My ideal client is a founder with a team of 12 or more, and I also have the privilege to work with and speak to a lot of much smaller companies, including many other consultants and solopreneurs. Across all of these business sizes, I often see the same mistake in sales: The curse of ‘One at a Time’.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You’re doing OK, definitely some spare capacity, so you focus your sales (and maybe even your marketing) on finding ‘one more client’. Just one more – after all, aren’t businesses built one client at a time?

No. No they are not. If you’re chasing your clients one at a time, then you’re setting your business up for slow, painful, incremental-at-best, growth. You need to think bigger, and build your marketing and sales system accordingly.

So what’s the magic number? And which other areas of your business (hint: referral channels and recruitment) does this curse afflict?