Scaling a service business sounds glamorous – until you’re knee-deep in strategic planning and the harsh reality that more clients often mean more problems. What works for an IT firm might tank a creative agency. What looks easy on LinkedIn takes late nights, failed experiments, and more “Oh no, not again” moments than anyone likes to admit.
So, what moves the needle when you want to scale up and stay sane?
We asked 13 owners, strategists, and founders who’ve already walked the walk.
From saying no to the wrong projects, through answering a specific market demand and delivering bespoke customer experience, to hiring before you’re ready, these are the real stories of what it takes to grow a service business for years to come.
Double down on what nobody else does
Michelle Garrison, Event Tech and AI Strategist at We & Goliath, scaled her professional services business by spotting a gap in the market – and owning it. Instead of offering every type of event, she built a business model and reputation around virtual and hybrid experiences that actually build community, not just attendance.
“After the pandemic hit, I watched agencies scramble to add ‘virtual event services’ as an afterthought, but we'd already spent months perfecting the tech stack and audience engagement strategies that make online events feel personal rather than transactional,” Michelle explains.
Early on, she made the classic mistake: taking on any corporate event just to keep the lights on. “These clients expected us to be generalists and diluted our expertise. The moment we started saying no to anything that wasn't community-building focused, our referrals exploded because clients knew exactly what we delivered.”
Specialization unlocked Michelle’s next stage of growth: training her team and codifying what actually worked. “Creating detailed playbooks for virtual audience engagement techniques that took me years to develop felt vulnerable, but it freed me to focus on strategy rather than execution.”
Build processes before you build headcount
Some agencies chase business growth by piling on more clients, hoping sheer hustle will make the numbers work. Marina Byezhanova, Co-Founder of Brand of a Leader, scaled her service-based business without sacrificing quality.
“I grew the agency to 7-figure revenue, a team of 15 (we scaled down from 24 to 15 last year, leveraging new AI capabilities), and serving clients in 12 countries across the globe. We are in the 2nd position in Google Search for ‘personal branding agency’ with zero investment in SEO or PPC services. 80% of our revenue is recurring,” Marina shares.
What worked? She and her business partner created key processes and systems for every part of the business from day one – even when it was just the two of them. That meant onboarding new team members, building out service delivery, and integrating AI-powered tools was a repeatable, consistent process, not a mad dash whenever a big client landed.
Marina explains, “Hiring an assistant as our first team member ensured that we could focus on our areas of expertise rather than detail-oriented work we are not strong in. Leveraging AI capabilities as soon as they became mainstream: we reduced the size of the team but invested in AI to create workflows and simplified much of the work that we executed.”
Focus operations to bring sustainable growth
When you’re a business owner trying to grow, the temptation to say yes to every project is real. Deborah Forrister, Search Strategist at Envoca Search Marketing, admits her service-based business gained early traction by accepting every opportunity – building websites, handling business development, and taking whatever came through the door.
“But real growth came when we stopped saying yes to everything and focused on where we delivered the most value. Once we narrowed our niche, we built systems, grew a team, and became more intentional about the clients we took on. That shift improved results for everyone.”
Deborah’s scaling journey shows that consistent service – and the discipline to turn away projects that don’t fit – actually lead to more business and stronger revenue growth. As the business grew, she found that careful planning and strategic focus beat hustle every time.
She reflects, “That early generalist experience helped us understand how businesses work and what challenges they face. But I do wish we had niched down sooner. Chasing every opportunity slowed us down. Once we got focused, growth got easier and the work became more fulfilling. My role evolved from doing the work to building the team, and now I focus on strategy, relationships, and growth.”
Standardize before you grow
Most service businesses don’t struggle to find more clients, but to serve them well without sacrificing quality. That’s exactly the challenge Spencer Romenco, Chief Growth Strategist at Growth Spurt, ran into as his video agency scaled.
“We hit a brick wall at Growth Spurt because the demand for our goods was far more than we could produce. The issue was not the clients, but the possibility of discovering how to scale our internal processes as fast as possible to accommodate these clients,” Spencer explains.
