The Case for Radical Simplicity: Why Cutting 80% of Your Clients And Services Is How You Scale Profitably

Most agencies and consultancies aren’t failing because they’re bad. They’re failing because they’re busy. Busy chasing revenue. Busy adding services. Busy saying yes to everything.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: growth doesn’t come from addition — it comes from subtraction.
If you want to scale, you need to cut 80% of what you do.
And if you want to build real wealth, you need to stop worshipping revenue and start playing for profit.

The first time I did it in my brand consultancy, it was painful. I fired clients. I laid off a few employees. I got rid of "good" services to focus on the great ones.

It was worth it in spades. I hit 45% in net profits.

There is beauty in simplicity.
Complexity is always ugly.
Complexity is waste.

The only way to scale is to focus on something that is simple and scalable. Yet, most of what you are doing is neither of the two. Am I right?

When you remove the noise, the clutter, the inefficient crap and focus only on the highest yielding stuff that gets you toward your goal faster than anything else, that is....heaven.

Let’s break it down.

1. The Myth of “Full Service”

Every small and mid-sized agency has said it:
“We do strategy, branding, digital, social, content, media, PR…”

Translation: We do everything, but we don’t dominate anything.

The “full-service” fantasy works for holding companies — they’ve got armies of specialists. For you? It’s a death sentence. You end up competing with everyone and standing out to no one.

When you’re spread across 10 different disciplines, every client project feels custom, every process gets rebuilt, and every deliverable burns hours of margin.

You’re not scaling. You’re surviving.

2. The 80/20 Truth

Look at your books. You’ll see it immediately:

• Roughly 80% of profit comes from 20% of segments, client types and needs, and offerings. These are three massive levers, choosing the 20% and weeding out the 80% that does not make you laser focused and illegally profitable.
  
  The 80% is low-margin, high-drama work that keeps you busy but broke.

Scaling isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing less, better.

The agencies that thrive are the ones that ruthlessly simplify. They build deep capability in a narrow band — and they dominate that lane.

3. The Profit Illusion

Let’s talk numbers.
I’ve seen $10M agencies where the owners take home less than a solo consultant making $150K.
And I’ve seen $2M shops with 40% margins where the partners quietly pocket millions.

Just yesterday, I spoke with an owner doing $7mil with profit margins north of 30%. The difference? He has a clear niche (focus), he stays in his lane, attracting the best clients. Respect. That's rare.

Revenue looks impressive in LinkedIn posts.
Profit builds freedom, options, and staying power.

Because revenue is vanity.
Profit is sanity.

4. The Discipline of Profit

Profit isn’t an accident — it’s engineered. Here’s the playbook:

Productize your services.
Stop inventing the process every time. Standardize your core offer, price it for value, and build repeatable delivery systems.

Kill the waste.
Audit every client, service, and tool. If it doesn’t make money or momentum, cut it.

Price for transformation, not time.
Hourly rates are profit suicide. Clients buy outcomes — not your calendar.

Measure what matters.
Your scoreboard isn’t top-line revenue. It’s gross margin, net profit, and profit per employee.

5. The Radical Focus Audit

Here’s how to start cutting the fat:

6. The Paradox of Focus

When you cut 80% of your services, your pipeline shrinks — and your profits explode.

Why? Because focus makes everything else easier.

• Marketing becomes simpler — one clear message.
• Sales becomes faster — one irresistible offer.
• Delivery becomes smoother — one repeatable system.

You stop being “one of many” and start being “the only choice.”

7. The Future Scoreboard

Forget revenue milestones. Start tracking what actually matters:

Ok, you get the picture.

Then What?

If you are serious about simplifying and focusing in order to multiply your profits and scaling up your whole business (apart from the intellectual satisfaction or angst you get from reading about it), this has been my focus in everything I've done for clients for the last 10+ years.

Through The Simple Company® (my growth consultancy), I've helped countless companies through a process where we work to discover the most profitable, potential core (and get rid of the fat), then install simple systems to scale it all up.

The first step is done through a Diagnostics tool I have developed, including understanding your Money Equation (check the free calculator). Then we strategize.

First, you'll probably feel a bit nervous. Then, you'll understand you don't have to risk your business, but prototype a better version of it.

It's liberating.

Email me to set up a call and discuss.