3-Tips to Scaling and Growing a Professional Services Business

Scaling a services business often involves developing new practices or lines of business. One of the most effective ways to do this is by building around an experienced resource who can lead and shape the new offering. Establish a multiplier effect to develop junior talent and mitigate the risks of relying too heavily on a single key individual. Here’s how your services business can create a scalable and flexible delivery model by leveraging expertise, growing your talent pool, and managing the risk of attrition.

1. Leverage the Experienced Resource to Build a New Practice

An experienced resource—someone with deep industry knowledge or specialised skills—can be the foundation for developing a new line of business or practice. This person can drive strategy, set service standards, and oversee the quality of deliverables as the practice grows.

• Position the Expert as a Mentor: Allow your experienced resource to mentor junior team members. This not only transfers valuable knowledge but also establishes a leadership framework that others can follow as the practice evolves.
• Codify Expertise into Processes: Standardise the best practices, workflows, and methodologies that the experienced resource has developed. Documenting this knowledge into clear, repeatable processes ensures your service delivery model stays consistent, even as new team members come on board.
• Delegate Non-Core Activities: Free up the expert’s time for high-value tasks by delegating routine or administrative work to junior resources. This helps maintain efficiency while allowing the experienced resource to focus on scaling the new practice.

In our experience, when building a new practice in a highly specialised domain such as Certinia Professional Services Automation (PSA) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), we had to rethink our existing methodology entirely. We scrapped our previous approach and designed a new, instructor-led methodology tailored to the domain. Throughout the process, we applied, monitored, measured, and refined our methodology, continuously tweaking it as we gained new insights and experience.

2. Multiply Talent by Developing Junior Resources

Relying on a single experienced resource isn’t scalable long-term. To truly scale, you need to develop junior talent who can step into senior roles as the practice grows. Here’s how to build and multiply your talent pool effectively:

• Implement a Structured Training Program: Develop a comprehensive training program that helps junior team members ramp up quickly. This should include shadowing the experienced resource, getting involved in hands-on projects, and receiving regular feedback. A structured development path accelerates the learning curve, preparing juniors to take on more complex tasks. 
• Use Project-Based Learning: Assign junior resources to projects with increasing levels of responsibility. Start with smaller tasks, then gradually increase their involvement in key deliverables. This approach builds confidence and practical experience, while allowing the senior resource to guide and oversee their growth. In our practice, we place a strong emphasis on project shadowing. Typically, a shadowing resource requires up to three shadowing opportunities before they can take the lead on a project, while still receiving support from their mentor. 
• Promote Collaboration and Peer Learning: Foster collaboration between junior and senior team members. By encouraging a culture of knowledge sharing, you create multiple learning opportunities within the team. This allows junior resources to acquire skills faster and reduces dependency on a single expert.

At this point, you might wonder, “What if I invest in training and development, and the resource leaves?” Consider the alternative: “What if you don’t invest in them, and they stay?” Developing your junior team not only ensures business scalability but also drives innovation, engagement, and long-term success.

3. Mitigate the Risk of Attrition by the Experienced Resource

Relying too much on one experienced resource poses a significant risk if they leave the company. Mitigating this risk is critical to maintaining scalability and flexibility. What you can do:

• Create a Succession Plan: Identify potential successors within your team who can step into leadership roles over time. A clear succession plan prepares the business for transitions and minimises disruptions in service delivery.
• Diversify Leadership Responsibilities: Avoid centralising all decision-making and expertise in one person. Distribute responsibilities across several senior team members to create a more resilient and adaptable team structure.
• Offer Incentives for Retention: To retain your experienced resource, consider offering incentives such as leadership opportunities, professional development, or profit-sharing. These rewards can align their long-term goals with the company’s vision, reducing the likelihood of attrition.

As a small services business, competing with larger global system integrators for talent on salary alone can be challenging. Since we don’t have the same brand recognition or financial resources, we’ve had to innovate our compensation plan. By offering a profit-sharing incentive to our team members, we align their success with the company’s growth, creating a compelling reason for them to stay and contribute to long-term business success.

To scale a services business successfully, building a new practice around an experienced resource can be highly effective. Moreover, it’s essential to develop junior talent to ensure scalability and flexibility, while also mitigating the risk of relying too heavily on one individual. By implementing structured training, knowledge transfer processes, and succession planning, you can create a sustainable and scalable delivery model that supports business growth while managing the challenges of resource dependency.

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