The breakthrough? Spencer invested early in hiring more video editors and streamlining workflows. “We could afford to employ more video editors and streamline our workflow, and that helped us produce more content without compromising on the quality of the content. Six months later, we had increased our client base by 40 percent.”
His biggest lesson: don’t wait too long to build your team and systems. “An increase in business without the right team will just keep you on the bench. When you have decided that you will scale a service-based business, do not wait too long because your infrastructure is established to support the process of scaling.”
Invest in strategic partnerships
Some service businesses try to scale by chasing more customers or expanding their service offerings, but for Chris Roy at Claimsline, the key was leveraging strategic partnerships to accelerate growth without ballooning costs.
“Scaling Claimsline was about really understanding the market gaps and then strategically setting up relationships that mattered. One key factor was forming strong partnerships. Instead of just relying on a traditional customer acquisition model, we aligned with companies that could feed us consistent work in exchange for the increased capacity we could offer them. This doubled our output without a huge increase in overhead.”
Chris highlights that the path to long-term success meant investing time in finding complementary service providers and key stakeholders who shared mutual goals. When Claimsline faced a crisis during the Personal Injury Reform in 2021, these alliances helped them adapt fast and continue delivering projects for new clients even as the business world shifted underfoot.
“My role shifted from being deeply involved in daily operations to focusing more on strategic decisions and visionary planning. It became essential to trust my team to manage the day-to-day effectively, ensuring everyone was empowered to make decisions.”
Turn relationships into a repeatable process
Growth strategies for professional services businesses often start with who you know – but real, sustained growth comes from systematizing those connections. Scott Crosby, General Manager at EnCompass, found that transforming networking from a lucky break into a core business function changed everything.
“At EnCompass, we scaled from a local IT shop to making North America's Excellence in Managed IT Services 250 List by focusing on three core levers. First, we systematized relationship-building instead of leaving it to chance – I personally attend 20+ technology events yearly."
For Crosby, the lesson is clear: track networking efforts, so even a small team can play big. “My role evolved from hands-on technician to strategic connector... The key was recognizing that my job became feeding opportunities to the team rather than executing every technical task myself.”
As you begin to scale, don’t just network. Strategically build infrastructure to make every handshake, event, or introduction a stepping stone to growth.
Sales comes first, execution second
Build the sales pipeline – then deliver. Scaling a professional services business often begins with an overflowing sales pipeline. Heinz Klemann of BeastBI GmbH found that out firsthand. Early growth came from delivering great results, but true scale kicked in when sales became the main event.
“In our field, it's 80% sales and 20% execution. Being good at what you do gets you to a certain level – but actively selling, pitching, and building pipelines is what takes you beyond that.”
Heinz’s journey also meant hiring for ownership, not just task execution. “I made the mistake of not hiring self-directed professionals. I tried to scale with people who needed step-by-step tasks instead of owning full projects. The lesson: know who can take responsibility for a full client or project, and who's better suited for repetitive support work.”
Build a technical moat
Proprietary tech as a long-term advantage.
Some service businesses chase growth by adding headcount. Joe Spisak, CEO of Fulfill.com, went the opposite way: he went all-in technical – deep enough that competitors couldn’t cross.
“The key levers that propelled our scale: First, we obsessed over our matching algorithm. By continuously refining how we pair businesses with 3PLs based on complex variables… we created genuine value that neither side could easily replicate. This technical moat became our strongest competitive advantage.”
Joe’s path to scale wasn’t just about matching eCommerce businesses with 3PL partners. It was about engineering an algorithm that no one else had – a matching engine obsessed over every variable, from SKU complexity to special handling needs. The result? A process competitors struggled to replicate, and a value proposition that made Fulfill.com indispensable for both sides of the marketplace.
Let go so others can lead
Real growth is letting your team take the reins. Where most founders stall is right at the moment their business needs them to step back. Neil Fried, Senior Vice President at EcoATMB2B, learned that scaling is all about building a team that can find the answers without you.
