Most people think hitting £1M is about finding some genius new strategy.
It isn’t.
It’s about fixing the unsexy constraints in your business that quietly cap your income.
Look at your business as a pipeline.
Your job as the leader is to find where constraints/bottlenecks are stopping the flow.
If you do that, you will make a lot of money.
E.g. Lots of new clients but not capacity to serve them? The constraint preventing you from making more money is your delivery team/systems.
Loads of capacity and good conversion rate but not enough clients? The constraint preventing you from making more money is your lead flow.
Remove the bottlenecks in order of highest priority → Make more money.
Business 101.
Here’s exactly what moved the needle for me in 2025.
1. I Hired a Business Development Manager
For years, I was spending 30+ hours a week selling.
I’m good at sales. But sales drains energy.
Hiring a BDM did two things immediately:
Freed up my time and mental bandwidth
Let me focus on marketing instead of just converting demand
The result?
More leads
Better conversion
More energy to think strategically
Counterintuitive truth:
You don’t scale by doing more of what you’re “good at”. You scale by doing what multiplies everything else.
2. I Changed Our Incentive Scheme
I finally stopped lying to myself…. I used to avoid financial incentives because “not everyone is money motivated.”
That’s bullshit.
People might not be only money motivated, but everyone works harder when there’s an extra couple of grand on the line.
We restructured incentives to reward client retention, not just delivery.
Result?
Longer client lifetimes
Higher margins
Less churn anxiety
Remember: Retention feeds your bank balance.