Accountability is often viewed as a system of enforcement—a way to ensure that tasks are completed, and responsibilities are upheld. However, true accountability does not emerge from mandates alone; it is the natural result of a well-structured organizational environment.
Ask any founder of a boutique professional services firm what sets them apart, and you’ll almost always hear the same thing: “Our people.” They’ll tell you they have senior talent. That their team has worked on the client side. That they bring unmatched experience to the table. And in many cases, they’re right. The pride is real, and the team is strong.
Every founder enters the Valley of Death with a dream—few make it out alive. It’s not the market that kills most firms. It’s the founder. Or more precisely: the founder’s refusal to change. Here’s what it takes to survive the transition from growth to scale—and come out wealthier on the other side.
Writing everything down seems so simple in concept, but it’s harder to execute. The path to oblivion is paved with good intentions. “Dang, I should have written that down a month ago…” There’s four main reasons in our business that I write everything down.
There’s a lot packed into this foundational truth. (First, I’ll say that it’s not scientific. I don’t really know the actual percentages. But I do know that a small percentage of folks in the workforce occupy a bigly disproportionate amount of management’s time.)
Most professional services firms generate 90% of their leads from just five channels, yet surprisingly few have a repeatable system to consistently capture these opportunities. If your boutique professional services firm struggles with predictable revenue growth, it’s likely because you haven’t fully optimized these critical sales channels.
A proven blueprint for professional services leaders who want to turn delivery into differentiation .“You’re the first consultant that made my team feel like I knew what was actually going on day to day. Compared to (competitor), I’m glad you asked questions early, and gave me updates often. ”That’s what a client told me after just two weeks of working together. They weren’t praising a breakthrough insight or a brilliant feature. They were talking about our disciplined process — and the relief it gave them.
I’ve been fortunate to pioneer prospecting on LinkedIn—a category I dubbed Social Selling. Over the years, sales tactics have evolved. Some became obsolete. Others? Timeless. Here are the three outbound sales plays we consistently run for our Pro Services customers (C54 members just like you)—and I highly recommend you turn them on ASAP:
Peace and profits come through clarity. That’s why in 2025, our company, Interview Valet, updated one of our core values. It’s something we had all known in our gut, even if we hadn’t yet put words to it: “Heck Yes or No.” We borrowed the phrase from Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby, who popularized it as a decision-making compass in a book and TED Talk. The idea is as simple as it is powerful: if something (or someone) isn’t a “heck yes,” then it’s a no.
Growing a boutique professional services firm can feel like flying blind. You’re hiring more people and chasing more projects, but somehow it’s getting harder to see where all the effort is going. Many founders and members that I speak with admit they’ve been scaling without the clarity of hard data or many measurable metrics. Here’s one for you.. I won’t name names but I spoke with a founder this month doing $24M in revenue that asked me what EBITDA meant.
