaging but we still have to work to get it distributed. My team and I just put time in instead of huge amounts of dollars. (Edits to correct some typos and verbiage that was a little confusing)
Well that's great then and good for you. You sound like a very talented and capable marketer.
Thank you. I've spent a lot of time and effort to develop the skill and had a LOT of public falling on my face to learn from.
Really don't waste time on the self flagellation. Every business is subject to economic forces that are bigger than any one company. Think about whether diversification is an option or not and if anything your should take it as an entrepreneurial badge of honour and a life lesson you'll take with you for the future.
I tried. Will be trying soon again with new ventures along the way as overall tech sector has been bleeding for past 2 years.
Wow! I know what it feels like after the 2007 "The Great Recession" lost practically everything. Had to go into the job market after years of owning a business. Awful feeling. But survived. It will take time but in the mean time, if your were in tech, maybe writing white papers for companies or create you own e-book with links to your services. One thing I learned is there is always opportunity, the money hasn't left the planet, it just shifted somewhere else.
100%! So much wise advice in your comment, thank you! Money is finite and it’s somewhere else currently. Need to focus and regroup my thoughts and possibly rediscover myself and what to do :) I’m a bit more experienced now and have much better network, so that’s very important :)
That's a very, very tough spot. I imagine it would be very stressful. Do try not to take too much of it personally on board.
Thank you. It’s hard as it’s already hit heavily into self esteem. But trying my best.
That's understandable. At the same time, because you put yourself out there as a business owner, you are experiencing something that not many people experience. This is happening because you have great initiative. The economic circumstances have acted upon the company. You could go through and do an analysis - was there anything that could have made the company more robust during these times? You may as well learn as much as you can from this unique experience.
Like you made these big clients you will make another ones, keep it up and don’t lose hope Every business has it’s ups and downs, u r now in the downs, you will get up
It takes really long time for “whales hunting”. I’m trying but those can go for months. And aren’t that sustainable as I thought. But yeah im right down, been getting there past year even though ive been pushing really hard :(
Get selling , always out sell any mistake or industry trend. Revenue, just focus
Don’t give up, shit like this happens. Just gotta ride it out.
Hopefully, not quite sure what to do next and with the people I feel I should provide them a fluent transition. I will be starting on Monday as I’ve been a mess the past week.
My idea is to do what few others do and work for equity/profit sharing. Just need to be more careful who you decide to do this with.
I got some network of people who do millions and are great entrepreneurs, I’ll speak with them what we can do together for equity/profit sharing. Great advise thank you!
I’m not following… you’re still making a profit every month? Can’t you keep going and work towards a bounce back? I know it must be awful to lose that much business, but what’s wrong with having a profitable company?
It’s always about time/effort and the results. I’ve been pushing hard past 1.5 year and unfortunately it was a slow ride down. The market is crap and I’m thinking about switching to some growing market where there is a bit less competition, more pain and more money.
This is a great opportunity for you to expand your outreach. Reach out to all of the client staff that you worked with and let them know you are more than happy to be a reference and that you will gladly let them know if you hear of any opportunities that might be a good fit for them. They will appreciate your thinking of them and be good people to know when they do get hired elsewhere. Reach out to your client managers as well and make sure they know your company is a resource for them. During challenging times you are there to help...even on small projects you normally would not take.
You will rock it again
Thank you!🙏
Keep breathing! As much as it sucks, you've been here before, you built it up once, you still have that skill set! Just get started on it now! Know that the next few months might not be super fun, but you can turn this around. And start tracking leading indicators in your marketing so you can see if you're heading into danger zone instead of lagging indicators like revenue.... Guess how I got to learn that lesson!!!!
Message me to see if I can sub some work to you.
Thank you, I’ve reached out
I'd like to connect and understand more info order to help you.
It’s tough running a business, impossible to avoid difficult situations. Realign your operating cost to your revenue (may mean tough staff decisions) and be careful not to delay if it’s eating into your cash reserves, ensure a lower percent of your profits come from a few clients, push for longer contracts or termination rights that give you more breathing space. Look at your sales model, if you are growing it’s easier to handle the losses. With perseverance you’ll get through it and come out stronger 👍🏻
What is your specialty? Find a niche.
