I believe that big clients kill small businesses.
Big clients promise financial stability and big paychecks. They also come with big problems. Those problems are hard to see in the beginning. You’re still on the hook to solve those problems, and asking for more money comes with friction.
The opportunity cost of signing a big client is never obvious at first, and inevitably it becomes more expensive than you expected. These clients generally end up taking up more space in your business than you intended, and pull you away from doing the other important aspects needed to keep your business healthy.
I call this the big rock problem.
What Is The Big Rock Problem?
Imagine you have a jar full of rocks. In this metaphor, the “rocks” represent your various clients, and the “jar” represents the absolute limit of how much the business can handle at once.
Big rocks usually bring in more money, but demand extra resources to fulfill them.
To be clear: rock size is about demand, not dollars.
If you’re employed full-time, your jar is literally filled with one giant rock – your job. Lose that rock, and you lose the overwhelming majority of your income. Yikes!
A service company whose entire business is running off of a few big rocks isn’t much better. Losing just one of those clients blows a hole in your finances. You basically have four full-time jobs, and none of your bosses are talking to each other. Big yikes!
Big rocks have their own specific needs, and because of that, they tend to take up more room than they seem on the surface.
When you look at a jar with a few big rocks in it, there are large gaps between the rocks. Reducing the size of the gaps is difficult.
Those gaps show up as idle capacity, context switching, and bespoke workflows you can’t reuse.
How The Big Rock Problem Hurts Your Business
If your jar is full of big rocks, there’s no more room for other big rocks, even though you can see plenty of space between them. The problem is you can’t break your rocks into smaller pieces.
These gaps cost you money. They make it difficult to focus on growing your own business because you’re too busy solving your clients’ problems.
How The Big Rock Problem Creates a Feast-Or-Famine Cycle
A common symptom of the big rock problem is a nasty feast-or-famine cycle.
- Find a large opportunity and take it.
- Work fills the jar; you stop selling.
- Project ends. Cash dries up. Pipeline is empty.
- Panic sell. Repeat step 1.
You’re always a step behind, under the gun, and just one bad month away from your business falling apart. In this condition, your business is extremely brittle, and every new customer feels a bit like rolling the dice.
That’s why many freelancers burn out. They can’t afford to take a break, because if that loop doesn’t hold every single time, they’re cooked. Stress is a problem without a plan, and this cycle creates plenty of that.
The cycle breaks during delivery in step 2. That’s where it perpetuates. And that’s where the crux of the big rock problem lies.
Signing large, demanding clients makes it harder to keep yourself committed to growing your own business.
If you can successfully solve the big rock problem, you:
- Have a more consistent monthly income
- Have fewer client emergencies that are your problem
- Stop panicking about losing a rock
- Feel confident to remove a rock who isn’t a good fit
- Take vacations
- Outsource fulfillment readily
How To Solve The Big Rock Problem
There are two solutions to the big rock problem. Either you build a bigger jar, or build a system to find smaller rocks. Either way, your jar should be able to support many rocks instead of just a few.
I think the best solution to the big rock problem is to focus on finding many smaller rocks.
The Case For Small Rocks
Small rocks can settle together, nesting much tighter than the big rocks ever could.
Those smaller gaps represent less idle capacity, context switching, and bespoke workflows you can’t reuse.
As the jar fills with smaller rocks, the relationship shifts. Instead of clients you negotiate with, you serve customers who choose a standardized offer.
This drastically changes the power dynamic between your work, and your business. If a smaller rock leaves your jar, the impact is less. Losing a small customer might sting, but it doesn’t threaten the entire business like losing a major client would.
Small rocks are light and therefore easier to put in your jar. This makes adding them easier to automate. Instead of hiring a dedicated full-time sales team, you will likely be able to create a referral program.
Customers will comfortably pay a low price without requiring any of your time. For $50/month and a 30-day free trial, I don’t feel like I need a call, but a $10,000 website job definitely requires a call before we start.
How To Build Your Business Around Small Rocks
The key is to identify a specific repeatable process, usually at a much lower price point. These customers become your small rocks.
The average size of the rocks in your jar shrinks. You’ll gain the means to turn the smaller rocks into bigger rocks if you need it. Plus, out of necessity, you find a repeatable way to get scoops of small rocks all at once.
The result is a stable, healthy business with options that don’t perpetuate the feast-or-famine cycle.
Over time, fewer clients set your calendar, and more customers set your baseline. The work moves from negotiated projects to purchased services. The dollar amount might be similar. The operational demand isn’t.
Choose Your Path
To overcome the big rock problem, you must either take on smaller rocks or grow your jar. Those two paths are distinctly different, and require different strategies to implement.
Do you want a business with big rock clients? You’re going to need to make your jar bigger. You could even say your problem is a small jar problem instead of a big rock problem.
Do you want a small, profitable business with customers? You’re going to need to make your rocks smaller.
Either way, you need to protect your time, so you can prospect and sell without losing existing clients in the process. Start there. Create those foundations, find the right multipliers for your business, and leverage them to help you shape your business into what works best for you.
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