When I first set up my business it was just me. Despite being a grandly titled as a ‘solicitors practice’ the reality was that I was just a sole trader selling my time. The same as just about every other freelancer.
I was good at what I did. My clients liked me and I got them good results. So they told other people and after a couple of years I was working flat out. I employed a secretary to take some of the admin so that I had a bit more time to sell, but pretty quickly I hit the ceiling of what I could do.
Employing another solicitor was going to be costly. The salary for someone half decent was going to cost a big chunk of my turnover (and over half of my profit). So if I employed someone else I was basically going to be taking a 50% pay cut.
Also, the clients that I had didn’t want someone else. They wanted me. Nobody else could do what I could do, and if I did get someone else to do their work then they might get pissed off and find another solicitor.
Every solopreneur at some point faces this dilemma. Stay solo or take a gamble. And the gamble always involves a big loss of earnings.
Or so most people think.
The thing is, if you’ve got a sound business it’s surprising just how quickly the extra time gets filled with more work. And work that is chargeable.
Within 12 months my turnover almost doubled and the profit did. I had no loss of earnings at all. In fact, I earned a little more, and more still the following year as I maxed out two people’s time. And I was surprised that none of my clients actually cared about who did the work. They cared about the results, which actually improved because between my employee and I we had more time to focus on and tweak the way we handled things.
When one becomes two the return doesn’t halve. It doubles.
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