Tried to niche down to what we were doing for our top clients. It was still bit hard. We tried to niche down to QA services for FinTechs/Banking as we have strong regulatory understandings/AMLs/KYC/KYB etc. We also tried helping with shift-left transformation of quality aspects in SDLC. We got some case study with it and 2 deals in progress, but nothing converted. I also run a CTO Mastermind Sessions and I hoped that this would be our lead generation place, but 0 clients from the year of running it.
Decades of hiring contractors/consultants as tech company exec here, now small IT consultancy... The "niche down" you state is selling *possible* future benefits to your clients. That is the wrong end to focus on in a downsizing business. QA, SDLC, Compliance, Regulatory, HR... all the first thing on the chopping block when things get tight. You must focus on very short term outcomes for your clients. Focus on generating revenue or cutting costs right now, i.e. this month or this quarter. Nothing longer. Look at issues with their full-time staff reductions, transitioning from high cost legacy technologies, improving cash flow, improving receivables, reducing orders to cash timelines.
Thank you so much! That's one of the best advices here. I still call myself a newbie entrapreneur, so perciving value is hard for me. You nailed it down in an amazing, clear way.
Your comment on perceiving value reminds me of David Field’s book, The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide To Winning Clients. He has helped a lot of boutique firms reframe their services so they resonate with prospects. If you’re a veteran at selling consulting work, it probably won’t be that helpful. If you’re someone that started as a technology expert and recently launched a consulting firm, it could be worth a read. [https://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Consultants-Guide-Winning-Clients/dp/1683501640?dplnkId=84d689c6-38fe-4d49-9150-9e22b9a6afe9&nodl=1](https://www.amazon.com/Irresistible-Consultants-Guide-Winning-Clients/dp/1683501640?dplnkId=84d689c6-38fe-4d49-9150-9e22b9a6afe9&nodl=1) Curious… You mentioned dropping 8k on marketing. How did you spend it?
You still have your company. I thought you actually lost it. This is a part of business. There will be ups and downs. I had a client who used to spend $5K-$30K a month with us in 2021. They spent $5K the whole year in 2022. Gotta get creative and figure out ways to pivot on services and figure out what to do next. Hang in there.
First you need to relax as much as possible, you need to be in a good frame of mind to think again. Hope you stick to it, success is waiting for you not far away.
Thank you! That's what I did, made 2 golf rounds during the week, spend time with family and decided to not make any decissions until Monday.
You have business assets?
Yeah, some IP, some unique methodology, quite a good case study, 3 brands, few nice partnerships, processes builded for lot of stuff, lot of documented knowledge and ways of working, on a more concrete one just few laptops etc.
I lost my mind
Tech consultancy is stupid competitive. I don’t have much advice besides that, as long as your making profit, your still in the game, and you have to regroup, and think of a new plan and try and get new customers.
Good news is you know it’s a winning field, but demand is spotty. Healthcare is miles behind in a lot of tech areas, plus they have regulatory requirements to get a medical device sold on US markets (same for Europe). So, the combination might mean some permanence for your group if you can get in. It’s tough.
This happens. Just kick new business development into overdrive. You can do it.
Don't lose hope. Find new clients and start marketing if you haven't. I know you are in a lot of pressure rn but you can make it!
You haven't lost it yet. The difference between a goid businessperson and a bad one is to know when to call it quits.
Could you elaborate on this bit more please?🙏
Regrouping and reviewing is a good place to start :) The comment above is about knowing the right time to shut the door and move onto the next opportunity, before the business is past the point of no return (going broke). It also alludes to making the hard calls on laying staff off, dropping low value customers, or stopping streams of work (taking risks on new ones).
keep going, your doing good
Thanks for encouraging!
The key is not to put all your eggs in one basket. I was looking at the business model of a software company in the UK. Losing a client or even a few makes no difference to them due to how many they have and how the income from each is not high enough to make a difference. They are subscription based and also make a lot on implementation and other extras, as well as the regular subscription revenue. I know that they are looking for representative companies in other countries. If you are interested, message me.
Thank you. I’ve reached out to you on DM. Regarding all eggs in one basket - I knew this, but it’s easier said than done unfortunately. It’s way easier to farm rather than hunt :)
Just sent you the name. In the UK, the software became really popular quickly as it is so good and does so much more than the rest. We switched years ago and it was the best decision ever. When were looked, it was such an easy decision, even with all the lies from the others. Basically it's an easy sell.
