Tag: the boutique

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Episode 62 – Fee Quality: Transform Income into Wealth – Member Case with Tony Mirchandani

All revenue is not good revenue. Some types of revenue create more wealth for owners than others. On this episode, we interview Tony Mirchandani, CEO at RTM Engineering Consultants to discuss his approach to consultation fee quality.

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:15] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis Collective 54 Advisory Board member and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that all revenue is not good revenue. Some types of revenue create more wealth for owners than others. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing Tony Mirchandani, CEO at RTM Engineering Consultants. RTM serves architects, developers and owners to produce sustainability, construction quality and streamline schedules on each project. An extensive set of capabilities has allowed RTM to deliver superior work on industrial, commercial and retail builds, as well as well as other complex building types such as health care and laboratory facilities. You can find Tony rtmec.com. Tony, great to see you and welcome. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:01:34] Thank you. It’s great to be here. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:36] And it sounds like you’ve had an extraordinary busy four days with your in-person team meeting, so we’ll run through this. So Tony, let’s start with an overview. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of how all revenue is not good revenue? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:01:53] Absolutely. Earlier in my career, I would have thought a $100000 cell would be equal to another $100000 cell and think the real differentiator between the two is what’s the profit margin on that going to be? But the reality of it is being in professional services. We have to have a continuous backlog of projects and want to have the opportunity to be able to improve the actual product that we’re pushing out. Mm-Hmm. So having revenue that is driven by surfaced, in our case, sophisticated buyers, buyers that are willing to start at the $100000 mark and then continuously increase that amount as time’s going on. If we’re able to produce have the desire and the need based on the product that we’re pushing out. Actually allows them to continue to build their business if their business does not require the services we have on a multitude of years, that revenue that we’re driving really becomes it becomes a one trick pony ride and we have to go out and sell again. 

Sean Magennis [00:03:03] Right. So that becomes bad revenue. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:03:06] Exactly, exactly. And then the cost to go out and win that next hundred thousand dollar job takes away from that first one versus one, that’s going to be basically having a recurring revenue stream as best we can. 

Sean Magennis [00:03:20] That is such a great example to kick us off. And what I’d like to do is get your thoughts on some of the best practices we recommend in this area. Now there are many I’ve selected for specific things that I’ll walk you through and then get your thoughts on each. So the first one is high fee quality comes from a proper balance of fees from new and existing clients. A rough rule of thumb that we use as a 60:40 split. So 60 per cent of fees hopefully sourced from existing clients and 40 per cent fees source from new clients. What is your experience and thoughts in this area, Tony? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:03:59] I completely agree with that. I think every year we should be turning over some of our clients and being able to rank those and whatever that internal ranking is, as long as it’s tied to whatever your end game is. Yeah. So internally, we see it more around an 80 20 rule. But our clients take a six to 12 month onboarding period before we actually receive true revenue from them. And it takes about 24 months to unwind a client that we don’t want to work for anymore. So that slow cycle, we have to be very selective in who we want to have as our next client. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:33] That’s an that’s an outstanding example. And you know, again, each firm is going to have slightly differences. So your 80:20 works in your scenario and with your 24 hour, you know, move off cycle that requires that requires some careful management, I would imagine. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:04:54] Yeah, absolutely. Because we’re in the construction business, right? And anything that we design, it’s going to it’s going to take another 12 to 24 months to unwind and that can actually drag us down during that time period. But also as we’re as we’re building the internal team and we’re evolving in the marketplaces that we operate in, we’re becoming more and more sophisticated in the kind of clients that we can drive true value from. I see it is there’s there’s two kinds of real revenue out there. There’s revenue that we add value to and then there’s revenue that is just the client is required. It’s like being attacked, things permit documents. They have to hire someone to do it. Yeah, we try to avoid that type. We try to find clients that need to partner with us. 

Sean Magennis [00:05:41] And that’s the key driver is finding those partners that you can truly add value to. And it’s not commoditized stuff that anybody could do what they could do internally, right? Exactly, exactly. So the next question is potential buyers want to see long term contracts with clients. For instance, the management consulting firm that performs 30 day strategy assessments. Arguably has poor fee quality. However, the boutique that performs assessments, solution development and implementation and can do 12 24 months 36 months contracts. These firms have high fee quality. What do you what are your thoughts on that? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:06:22] I absolutely agree with that, and I just think in certain industries such as ours and a lot of our colleagues, it’s hard to get a consistent 36 month type contract. But by identifying the right client with the right revenue cycle, you’re able to get a project that might take 12 months, but the next project is going to start in six months. So suddenly you get these overlapping projects and the better job we do, the more dependent our client actually becomes on us, the more dependent we can become on our client. And one of the great things that Greg Alexander’s talked about is how do you reduce your internal cost as you become more of an expert with a particular client? We’re able to do that on the third, fourth, fifth engagement, especially if they have overlapping cycles. 

Sean Magennis [00:07:10] That that is a brilliant point. And I’m presuming that you can train lower cost experts in order to take on that work because you’ve actually you’ve gotten yourself an expertize and then have your higher order. You know, start with clients fresh that need that additional expertize. Is that the right way to look at it? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:07:29] That absolutely is the right way to look at it. And there’s another side benefit to that is we’re always looking to bring on new staff and our senior staff may get bored on the third or fourth projects. That becomes a new opportunity to train and retain new great talent, while giving the senior talent some new opportunities to pursue new challenges. 

Sean Magennis [00:07:49] Yeah. Outstanding. Again, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Number three is after analyzing new versus existing clients, as well as length of contracts. Typically, when a person values a firm, they’ll look at fee predictability and a boutique who services build on one another is very attractive. And you’ve just said that in your in your previous remarks. So these boutiques often produce high fee quality due to better predictability. Is that something you’d agree with as well? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:08:20] Yeah, I would I would definitely agree with that. And another piece of that is the predictability and the the avenues that you were able to actually receive that revenue. So it’s there’s the normal linear cycle. Yes. And as we’re adding a new services, we’re able to go downstream. So we’re getting engaged earlier, for instance, with civil engineering and then commissioning services, we’re on the job another six months. And that longevity with the client not only is tying into the same sales cycle, but it’s creating more opportunities for overlap and without needing to go out and have another cold sale. 

Sean Magennis [00:08:59] It’s brilliant. It’s almost like going back to go forward, to go long. Right? I mean, that’s the way that exactly. Yeah, it’s it’s really smart. So number four, buyers often examine fee quality based on cash collections. So boutiques that have aging accounts receivables and they’re not collecting quickly enough. Typically, you would say that that’s pure fee quality. In contrast, boutiques that are paid up front or have really good cash collection, they have high fee quality. So free cash flow is a big positive. What do you think on this subject? I know that you have an opinion here. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:09:36] Unfortunately, I do, and this is where we have really struggle and we’ve definitely not excelled as well as we have a very large collection cycle. Yeah. So as a buyer of companies also, we’ve found that anyone that we’re looking to buy that has a shorter collection cycle than us will pay a higher premium than we will if they’ve got the same or a longer cycle. And we’ve spent a lot of effort internally looking for ways to be able to shorten that collection cycle. And it’s a very hard thing to do just because of the space that we happen to be in. So I would advise anyone out there if you have the opportunity to look at revenue and pick revenue based on how long it’s going to take for the collection space or an upfront retainer, that revenue is definitely worth more. And sometimes it’s worth a slightly smaller margin. If you’re highly assured of the collection piece or you get paid part of it upfront because that’s that’s really your fuel for growth. Otherwise, you have to go out and borrow and 

Sean Magennis [00:10:35] borrow and take on equity expense of capital. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:10:38] Exactly. 

Sean Magennis [00:10:38] Yeah. So and really a brilliant point, and I hope our listeners are taking this as a fine point because Tony also buys companies. And so, you know, please listeners, cash flow and your ability to prove your cash flow. You know, when presenting yourself to a potential buyer is critical because Tony’s just said, you know, he’ll seek out shorter collection cycle businesses and pay a premium to get those business because they’ve got their cash flow acts together. So, Tony, thank you that for our listeners, is really important to hear. So we’ve done these four things one balance four years from new and existing clients to develop long term contracts. Three Build fee predictability with add on services. And I liked your point. But going back to go forward, start, you know, and then and build it through the cycle and four critically manage your air to create key free cash flow. This will increase feed quality and as a result, convert income into wealth. Anything else, Tony, that we missed out that you’d like to bring to the attention of our listeners? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:11:52] There’s one new thing that I’ve discovered lately that actually came through Collective 54, which is pricing strategy. Yes, and about 10 years ago, pricing in most industries, law, accounting, engineering, architecture was really based on your cost of goods sold and what the marketplace would bear. And that seemed like normal MBA approach to pricing. But currently we have started to see a much deeper level of sophistication and actual experts in the end in industries consulting to us on pricing strategy and different ways to approach different market verticals with the exact same service. And suddenly that that is opened up a number of new opportunities for us and a different perspective of thinking about pricing strategy. I really see that as the next true frontier for professional services. And I would say it’s it’s probably one of the most inefficient components of our business and most service businesses. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:55] You know, I couldn’t agree with you more and thank you for for saying that and for bringing that to the listener’s attention. I was on a on a podcast recently where one of our members has actually adopted a pricing console within their business that they have that an internal team that gets together on a very regular basis, and then they invite a client into the council to talk to them about, you know, the ROI that they’re receiving and and they do that on a consistent basis because every client relationship is nuanced, it’s different. And then they do the cross comparison, but because they doing it and they formalized this pricing counsel, I thought that was a genius move. And it and it and it literally aligns well to your comment about this new learning. So thank you. That’s that’s really great additional input. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:13:43] It’s great to hear about that other client, too. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:44] Isn’t it good? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:13:46] Yeah, that’s awesome. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:47] So listen and I’d be happy to put you in touch with him because he’s developed it and it sounds like it’s working really well for them. So, Tony, this takes us to the end of the episode. Let’s try to help our listeners apply this. We end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows the listener to apply the lessons to his or her firm, and our preferred tool is a checklist style of checklist is a yes, no question. We aim to keep it simple by asking only 10 questions, so listeners ask yourself these 10 questions. If you answer yes to eight or more, you have high fee quality. Tony has graciously agreed to be our peer example today. And Tony, I’ll simply ask you these questions and say yes or no. If you feel like you need to add to a question, go ahead and do it. So let’s kick it off. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:40] Number one, do you generate about 60 percent of your fees from existing clients? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:14:48] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:49] Number two, do you generate approximately 40 per cent of your fees from new clients? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:14:56] No. Slightly less. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:58] Yours is the 8-20 right now. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:15:00] Exactly, exactly. I think the important thing is you set an amount. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:04] Exactly. Number three, is the average client contract longer than 12 months? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:15:12] Yes. Absolutely. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:14] Number four, do your projects naturally build on one another? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:15:21] Yes, they do. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:23] Number five, is your service built to pull through upsell? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:15:30] It is and that I’d like to put some color around. He started as a single discipline engineering firm. And as we grew both organically and through acquisition, we found that instead of adding to that single discipline, adding other disciplines that we can pull up or we can put in after our contracts are in place have become exceptionally advantageous and increase the stickiness and the repetition of client interaction. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:58] Excellent, Tony. And this dovetails into the next question is your service designed to pull through cross-sell? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:16:06] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:08] You’ve got your upsell and you’ve got your cross-sell. Great number seven. Are your fees predictable? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:16:16] No bathroom far from. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:17] Hmm. OK. Number eight. Do you collect your fee in advance of performing the work? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:16:25] No, this is our biggest challenge. We it’s traditional and our competitors always bill after the fact. Yeah, and that’s that’s one of the biggest downsides to the business. I mean we need to break that mold. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:37] Well, we’re here to help you break that mold because that would change the game for you, right? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:16:42] Oh, 100 percent, our business would be scaling three times faster if we were paid up front instead of on the back end. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:49] Excellent. Number nine, can you fund your growth from free cash flow? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:16:57] We have historically funded our growth, so yes, we can, but we could. Our growth is limited because of cash flow nonetheless. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:05] Right. And this historical problem you have on the payment side of your business. 

Tony Mirchandani [00:17:10] Absolutely. OK. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:12] Number ten, can you pay the bills without using debt? 

Tony Mirchandani [00:17:18] Yes. Yes, we do. We have a healthy margins where we can do that. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:22] Brilliant. Tony, thank you. I mean, this is exactly it, just extraordinary. So in summary, all revenue is not good revenue. There are good fees and there are bad fees. Good fees attract buyers. When you go to sell your business, they increase the value of your firm and they improve your odds of exiting should you decide to do that. Bad fees could push buyers away. They do decrease the value of your firm, and they’ll likely prevent you from selling at a price that you would like. Tony, a huge thank you. And I know that you’ve been extraordinarily busy for sharing your wisdom and experiences today.

If you enjoyed the show and want to learn more, pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the professional services firm written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support, check out Collective 54 the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening. 

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Episode 61 – Yield: The Ultimate Measure of Productivity – Member Case with Aaron Levenstadt

Yield is the ultimate measure of productivity for professional services firms. On this episode, we interview Aaron Levenstadt, Founder and CEO of Pedestal Search and discuss how he uses yield to manage his firm.

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:15] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis Collective 54 Advisory Board member and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that yield is the ultimate measure of productivity. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing Aaron Levenstadt, founder and CEO of Pedestal Search Pedestal, is a marketing technology company and data driven search engine marketing platform founded by former Google employees. Pedestal create systems and processes to help businesses better leverage internet search engines as a growth channel. You can find Aaron and his business on pedestalsearch.com. Aaron, great to see you and welcome. 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:01:17] Thanks, Sean, it’s good to be sharing this conversation with you. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:21] Likewise, it’s great to have you. So today we’re going to discuss one of the most often looked at metrics in all of professional services, yield. A reminder to our audiences that the definition of yield is simply the average fee per hour, times the average utilization rate of the team. For instance, if a boutiques average fee per hour is $400 and the average utilization rate is 75 percent, then the yield is $300 per hour. Aaron, let’s start with an overview. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of how you think about and manage yield? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:02:02] Yes, certainly. So we keep track of yield, but we don’t obsess over it. And by keep track, I mean, we look at utilization for our team members individually as a collective, as a company. Yes. And also on a per account basis, we think of yield attributed to an account. And although we know that it actually should be the most looked at metric, I want to start off on this piece, we don’t obsess over it. Rather, we focus on and we think a lot about how to source technology and actions from our team members that are value drivers for our clients. So that yield becomes less of a focal point. And we’ve found that over time, focusing too much on yield can lead to some inherent scalability gaps. On the other hand, If we can shift our focus to where we can open up value, that can allow us to create a significant gap between each counts of utilization. Yes, and value created. 

Sean Magennis [00:03:08] Outstanding, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. So what I’d like to do is get your thoughts on some of the best practices that we recommend in this area. So there, four specific things, I’ll walk you through and then have you share your thoughts on each. So the first one is the typical boutique runs of an assumption of a 40 hour workweek, a 48 week year that equates to nineteen hundred and seventy two hours per employee, and using our early example at $300 per hour. The boutique will do five hundred seventy six thousand in revenue per employee, a 100 person firm. Let’s say with this yield, we’ll do fifty seven point six million in annual revenue. So understanding yield means you understand how much you can scale to. It establishes a ceiling. What are your thoughts on this concept Aaron? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:04:00] Yeah, so that exactly where we last left off on the ceiling, so the way that we think about it is instead of sort of focusing on the ceiling, which is defined exactly by the yield equation, if you think about it from that perspective, yes, we think instead of us deploying program stocks as opposed to hours or manpower that generate value, tech driven by great people. And in that way, yield becomes less of a focus and we shift the focus to how to drive value throughout our engagements. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:39] I like that. So deploy program stack and shift to the value rather than exclusively focus on yield. Have I got that right? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:04:49] That’s exactly right Sean. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:50] Excellent. So the second one is we contend that most firms, when they try to scale, they’ve reached a point of sort of diminishing returns on utilization rates. And we feel this way because there’s only so much juice to squeeze out of the 40 hour workweek and the 48 week year. What’s your opinion on this? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:05:12] So I think I think, you know, you’re exactly right in how how we’re thinking about this, because the economics and the way that we think about it is the economics around what we do in the way we’re working with a client. They have to work for the client. Most importantly, they also have to work within our our rubric, and we think about it that way. They can allow for scalability. Yes. In a different way than thinking about yield on the, you know, hours and then and then person in the equation. So there’s that, you know, there’s that parable of the chemist that gets called into the factory, right? The factories sprung a leak. Yeah. And the chemist walks in and looks around. He’s taken a look at the machines and he scratches his chin and he thinks, you know, he sees where the leak is coming from. He sees it. He identifies the problem. He quickly creates a chemical compound, using his knowledge to patch the leak in the factories, able to resume production. And then the factory owner calls the chemist, you know, some time later, and he says, Hey, I got your invoice here. It’s for thirty thousand dollars, but you were only here for ten minutes. And the chemist replies, Yeah, that’s right. That’s $10 for my time. And 29 990 for knowing how to fix your problem in 10 minutes. Beautiful. We try to apply that same philosophy. 

Sean Magennis [00:06:34] I mean, that really hits the nail on the head. I mean, and you know, how have you learned that lesson? I mean, you know, that’s a great parable. You know, give me give me a practical example of how you’ve done it. 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:06:47] Yeah, we’ve learned this lesson the hard way. So like, you know, I think like how a lot of us, maybe all of us learn through experiencing pain and a lot of it. And early on in the life of our business, we accepted some engagements where our clients asked bill by the hour and we we took those on those early stages of our company. You know, from a financial perspective, they weren’t. They were great. They were not great. But they also, more importantly, they were not great from an internal morale perspective because the conversations with our clients shifted to, you know, our teams were talking to our team members or talking to clients about why sixteen point three minutes was spent on that and an hour and 12 minutes was spent on this. And they just they weren’t productive, fulfilling conversations. So endured some pain learned the hard way, and we don’t do that anymore. 

