How to grow your business without burning out
Small business owner Q&A.
Last week, we dove into ways to scale a business with no retainer clients.
This week, we’re exploring a pain point of pretty much every seasoned creative founder I work with. They’re maxed out. They’re tired. They’re actually afraid of scaling because they equate growth with more work.
Let’s dig in.
How do I grow my business without drowning? I’m fully-booked, but my revenue isn’t increasing and I’m stretched way thin.
This is the question I hear from creative founders more than any other and for good reason. “Fully booked” sounds amazing. And it is. Until you realize it’s become a ceiling for your business. One you don’t know how to move beyond.
You’re not able to scale because you’re at capacity. And capacity, not demand, is what determines your ability to grow. It includes your pricing, systems, team, offer design, and more.
Let’s break this down.
What’s actually happening?
When clients ask this question, it’s almost always a mix of:
1. The business model can’t support growth.
You’re selling time, not outcomes.
You’re offering too many custom solutions.
Your pricing was set in 2021 and not revisited since then.
2. The founder is the bottleneck.
Everything routes through you. Review, approvals, delivery, client communication, all of it. You’re running the creative business equivalent of a “one-man band.”
3. You have no systems in place.
This works beautifully until you hit a wall. Then it stops.
You need increased capacity before you can scale. Always.
If you’re fully-booked and not making more money, you’re running in place. Here’s what you can do about it.
1. Raise your effective hourly rate (yes, even if you don’t bill hourly).
Most founders underprice simply because they’re too busy to stop and think about how they’re designing their fees.
If demand is consistent and your calendar is full and you’re not getting any pushback on your rates during the business development process, that’s the market telling you to adjust your pricing... up.
Revisit your fees with that in mind.
2. Simplify your offerings.
If everything is custom, nothing is scalable.
Ask yourself:
Which services are truly profitable?
Which clients energize me?
Where do projects run smoothly vs. drag endlessly?
Cut what’s not profitable and what’s not working for you.
Double down on the offer(s) where you can deliver great work that you enjoy and send money to the bottom line doing it.
3. Redesign your delivery model to remove yourself as the bottleneck.
This part can be… uncomfortable. Because this is where the leverage lives.
Some ideas to help make this shift:
Document the way you work (your method, templates, review steps) — think SOPs.
Automate what can be automated.
Delegate what doesn’t require your brain.
Bring in support before you think you’re ready.
Your job is to design the experience for your clients. Not to personally execute every piece of it.
4. Buy back your time strategically.
If you hire someone only to give them low-value tasks, you won’t feel the relief.
Instead, ask: What work do I do that someone else could do 80% as well?
Yes, as a recovering perfectionist I know this is not easy. But I can tell you, it works.
Start there.
That 80% unlocks enormous capacity.
5. Replace intensity with consistency.
The biggest trap I see: you work like a maniac during busy delivery seasons and do zero business development.
Then you wake up shocked that your pipeline is empty.
Try this instead:
One hour per week of proactive business development. This is non-negotiable.
One to two marketing channels done regularly (not five done sporadically).
Quarterly review of pricing, profitability, and capacity.
Consistency is what scales a business.
6. Let the numbers, not your wave of emotions, guide you.
Look at:
Your true capacity in terms of your time and money
Your average revenue per client
Your delivery timeline
The cost of support
Your profitability by offering
Your path to growth becomes clear when the math is on the table.
Most founders make decisions based on overwhelm instead of data. Trust the data.
The truth.
You’re not stuck because you’re not working hard enough.
You’re stuck because the current version of your business is maxed out.
Your next level requires a different design — one that gives you space, margin, and actual room to grow.
And yes, it’s absolutely possible.
Your turn… submit your question.
Does this crack something open for you?
What’s the question you’d love answered in this AMA series?
Hit reply and send it my way.
I read every question myself.
Until next week.
Katherine
#ICYMI
