Most businesses with 10-20 employees are stuck?

Hello my friend,

Today we're going to see why most businesses that reach 10-20 employees get stuck, and what you can do about that if you are in this situation.

For the sake of the article I will take the example of two agency businesses.

But this applies just as well if you have a DtC / Ecomm business.

Let's get into it!

Why are most businesses with 10-20 employees stuck and are unable to grow past this barrier?

There are several reasons for this, but one issue I often encounter is an inability to delegate sales effectively (by sales I mean the function of acquiring customers).

Let me share two examples of clients I’ve worked with over the past five years: One was a “stable” agency, and the other was an agency in turmoil.

The Stable Agency: Alex

Alex’s agency had been operating for seven years when we first met.

Specialising in SEO, Alex had grown his business rapidly over 2-3 years using platforms like Upwork and Malt, while generating many referrals thanks to his excellent work.

He also actively attended e-commerce and affiliate conferences, which allowed him to network and sign regular clients.

In just three years, Alex was leading a team of 21 people. But then… nothing.

The agency had plateaued: a solid, reliable team delivering high-quality service. However, there was no prospect of further growth.

Whenever Alex tried to accelerate:

• The team struggled to deliver.
• Clients were onboarded in a rush.
• Existing clients felt neglected.

Attempting to scale disrupted the balance Alex had worked so hard to build.

He even tried delegating sales to Lily, his client director, but the experiment failed:

• It caused significant stress for Lily.
• Delivered no tangible results.
• And left his own clients feeling abandoned.

The Agency in Turmoil: Tom

Tom also started strong, acquiring many clients via LinkedIn with a sophisticated strategy of posts and outreach.

In just two years, he had built a team of 15 people, but growth ground to a halt there too.

Service delivery was adequate, but unlike Alex, Tom couldn’t tolerate a plateau.

His goal was clear: to build a massive agency and generate £1 million in net annual income for himself.

Tom never stopped onboarding new clients, despite:

• Overburdening his team.
• An inability to operationally manage such a high volume of work.

He also tried to build a sales & marketing team, with several disastrous outcomes:

• His first team, based on leads generated via Facebook Ads, lasted less than three months.
• A similar attempt with YouTube Ads also failed.
• Tom launched his own YouTube channel, but it was a total flop after a year.
• Finally, he joined a mastermind group promising an avalanche of clients through cold calling, with minimal success.

These repeated failures created enormous volatility in his team. Sales employees never stayed longer than six months, and overall turnover remained high (12-15 months on average).

A Shared Problem, But Different Situations

Despite their very different internal challenges, Alex and Tom faced the same core problem: an inability to structure their client acquisition and operations effectively.

• For Alex, his agency, though stable, wasn’t operationally robust enough to handle growth.
• For Tom, his aggressive drive to scale created a perpetual state of chaos, resulting in constant instability.

In both cases, we applied Business Simple to get back to basics:

• Analysing their current performance:

Initial Numbers

Alex:

• Revenue: £1.8 million, or £85K per employee on average.
• Average billable hours: 45%.
• Profitability: 35% after employee costs, 25% after total costs.

Tom:

• Revenue: £1.1 million, with fluctuating billable hours (40% on average).
• Profitability: 31% after employee costs, 20% after total costs.

In both cases, it was clear their teams could handle more work.

For example, increasing billable hours to 70% could have generated:

• For Alex, about £1 million in additional revenue.
• For Tom, about £770K in additional revenue.

And this could be achieved without hiring additional staff.

For reference, most of our clients using Business Simple OP achieve 70-75% billable hours in their agencies.

The Solution: Structure and Delegate

Using Business Simple, we broke their client acquisition process into two distinct stages:

1. Lead generation.
2. Closing leads.

We built on what already worked:

• Platforms and events for Alex.
• Tom’s LinkedIn strategy.

Then, we flipped their usual approach: delegating closing before lead generation.

Why?

Because delegating lead generation without an effective closer in place creates unnecessary stress.

By training an internal closer, Alex and Tom were able to gradually hand off their calls while maintaining quality.

Once this step was mastered, they tackled delegating lead generation.

• Alex: A team of three full-time VAs to manage platforms and increase opportunities.
• Tom: Two business development employees to replicate his LinkedIn strategy.

Breaking the Sales Process into Simple Metrics

To make the sales process delegable while maintaining control, we used a structured approach based on clear steps and measurable metrics.

Each step was defined with specific objectives, allowing Alex and Tom to oversee their pipeline without intervening in every decision.

The key metrics established were:

• Lead intake: Number of new leads per week, with quality tracking.
• Speed of conversion: Average time between first contact and the initial qualification call.
• Closing rate: Percentage of prospects converted into clients after the call.
• Deal value: Average value of signed contracts to monitor margins.
• Sales cycle: Average number of days to convert a lead into a client.

These metrics enabled them to:

• Manage performance remotely with simple dashboards.
• Quickly identify bottlenecks (e.g., slow follow-ups or low conversion rates).
• Adjust processes to optimise results (e.g., shortening delays between steps).

With this system in place, Alex and Tom could delegate with confidence while retaining a clear view of their sales growth.

Results After 2 Years

Alex grew from 21 to 35 employees with nearly £4 million in revenue.

Tom grew from 15 to 27 employees with about £3.5 million in revenue.

They are both enjoying the process, and targeting further growth for 2025.

Next steps

If this case study resonates, you can check the Business Simple Program here to see if this could be a fit.

To Your Success!

Julien