Hi everyone, I’m looking for some practical advice from founders who have built B2B service/advisory businesses.
Quick background: I’m UK-based, with 14+ years across Big4 and global enterprises in cybersecurity, IT risk, controls, privacy, ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR/data protection and regulated-sector compliance.
Recently I started taking on independent advisory work with UK/EU start-ups, scale-ups and tech-led companies around security/compliance readiness and governance — mainly supporting them to achieve certification / compliance like ISO 27001, SOC 2, ISO 42001, GDPR/data protection, DORA and NIS2.
So far I have 3 customers, all through relationships/referrals.
The challenge is that now I’m delivering for those clients, I’m finding it difficult to also build a repeatable pipeline.
Initially I assumed relationship-led selling would be enough, but I’m realising that without a system, pipeline becomes very stop-start.
For those who have built a small B2B advisory / compliance / security / professional services business:
How did you create a scalable customer acquisition system without relying only on personal relationships?
I’m not trying to build a large consultancy overnight — more trying to understand how to create a simple, repeatable pipeline for a specialist advisory business without turning every week into random outreach.
Would really appreciate any practical lessons from people who have been through this.
Hope this is okay and as per rules of community otherwise let me know.