The Hands-Off CEO Blog

The top 1% of consulting agencies are mastering these principles and seeing net profit increases of up to 600%.

Is your 7-Figure Success strangling your Growth and Freedom?

Scaling a consulting agency from $1M to $10M isn’t just about working harder — it’s about working smarter. From consulting with over 1000 CEOs of service agencies at Hands-Off CEO, we’ve identified 3 critical stages in this journey, each with its unique challenges and mindset shifts.

The $1M-$3M Stage: “Can I Really Do This?”

At this stage, it’s often chaos:

  • Important projects stall when you’re not personally involved.
  • You’re drowning in a sea of meetings and significant projects, and you may have outgrown your systems.
  • Many CEOs get stuck here, bouncing between $1M and $2M for years before realizing they need a new strategy.

You’ve hit a significant milestone, but the lack of robust management systems and the increasing demands on your time can be overwhelming.

The $3M-$5M Stage: “I Can Do This, But Why Is It So Hard?”

You have management in place, but you’re still heavily involved in day-to-day operations. The key is developing repeatability in your business model and moving away from custom solutions for every client. And charge more for standardized solutions that deliver a much bigger impact for clients so they can pay you more.

The $5M-$10M Stage: “It’s Becoming Routine. Rinse and Repeat.”

At this stage, growth becomes more predictable, but:

  • Scaling your team feels like an uphill battle – no one can quite replicate your magic.
  • The focus shifts to keeping the momentum going when every new set back pulls you back into the day-to-day.
  • Your team needs to level up fast, or they’ll become the anchor holding you back.

Throughout these stages, top CEOs focus on 3 key areas:

  • Develop Leaders Who Grow the Company

Your role shifts from doing the work, to developing leaders who can drive growth. If you don’t invest in your team’s growth, you risk either outgrowing them. Or worse losing them to grow a competitor’s company.

  • Create the Right Offer for Scale

Design offerings that command premium prices and attract ideal clients that will pay A LOT more. Often for about the same work. Sometimes, this means repositioning your services or targeting larger clients who can deliver a bigger impact from your expertise.

  • Team Driven Systems for Consistent Delivery

Build processes that deliver big, bold outcomes consistently — without your constant involvement. This isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about creating a scalable model that can grow beyond you.

The top 1% of consulting agencies are mastering these principles and seeing net profit increases of up to 600%.

Want to become one of them?

We’re opening up 5 spots for our next Hands-Off CEO Tribe Retreat to CEOs outside our regular tribe. This is your chance to spend 3 days with top agency CEOs who are successfully scaling to $10M and beyond.

These are the kinds of results others saw from 3 days:

  • Philip added an extra $100,000 in net profit in just one quarter after attending our retreat.
  • K. sold her first $100k deal.
  • Tanna tripled her pricing AND grew her company 3x from implementing the insights gained at the retreat.

The retreat is already 75% full, so act fast.

Check the retreat’s page for more info, and book a 10-min call to see if you’re a fit for this game-changing opportunity.

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Let us help you Scale to Freedom

We help consulting agency CEOs free up 10 hours per week for strategic growth, command 50-600% higher fees, and unlock millions of dollars of profitable growth.
Mandi Ellefson

Mandi Ellefson

Mandi Ellefson helps service businesses with the tricky task of becoming scalable. Her passion is helping freedom seeking entrepreneurs scale the better way– for success in their business and in the rest of their life. Out of a decade+ experience and testing as a business manager, and then building and selling a design business, Mandi has created a system that is responsible for generating tens of thousands of dollars of new revenue for businesses she's worked with.

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