What Happened When We Stopped Saying Yes
In the early years of building our engineering and built environment consultancy from $3M to $30M, we said yes to everything.
Every client.
Every opportunity.
Every “quick favour.”
It worked… at first.
That approach helped us grow to around $3M.
But after that, it started to hurt us.
Profit margins got really tight.
Clients kept asking for more and more.
The team was stretched.
We were constantly in reactive mode.
Growth got really hard and heavy.
The big shift for us came when we stopped asking, “How do we win more work?”
And started asking ourselves, “What should we say no to?”
We got ruthless on client fit.
We tightened scope and commercial terms.
We actually started putting our hand up when variations came along.
And we doubled down on the work we were genuinely strong at.
What surprised us was that revenue didn’t fall.
It actually improved.
Profit margins got better.
The team were happier and more efficient.
The business became simpler to run.
Saying yes to everything got us going.
Learning to say no completely accelerated our growth trajectory.
So my question to you is:
What are you currently saying yes to that you really should be saying no to?
To your success,
Josh
PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:
- Grab a copy of my new book | Profitable Engineering Consultant | 9 strategies to grow with confidence, get your time back & consistently hit 30% plus net profit margins – Click Here
- Subscribe to our podcast | Learn how to run a more profitable consultancy and grow successfully – no fluff, just actionable and practical advice from someone who grew a consultancy to $30M and exited successfully – Watch Here or Listen Here + make sure you subscribe!
- Download our free Business Plan template | Map out your Business Plan & grow your consultancy with confidence – Click Here to download now
- Book a 20-minute Business Audit Call | We’ll do a full review & audit of your business, uncover the #1 bottleneck that's holding you back right now & develop a 3-step action plan together for how you can get results faster. You'll leave this call with a clear and actionable plan for what to do next in your business – Book Here
