Four Signs It’s Time To Expand Your Public Health Consulting Business
Today’s guest post is written by Melissa Reams, MPH, MCHES. She is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Upstream Consulting.
Once you’ve established your public health consulting business and completed a few projects, you may start to wonder if you should expand your team. Perhaps you don’t feel like a real business since it’s just you. You might find the solopreneur life is lonely and want someone to collaborate with. Or you may just be tired of questioning whether you should use “we” or “I” in your business social media posts.
There are countless reasons why you might consider expanding your public health consulting business. But bringing on additional team members is a big decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Here are four signs that it might be time to expand:
(1) You have too much work
Exhausted? Overwhelmed? Missing out on your life? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, you probably have too much work – which is one of the best reasons to expand your public health consulting business.
As business owners, we’re conditioned to believe working all the time is a sacrifice we must make if we want to succeed. But the truth is that working all the time reduces your productivity and the quality of your work, making it more likely that your business will fail. If you always have too much work to do, adding one or more team members may help you regain your sanity and allow you to produce higher quality work for your clients.
Although having too much work to do is a great reason to expand your business, it’s important to consider a couple other potential issues and solutions before you expand. Is it possible that you’re working all the time because you’re easily distracted or struggling with productivity? If so, tackle these issues before you expand. You should also consider if you’re charging enough for your services. If not, you (and any team members you add!) will always have too much work. If you suspect you’re undercharging for your services, adjust your prices and see how that impacts your workload.
(2) Your business could benefit from additional skills or knowledge
Once your business has been operating for a while, you may realize you could improve or expand your services with skills or knowledge that you don’t have. In some cases, you may be able to learn the skills or information you need. But oftentimes, it makes more sense to bring on a team member who already has what you need. This is especially true when you’re working on a short-term project that requires specific subject matter expertise. You may have the skills to complete the basic requirements, but it wouldn’t be worth your time to try to learn all the nuances of a specific subject. In this case, it’s ideal to add team members, even if it’s only on a short-term basis.
(3) You’re not spending your time wisely
To effectively run a business, you have to spend a lot of time…running a business. This includes all the tasks that must be completed to maintain the business, but that don’t support the services you provide to your clients. These (mostly annoying) tasks might be finding photos for your blog posts, organizing receipts, posting on social media, advertising, etc.
Business tasks are important, but they take you away from the work you love, which is likely the entire reason you started your own public health consulting business. In addition to being frustrating, many of these business tasks are simply not the best use of your limited time. So, if you can afford to pay someone else to take over some of these tasks, do it! The best part about hiring someone to support business tasks is that they don’t have to be a true member of your team. For example, you may pay a virtual assistant company or an accounting firm to support you. Not only does this approach get annoying tasks off your plate, it’s a good way to gauge if you’ll be able to let go of some of the control in your business.
(4) You want to work on the business instead of in the business
After a few years (or even months!), you may find yourself ready to work on your business instead of in the business. You may have a vision for your business that can only be accomplished if you reduce the amount of client work you’re doing. Or perhaps you’re simply tired of all the client work and prefer to let others take over most or all of it. Whatever the reason, make sure you can afford to stop working in the business. To do this, you’ll need to have enough monthly revenue to pay team members to do all the work and to pay yourself for work that likely won’t be generating revenue.
Are you thinking about expanding your public health consulting business? If so, having a network of fellow consultants is a great way to learn from others’ experiences and get feedback on your hiring plans. Check out Leah’s Public Health Consultants and Entrepreneurs Professional Networking Group or get on the interest list for her next mastermind.
About Melissa:
After 15 years working with non-profit and government agencies, Melissa Reams founded Upstream Consulting to help more organizations make a bigger impact in their communities. Throughout her career, she has supported a wide range of community projects requiring extensive skills in health education, program development, evaluation, and grant writing and management. Since 2017, she has collaborated with health and social service organizations on grant writing and fundraising efforts that have brought over $4M into communities throughout the United States. Ms. Reams completed a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies from the University of North Carolina Asheville and a Master of Public Health from Armstrong Atlantic State University.
You can read about Melissa’s career journey, consulting services, and advice for aspiring consultants in our April 2019 interview. If you’d like to connect with Melissa, you can visit her website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest.