You’re Delivering Too Much: Why Simpler = Stronger
Are you trying to impress your clients by doing more? It might be hurting your business and slowing your growth and scale journey.
Scale
Why We Fail to Scale
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?
Picking the Moment to Scale Your Boutique
In the early days of building a professional services firm, the allure of scaling can be hard to resist. The vision of a thriving, self-sustaining company is compelling, but scaling too soon is the number one startup killer. Even in the best-case scenario, premature scaling can force you to backtrack or even start over.
Strategic Tools, Systematic Growth: The Power of Professional Services Diagnostics
We all know the story: owners who built successful firms through deep personal involvement struggling to scale beyond themselves. If you’re reading this, you’ve likely already recognized this challenge in your own firm. The question isn’t whether to address owner dependency – it’s how to do it systematically.
Why Sabbaticals Could Be the Key to Unlocking Your Firm’s Scalability and Value
Since college, I have been a hustle-and-grind professional. It only got worse when I became an entrepreneur and ran my own show. I’d never taken more than a week-long vacation. Then recently, in September 2024, I took a huge leap and embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey: hiking the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route spanning 500 miles from the Pyrenees in France to northwest Spain. My wife and I hiked it in 26 days, carrying everything we needed on our backs. While it started as a personal adventure, it became a transformative experience for me and unexpectedly for my company.
Back-Office Transformation: A Professional Services CEO’s Journey to Unified Operations
As the CEO of a boutique professional services firm providing outsourced finance, accounting, and HR consulting services, I’ve always advised clients on operational excellence. Yet, like many professional services leaders, I found myself managing a complex web of disparate systems in our own back office. This is the story of how transforming our technology stack not only streamlined our operations but also delivered unexpected benefits that have revolutionized how we serve our clients.
Harnessing AI to Redefine Scale in Professional Service Firms: A Blueprint for the New Era of Profit
The professional services industry has long faced an inherent challenge: scaling the business without proportionally scaling costs. Historically, every new client, project, or engagement has come with its own set of variable expenses, from employee time to specialized expertise. The arrival of artificial intelligence (AI), however, promises to turn this dynamic on its head by reducing the marginal cost of adding a new client to zero—or close to it. This shift is a game-changer, especially for firms in consulting, law, accounting, and other advisory domains where people have traditionally driven performance.
Embracing The Fear – Learning to Grab Ahold of My New Responsibilities as a Founder
Timing is everything. I became a firm shareholder just weeks before the start of the Great Recession. Years later, I became the sole owner. After stabilizing the firm after the exit of my majority partner, COVID-19 hit. Talk about bad luck. During those times, I was confident in the direction of the firm. Just keep spending time meeting client expectations. I wasn’t afraid – I was energized. My reward would be the eventual sale of my business.
From Undervalued to Unstoppable: How to Price Your Expertise
I get it – most professional services companies get paid for what they do rather than what they get done. The uncomfortable truth is that you are producing much more value than you are being paid for. All to say this: Your company can and should be compensated better for what you do – and it’s your fault that you’re not. That’s Ok, you can also fix it.
Don’t Lose Another Prospect: How to Scale Content for the Modern Buying Journey
I attended a B2B conference a while ago and learned an interesting fact about today’s buyer journey.
It came up in a conversation with the founder of a marketing agency and a key member of Google’s team responsible for digital marketing certifications. They shared that today’s buyers need up to 27 touchpoints before making a purchase decision.
What immediately popped into my head was the time and effort needed to provide these touchpoints. This was quickly followed by the thought that scaling content could not only foster this journey but also drive business growth.