“I realised my real value was aligning teams behind a clear growth thesis and removing roadblocks so they could execute. Ultimately, scaling is about knowing when to lead from the front and when to step aside so others can lead too.”
In Neil’s world, growth strategies, sustained success, and even profit margins start with this uncomfortable shift. Instead of making every decision, he focused on empowering leaders across the company. The real leverage comes not from more hours, but from trusting others to steer the ship.
Unlock repeatability
Scale by productizing your best work through technology. SOPs and checklists are a good start, but Raul Reyeszumeta, Senior Director of Product Design at MarketScale, believes that the real breakthrough comes when you codify your business into a platform. Instead of endlessly reinventing the wheel, his team turned creative know-how into digital infrastructure.
“We transitioned from project-based delivery to platform-powered services. That meant building internal tools to orchestrate creative inputs, content structures, and feedback loops while allowing our creative teams to work with flexibility,” Raul explains.
He’s candid about the learning curve: “Early on, we over-engineered our internal processes before validating them with real clients. We had to let go of perfectionism and adopt faster iteration cycles, guided by live feedback.”
Transform your process into a platform – with automation, templates, and reusable service flows – so that quality and speed scale together.
Win global reach with innovation
In professional services, you need to lean into innovation to capture global opportunities. And sometimes scaling isn’t just about growing bigger – it’s about thinking differently than everyone else in your space. Riccardo Ocleppo, Founder & Director at OPIT (Open Institute of Technology), didn’t just create another online education platform. He reimagined what higher ed could look like in a digital world.
For Riccardo, the real lever for global expansion was a relentless commitment to innovation as a business model. “We integrated industry-recognized certifications and created a competency-based learning framework, aligning our programs with real-world demands. That was key to attracting students from over 115 countries.”
But innovation isn’t without its pitfalls. “We underestimated the importance of brand integrity and proactive communication,” Riccardo admits. “A misstep in communication led to a misalignment of student expectations versus our offerings – a challenging lesson that drove us to enhance transparency and reinforce trust.”
Document, hire, automate
You can’t automate chaos. That’s why Lindsey Pelaez, Founder and CEO of Nest Managers Real Estate, built her entire scaling journey on one mantra: get it on paper, then get it into the cloud.
“When I started, it was just me answering calls with a newborn on my hip, juggling every manual process,” Lindsey shares. But she knew real growth for her property management company wouldn’t come from hustling harder – it would come from building infrastructure one process at a time. “I built every position myself, documented every step, and then hired or automated. When we brought on team members, they stepped into well-defined roles instead of a firestorm of ‘figure it out.’”
Her commitment to documentation made it possible to leverage technology – using platforms like Aptly and Zapier to route tasks and eliminate repetitive tasks. “We even built a custom AI phone assistant to handle calls that used to drain us daily. This meant we could handle more customers without ballooning our headcount.”
Plant your flag before chasing growth
Ambitious business owners tend to chase every growth hack and shiny opportunity, but Stefan Van der Vlag, founder of Clepher, believes the most scalable service companies are built on something quieter: a strong foundation.
“Start with a clear vision and mission for your business,” Stefan says. “Define your target market and ideal clients, and establish core values that guide your operations. These elements serve as your framework for growth and help you make strategic decisions along the way.” It’s the groundwork – team alignment, efficient processes, and company culture – that supports all those future victories.
Stefan’s biggest lesson? “I made the mistake of not prioritizing self-care and burnout prevention. As a business owner, it’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day operations, but neglecting your well-being can have serious consequences for both your personal life and your business.”
Over to you
Scaling a professional services business takes more than ambition.
You’ll spend money on new technology and invest in training programs to level up your team.
You’ll stress over cash flow, add more employees, and learn that finding the right people – whether in-house or full time employees – matters as much as landing new clients.
Decision makers are always balancing resources, time tracking, and the push for larger projects, all while trying to maintain consistency across every social media platform and client touchpoint.
If you want to successfully scale from a new business to a seven-figure operation, lean into regular check-ins, embrace AI tools, and never stop refining what makes you essential to potential clients.
That's what many of our experts did. Good luck!
