Another in our short series of emails about building a “life-friendly” business today.

Last time we talked about the first type of high-leverage business model – charging rockstar fees.

The second high-leverage model is leverage through people.

This is the traditional professional service firm pyramid model where as your business grows you take on staff to perform more of the client work.

This model has stood the test of time over hundreds of years. It provides a high level of leverage for the firm's partners through the margin charged on more junior staff who carry out the day-to-day work.

Whether it's a great model for clients is a question for another day. But there's no doubt it provides a high income for partners, significantly beyond what they'd be able to achieve from their own fees alone.

However, it does have a number of disadvantages and it's not the high-leverage model I'd recommend for most.

Firstly, your time switches over from focusing on client work to managing others. And the emphasis of your skill set needs to switch from your core expertise to the skills of managing and hiring.

The requirements for marketing become greater too. Rather than just needing to be able to bring in work for yourself, each partner needs to bring in enough work to feed all the staff in their pyramid.

Many people enjoy that switch in emphasis. But if your goal is just to do the client work you love and get paid well for it then taking on staff isn't a great model. You'll end up spending your time doing the kind of stuff you don't enjoy while watching your staff do the work you love instead.

And most worryingly, in all my experience, I've never seen a professional service firm partner who doesn't work incredibly long hours. And for many, this has a damaging impact on their home life too.

Taking on staff is the default option many take when they're trying to grow. But frankly, while the pyramid leverage model can lead to high income, I don't think it leads to the kind of freedom and control (and frankly, fun) that I'm looking for in my business.

So I'd be very cautious about going down that route if you have similar goals yourself.

Next time I'll look at the third type of leveraged business model (and one I do recommend) – creating products to complement your services.