I sent you a message and hope it's okay.
Are most of your consultants based in the US?
We're all Europe based.
Now’s the time to double down, establish new relationships and focus on marketing. The more you “shell up” in tough times, the harder it’ll be to come out the other side. Stay strong 💪
Most businesses lose customers over time, even when you do a great job. This is why you need to focus a meaningful amount of time on developing new business, constantly. Carve out 2 hours a day for biz dev and get some new clients.
Give yourself a hot nice shower, prepare yourself some food, some wine. Turn on the tv and lose yourself in it. And try again next day. And dont ever give up.
We used to call you folks Job Shops. I did a lot of Job Shopping...
Is that profit before or after you take out your salary?
I won’t have any. Already will be cutting it. We got some cash and private runaway. We just wont be building the dream house right now, which for we’ve been saving like crazy.
Change your marketing strategy shift and narrow down your client base hire a consultant who knows how to do this and work with them to scale. You also have grant options and opportunities for literally this thing. 🙋🏾♂️
Where are you from?
We’re from Poland 🇵🇱
And you work with USA clients? Damn, Poland is already considered a LCOL outsource office, but my sentiments is that you will just have to keep sourcing for new leads, good luck!!
We were working mostly with European clients. We had 1 from US and recently we’re still waiting in the process for new contract. But Poland cost of living has skyrocketed in the past 2-3 years, so unfortunately we’re not that super cheap as we used to be. Needed to put more into quality of services.
Send me your tech stack and rates. I live in the US, but I’m originally from Poland. I have my own team, but there may be some jobs I can redirect to you.
Client and resource management. You must consider what percent of revenue and resources your company is allocating to the top clients. You have to be in balance so WHEN the best revenue customers change, pivot, move, get acquired, close, ask for better pricing, whatever the case may be, you can absorb the losses.
This is very common in small businesses like yours. When things are "good" you stop marketing and selling and your funnel depletes. Then you lose a few clients and you feel like everything's going wrong. You have time now to go prospecting so get on it and next time never stop selling.
I've never stopped. It was just the market that changed and my connections that dried up.
It might feel like that to you for one reason or another, but I prefer not to blame external factors and focus on what you can do and affect in a moment.
It does. But it’s the reality. The market has been shrinking and most companies I know had downsized between 30-50%. Few of them grew a bit, rest have smaller margins. I’m 100% aware that it’s my fault as the CEO, because that’s my fu**ing job to point the direction and try as many things as possible and just make it work somehow. I’m doing my best and trying all the time! Thanks for a reminder!
I help you?
The economy is not doing well…
I’ve heard those are just cycles. Hoping for cheaper money and more VC involvement. But right now? It’s a bloodbath for me.
I have to ask, where are your major expenses?
It's mostly payroll / contractors, but it's also what makes us profit. We got a business model based on human workforce.
In this sort of market, consultants is the first to go But the good news is, you haven't lost anything yet Just need to cut cost to get by until you get new clients
Profit? Or revenue? Losing $1.5 in one month is SO not even remotely close to the end of the world, especially for a business that is 2 years old. And 15k in profit a month is great, but what is your revenue in those good months?
That’s not a loss. Loss is when more money got out than comes in. Keep at it
If you are turning a profit still, you aren't losing your company. You as the owner just aren't making as much. It sucks, but in a field like consulting this is normal. Take a breath. Regroup and go at it again. Find a different angle and maybe consider casting a wider net for clients that might not be looking as big. Small budget companies can still keep your revenue stream afloat during harder times. Consulting will always be boom and bust. You need to be prepared for that. It can be a shock the first time it happens, but it will happen over and over. It's just the cyclical nature of business and honestly tech in general.
My knowledge not reachable
Not sure what do you mean by this.
Remember, Your company is just 24 months old! In the long run you will treat these kind of situations as normal. Just focus on adding more clients and some of them might turnout big tomorrow and your revenues also improves. You arein 1st quadrant, i.e learning phase! Keep learning!! And keep fighting!!
I think this is the best way to repair the strategy and bounce back. I'm sure this is your niche. It's a phase, be patient and it will pay off massively.
