If you’ve embraced the idea of focusing your business development efforts on a short list of key relationships, you’re already ahead of the game.
But there’s one question that still trips up even seasoned professionals:
Most cybersecurity leaders have embraced AI’s obvious benefits. You’ve automated log reviews, accelerated threat detection, and improved incident response times. Your dashboards look impressive, and your team feels more efficient.
Early in my consulting career, I noticed something odd—smart, capable consultants showing up like robots. Great résumés. Fancy decks. But no humanity. No warmth. No soul. I remember sitting in a room of very senior executives as a 22-year-old with what I thought was a dumb question. My internal monologue went like this:
Your calendar assistant nudges an internal meeting 15 minutes later. An AI tax module files the firm’s quarterly return with a digit off. Both lean on AI. One slip just shuffles a coffee break; the other invites the IRS and torches your reputation. So which jobs can roll on autopilot and which stay human-led?
Multiple rocket stages are an apt metaphor for exploring the free scaling aspects of small teams. As the number of small teams expands in the first stage, it reaches a tipping point around 7 to 9 teams where a second stage forms, requiring another small team of up to 7 to 9 team members to govern and manage the other teams. The second stage allows the professional services firm to scale to around 100 employees. To scale to around 1000 employees, a third stage of another small team is necessary to govern and manage the earlier two stages of small teams of small teams. These stages can be added iteratively so long as small teams can collaborate effectively with an overarching shared purpose with minimal friction. This is the fractal nature of layering small teams in a free scaling structure.
When I was growing up, I watched my uncle, Greg Alexander, do something remarkable. He didn’t just build a successful consulting firm. He built a launchpad.
Sales Benchmark Index, SBI, started as a professional services firm dedicated to sales effectiveness. But over time, it became much more than that. It became a proving ground for ambitious professionals who would later lead and found some of the most respected firms in the consulting industry.
And yet, very few professional services firms do it well (or at all).
As professional services owners, we’re wired to solve problems and deliver results. But between daily firefighting and pursuing big goals, we can lose sight of something equally important: actually enjoying the work we’re doing and the relationships we’re building.
I’ve been with Collective 54 for a little over three years now.
In that time, I’ve supported hundreds of founders and executives as they look to make more money, make scaling easier, and ultimately make an exit achievable.
Working alongside these leaders, and learning from my peers, mentors, and coaches, has felt like earning a real-world MBA. That kind of education is only possible because of the opportunities I have here.
Business is fast, competitive, and always evolving. Whether you’re managing a small team or running a multimillion-dollar firm, being great at your craft isn’t enough. You’ve got to lead, grow, adapt, and keep up with the speed of change in tech, talent, and expectations. And let’s be real—knowing when to pivot is just as important as knowing how.
For consulting and professional services firms, the first 100 days of a client engagement are make-or-break. This early phase sets the foundation for everything that follows—building connection and credibility, aligning expectations, surfacing hidden risks, and accelerating results. At Empactful Advisors, we approach this critical window not as “ramp-up time,” but as a deliberate opportunity to deliver value, build trust, and shape long-term success.