56 - The Counterintuitive Journey That 10X'd My Revenue While Cutting My Client List in Half
Letting go of your biggest client might be the smartest decision you make. Discover how one strategic shift cut the client list in half but 10X’d growth, profit, and positioning.
The Counterintuitive Journey That 10X’d My Revenue While Cutting My Client List in Half
Most entrepreneurs believe growth means adding more clients, more services, and more hustle. However, in this episode, we explore the opposite: how cutting the client list in half resulted in exponential financial and strategic gains.
It all started when the largest client threatened to leave after a price increase. The decision to let them go triggered a radical rethink of the business model. What followed wasn’t a loss; it was liberation.
Here are the four critical shifts that drove transformation:
1. From Volume to Value.
Instead of chasing numbers, the company refocused on a handful of high-impact clients: fewer relationships, deeper outcomes, stronger margins.
2. From Vendor to Partner.
The role evolved from service provider to strategic advisor, with longer timelines, larger retainers, and full accountability for results replacing one-off projects.
3. From Opportunistic to Selective.
Saying no became a strategic asset. Only clients who matched the ideal profile were accepted alignment over income.
4. From Busy to Profitable.
Client count dropped by 50%. Yet deal size increased 4X, revenue tripled, and margins grew from 22% to 55%. True scale came from clarity, not complexity.
The Strategic Reframe:
Growth doesn’t always mean doing more. Sometimes, it means doing what matters and cutting the rest. This episode challenges the default assumptions of expansion and shows you how to grow with fewer clients, not more.
Your time is limited. Your leverage is not.
Use this episode as a blueprint to restructure your model around focus, power positioning, and profitable simplicity, so you scale the right things at the right time for the right reasons.
Highlights:
00:00 The Turning Point: Losing a Major Client
00:27 Rethinking the Business Model
00:39 Shifting to Strategic Partnerships
01:14 The Results of a Bold Move
01:33 Is Your Business Ready for Change?
Links:
Website: https://www.marcogrueter.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcogrueter/
Transcript:
My biggest client threatened to leave. If I raised prices, I decided to let them go. That decision, which terrified me at the time, launched a transformation that tripled our revenue within a year. For years, I believed growth meant serving more clients, offering competitive rates, and being available for everything they needed.
This approach had built a business that kept me overworked and under compensated. Losing that anchor client forced a complete reimagining of our business model. We couldn't replace that revenue through the same approach. So we had to fundamentally change our position. We shifted from being service providers to strategic partners. Instead of delivering commoditized solutions for numerous clients, we developed a comprehensive transformation model for a select few ideal organizations.
This meant tripling our minimum engagement size, extending our delivery timeline, and deepening our involvement in client outcomes. Most importantly, it meant saying no to projects that didn't align with our ideal client profile regardless of revenue potential.
The results defined all conventional growth logic. Within six months, our clients list had decreased by almost 50%. Well, our average project value increased by almost 400% within a year. Our total revenue had grown by three times, and our profit margin had improved from 22 to 55%.
Is your business ready for the counterintuitive approach?