Building a sales team inside of a consulting firm is hard. However, it is a requirement if a firm is going to scale beyond a Founder-led lifestyle business. Adding to the difficulty, is the need to go through an expensive and time-consuming trial and error period. It takes patience and many experiments before a firm figures out what works for them.
Running a lifestyle business can lull a Founder to sleep. The days, weeks, months, and years pass by as you are “doing just fine”. Then, one day, you are in your mid-50s, and realize you cannot retire, and after all these years, you don’t have much to show for your life’s work. What then? On this episode, Tad McIntosh, President at HumCap, shares how after 20+ years he is trying to convert a lifestyle business into something he can scale, and sell, someday.
Previous sessions often revolve on how to exit a professional service firm. What if we flip the script and discuss how to scale by purchasing professional service firms? On this episode, Colton Hathaway, VP of Technology at Northern Commerce, shares how their firm was created through a merger, and how they have grown by acquiring other firms.
Productizing a service seems scary and many Founders of service firms do not know where to start. As soon as you have decided to capitalize on it, productizing your service can lead to fast growth and large scale. On this episode, Nish Parikh, CEO at Rangam Consultants, funneled cash from his staffing firm into the development of a product called Talent Arbor. As a result of this innovation, Nish is helping those on the Autism spectrum build rewarding careers. Join Nish and hear how leading with empathy drives innovation and impact.
The yield of a boutique is the ultimate measure of productivity. Yield is simply the average fee per hour times the average utilization rate. For example, $400/hour x 75% utilization rate = a yield of $300/hour. Increase yield and make more money. But, how? One effective technique is to tech automate service delivery. On this episode, Ehsan Mirdamadi, Partner & CEO at NuBinary, explains that small service firms can now afford to tech automate service delivery by leveraging a fractional CTO (Chief Technology Officer).
Listen to this episode and learn how the fractional executive model has entered the technology office. Many Collective 54 members use fractional finance, HR, IT, and Legal executives. Now, they have the opportunity to leverage fraction technology executives. And those that do will see an increase in yield.
In a post-Covid world, does geography still matter? Should you pursue clients, and employees, based on where they reside? It used to signal to clients that you were legit when your name was on a building downtown. Is this still true? On this episode, Ashok Sivanand, CEO at Integral, shares how he thinks geography is still a mission critical element of strategy, but not for the reasons you might think. He moved to Detroit and is building a firm based on mid-western values. And it is these values, concentrated in this geography, which is contributing to his success. Hear from Ashok his remarkable story which started with him driving a forklift in a factory during the graveyard shift.
Key employee risk is a very real threat to founders of boutique professional services firms. Small, people driven businesses are overly dependent on key employees. If a key employee resigns, the pain inflicted on the owner is intense, and the financial impact on the income statement is large. On this episode, Kimberly Kraemer, CEO at Waterhouse Brands, shares how she suffered the loss of a key employee and how she survived it. In addition, hear how Kim re-engineered her firm to prevent this from ever happening again.
Boutique professional service firms need to listen to their clients intentionally. One effective way to do that is a client advisory board. On this episode, Luke Johnson, CEO & Co-owner at Katalyst shares how he launched a client advisory board recently. Luke shares the early benefits, some mistakes to avoid, and how, exactly, he runs his.
Generating revenue from sources other than the billable hour is a key part of scaling a consulting firm. On this episode, Robin Way, Founder & CEO at Corios, shares how he is generating revenue from training products, licensing tools, and generating reports. He will talk about how he went from a single source of revenue- the billable hour- to four sources of revenue.
Someday you will sell your firm. Afterall, none of us can run our firms from the afterlife. When your time to exit comes, you will need to know what your firm is worth. The tool often used to calculate a purchase price is called a QOE, or the quality of earnings report. On this episode, QOE expert Elliott Holland, Founder & CEO at Guardian Due Diligence, will help founders understand what a QOE is, when it is needed, who creates one, how it gets used, and why founders need to get familiar with it.
