As professional services owners, we know the importance of having a strategic plan. We spend considerable time each year crafting thoughtful annual plans, setting ambitious but achievable goals, and mapping out the path forward. But here’s what I’ve learned over the years: the real challenge isn’t creating the plan—it’s keeping it alive and relevant throughout the year while maintaining focus on what truly matters.
There has been much talk of AI-Generated “Workslop” after a recent HBR article made headlines. Like most things AI, the issue is not new, but it’s magnified and faster…. Slop with a new name and a Ferrari engine.
Most founders think growth comes from more leads, new offers, or better sales tactics. But one of the most powerful growth tools is already sitting inside your firm: the post-project review.
For founders of professional services firms, growth cannot depend solely on chasing new logos. The most sustainable path to scale comes from expanding within your existing accounts. Many founders in Collective54 tell me that Account growth is critical, and has historically been their top growth lever. But it’s not predictable, and seems like it’s very much customer driven – not sales driven. Account growth delivers higher margins, lowers client acquisition cost, and creates fertile ground for referrals and reputation.
Whether you love it, hate it, or try to pretend it doesn’t exist, generative AI is out there changing the way people buy just about everything. If you think it hasn’t made its way into the B2B buying cycle just yet, I’m here to share some very recent data points that say otherwise.
For decades, professional services firms have survived, and even thrived, on founder dependency. The founder was the rainmaker, the strategist, the client-saver. Clients bought you. Deals closed because of you. Delivery worked because of you. In Era 1 and Era 2, this model slowed scale but didn’t always kill you. You could grind harder, hire around the edges, and keep going.
When we started expanding SureStep internationally in 2009, the world looked very different. The G7 dominated global economics, the US dollar reigned supreme, and “going global” seemed like a straightforward extension of domestic success. Fast-forward to 2025, and nearly everything about international expansion has changed.
If you run a boutique professional services firm, you’ve likely felt the ground shift under your feet: slower inbound, elongated cycles, clients insourcing, price pressure from AI, and teams stretched thin. The symptoms are familiar; the diagnosis varies. This post offers a practical, founder-friendly playbook, rooted in Greg Alexander’s The Boutique and fresh insights from fellow C54 founders, to stabilize revenue, rebuild momentum, and emerge stronger.
In May, I argued that 2026 growth planning has to start journey-first—not budget-first. Map how buyers actually discover, evaluate, and choose you; then align teams and targets to that reality.
As a professional services firm grows, a critical shift occurs. The charismatic energy and work ethic that powered you in the early days must evolve into a more systematic and scalable form of leadership. While focus is needed on financial, sales and operational execution, the true engine of sustainable growth often lies in a known but poorly executed element: communication.