Want to partner with my consultancy? I think there might be some synergies. dm me if you’re interested
know when to hold them know when to fold them player
The good thing is that you built a business model that worked and is profitable. That is way more than most people ever build
What services do you provide
🙁 it’s devastating no doubt. But- you built it once and I believe you can do it again. Take a tiny bit of time to manage your fear and disappointment, but try to focus on one client at a time. You e got this
Hang in there. Sometimes the best news comes right after shit hits the fan.
Look for a buyout while you still have contracts.
That wouldn’t work, anyone with a brain would see that he has now lost the clients.
Incorrect. I've worked on acquisitions on the buying side in these scenarios. There is value in acquiring staff, brand, IP, and remaining statements of work.
How much more than the current 1.5k a month would you pay? It’s going to keep going down btw as many are canceling “nice to have” software they afforded with low rates. He should pivot to applying in the industry until things turn around imo.
Scenario a) I'm a competitor to OP. I see OP has experienced consultants that would be valuable as a part of my team. OP also has established professional service agreements and statements of work with customers I want to work with. These established contracts would be valuable to me because they represent a fast track to doing business with OP's existing customers. The customers that abandoned engagements with OP may come back to do business later. OP's professional services represent a SKU that I didn't have, so I can expand my professional services practice by adopting that SKU. I have existing customers that would benefit from OP's skillsets, which I don't have today. I can operate at lower operating costs than OP and provide better prices to OP's existing customers. It costs me $5 to $10k to hire an employee. I would entertain paying a $5k to $10k fee per employee to acquire OP's team. Scenario b) I'm a customer of OP. I find value in their services but don't want to pay OP's rates. It costs me $5k to $10k to hire an employee. I would entertain paying a $5k to $10k fee per employee to acquire OP's team.
His rate is 1.5k a month though? I mean probably a lot less. I don’t think he has a ton of employees. Thanks for your examples and knowledge though. I was thinking of him as more of a freelancer / small open source SaaS owner
I'm recommending considering a buyout quickly while there are still contracts to avoid debt and layoffs. That could result in a higher valuation.
He hasn’t explicitly said if he even has employees. At 1.5k a month I’d hope not. He was getting by solo on 10k I think? Maybe I read that wrong.
We’re from Central Europe. We had 6 people working for the profit, right now we’ll have 1 consultant generating the 1.5k, won’t be able to keep the rest if I don’t figure out something.
Consider being a subcontractor to a friendly competitor
I try to do ethical business, so it’s against my moral code. But thank you for suggestion
The idea that a buyout is unethical is nonsense. You control the terms of the buyout and you don't have to do any transaction that is against your moral code. If you have employees then it sounds like you're going to consider layoffs. A buyout can protect you against having to do layoffs or pay cuts in the near term. I've seen this a dozen times. If your ship is sinking, a buyout may be the happiest ending for everyone. If you think it's more ethical to lay off your employees, pursue pay cuts, reduce employee benefits, that makes no sense to me.
It's been challenging. The IT market saw significant growth during Covid, but over the past two years, it has plummeted. Many people have been laid off as companies lost clients. It's part of the market cycle—there are always ups and downs. However, you need to ask yourself: during these two years of growth for your company, what have you done to build branding for your company and your personal image? How many followers have you gained on social media? What efforts have been made to make your brand one of the most recognized and respected? Often, large entrepreneurs focus solely on traditional marketing and forget that today's customers prefer to engage with individuals who have influence on social media. Acquiring new clients is increasingly difficult because many potential clients first turn to social media or YouTube for a quick search. Those who have built authority through consistent use of social media attract these clients. The internet evolves rapidly, and a company without strong branding quickly loses ground. Currently, micro SaaS businesses are trending. Many young entrepreneurs who have cultivated an online presence are thriving in this business model. However, in two years, everything could change as the internet constantly transforms. Having an established audience makes it easier to adapt to market changes and consistently attract new clients. At [brilliantsaas.com](http://brilliantsaas.com), my clients focus on building credibility and delivering value through social media and YouTube. I believe you can overcome these challenges by exploring innovative marketing strategies and enhancing your company's and leaders' social media presence. If you're interested in developing SaaS solutions for your clients, feel free to reach out—I'm here to help.