One of the toughest transitions for consulting firm owners is letting go of client work. It’s easy to worry that stepping back might jeopardize client relationships you’ve spent years cultivating. After all, clients often come to us for our expertise and personal touch. But holding on too tightly to client work can actually hinder growth—for your firm, your team, and even your clients.
Nick Saban, one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, famously preaches that success comes from focusing on the process rather than the outcome. While this philosophy works well on the football field, business operates under a different set of rules. Unlike football, where plays and strategies are highly controlled, the business world is filled with unpredictable variables. That’s why, as leaders, we must prioritize outcomes over processes while still respecting the importance of a strong operational foundation.
In today’s fast-paced, digitally-transformed business landscape, particularly within the consulting industry, the concept of time off—or Paid Time Off (PTO)—has become a linchpin in the realm of employee satisfaction and firm culture. For boutique consulting firm founders crafting an effective and competitive time-off policy is not just an administrative task—it’s a strategic tool.
As founders of professional services firms, C54 members know the value of every hour. Most feel they simply do not have enough hours in the week. Many admit that they do not get around to business development because they are wired, even trained to dislike “sales”, so when they look at their calendar, any other option seems more attractive. So today let’s talk about how to get the best leverage out of your business development time even if you hate selling.
The biggest deals of any small to mid-sized company are closed by the founder. Period.
In principle I don’t like this fact. If I hire salespeople, pay them well, give them a target for growth and larger sales, I expect them to close the deals. It’s their job, right? I hear from founders of companies frequently their frustration that, “I have to close all of the big sales myself.” It’s an obvious desire to delegate, but on big sales, it doesn’t work that way.
In any business an accurate forecast is one of the most valuable things one can achieve. An accurate forecast is the basis of effective resources planning and reduction of risk in the business. As we think about recruiting, hiring, and resources without an accurate forecast, our plans are merely guesses. Many of us are also thinking about maximizing our exit valuation. The ability to forecast accurately reduces business risk significantly thereby increases business value.
The business world is flooded with theories that claim to drive growth, improve efficiency, and maximize profit. Many of these theories emerge from product-based companies, tech startups, manufacturing firms, and consumer goods giants, where scaling is a matter of producing and distributing more units. However, when these same theories are applied to service firms, they often fall flat. Why? Because professional services businesses operate on fundamentally different principles: expertise, client relationships, and human capital.
As a founder, you’ve poured your heart and soul into building your professional services firm. You’ve navigated countless challenges, celebrated hard-won victories, and perhaps have reached a point where you realize you can’t do it all alone. Many founders find themselves becoming bottlenecks, which directly impacts both growth and profitability.
If you want to scale your business beyond founder-led sales (and let’s be honest, which one of us in C54 doesn’t?) You’ll need to come face-to-face with a three letter acronym: CRM.
Owners of boutiques are either focused on growing, scaling or exiting their Proserv firms. This post is focused on those owners looking to scale their firms. Many of us struggle to scale, even after years of positive growth. I have heard this from many of my peers in Collective 54. I have experienced it myself. So what’s the problem? Why do we fail to scale?