Sean Magennis [00:07:46] And to your point, earlier, when you focus on value, you know, when you’ve created this, you know and deployed this program stack, you don’t have to get into that nickel and diming conversation, which is soul sucking. I agree with you, it’s it’s just not productive. So let’s turn to fees. The key to scaling in this context is to figure out how to become more valuable, which is what you’ve said. And remember, this is an equation with only two variables. Utilization rate dollars per hour. So owners of boutiques have a lot more juice to squeeze out of the dollar per hour. And in your case, maybe the value of the dollar value per stack and then impacting the dollar per hour variable. It’s just not as easy as raising prices. Clients will pay more for boutiques that bring more value to them, and this is because they turn to boutiques for specialization. What do you think about this? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:08:45] I think it resonates very well with our experience in the sense that it resonates so much that today what we do when we’re first meeting with the client, when workers starting that conversation before we’re engaged and working with them, we try to have this conversation openly and candidly at the outset. So very early on and speaking to a potential client, we will communicate and that we’re we’re a specialist, we’re not a generalist and we are going to do the way that we think about our engagements is really by how much value we can drive. 

Sean Magennis [00:09:19] Yes. Yes. Excellent, and then, you know, I guess there’s a lot of things that come into that in terms of variability. You know, and it’s really working to change sometimes the client perspective, right? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:09:35] Yeah, you want to. You want to change the client perspective, and I want to do it early on in this conversation, so it will we’ll see things in these conversations. You know, like what we do is we help you generate more productive traffic from search. Yes. As importantly, will also say what we don’t like and we’ll say things like, We don’t make pizza, we don’t shoot.  

Sean Magennis [00:10:02] Right? Yeah. Your expertize are search and by the way, with the resume of of you and your team. I mean, that would appear to be, you know, a no brainer. But reminding them of that specialty is key to creating the kind of value that will drive the fees and drive the recognition and obviously get you more business. I get that. That’s really great. So the fourth aspect in our experience, we see five forms of specialization that translate to higher fees, and they are industry specialization, function, segment problem and geography. And in our view, if you’ve got at least three of those, you truly are a specialized firm. So in your case, where are your areas of specialty? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:10:54] Yeah. So this is an area that we give a lot of thought to. I it’s an area that we’re continuing to refine as our business evolves and grows. And there’s the three that I think that stand out at sort of top of mind would be the function of the problem and the segment go function. Having worked at Google and worked on the search engine algorithm itself, we really understand that world and that’s the functionality that we want to be operating on and what we specialize in. Yes. The problem in a kind of stemming from that. So the second prong problem is really about how to unlock search discoverability, and we’ll see if things are going our conversational, the clients we don’t we’re not here to help you solve 50 different kinds of problems. We we are going to help you solve the problem that we specialize in. We know how to do how to solve for. Yes. And then the third one on our world is is segment. And the way that we think about this segment is really in terms of a profile, psychological to a certain degree, in the sense that our potential client, our partner who needs to know what they’re looking for and know that they have had some success with search and they really want to invest in building and bringing systems and processes to drive that search engine optimization motion more. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:16] Outstanding and that’s again for our listeners. You know, take this from from Aaron. When building your your firm and thinking about your specialization, be really clear, like Aaron is in terms of what what your service can offer the specific problem and don’t try and be all things to all people, I think is the ultimate lesson. Would you agree, Aaron? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:12:38] Yeah, 100 100 percent. Even on going back to a little bit about what we were talking on earlier is will remind the client when we’re talking to them both before we work with them and while we’re working. Yes, there are lots of things that we are not good at. And if you ask us to do those things, we’re going to say, no. We will fuel you with those things. I think by reminding the client of that, it reaffirms the fact that we’re not a generalist. We’re not just going to do anything that the client’s willing to pay us for. Yes, we’re nationalist and that’s what we’re here to help them with. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:18] That’s such a key point. And I’m I’m assuming that during the course of your journey, you found that at some point it was difficult to say no to client coming you for two for business, right? So scoping is important and really having the professional integrity to say no is key. What do you think about that? 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:13:36] I cannot agree more. Also learned through enduring pain and pain. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:45] Exactly, you learn. That’s how we learn. 

Aaron Levenstadt [00:13:48] Yeah. So yeah, we’ve taken on some work that you know early on that we should not have diverged from our land of expertize from, you know, the thing that we’ve done hundreds of times in doing successfully. And now we’re more careful about that. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:03] Outstanding. And this is so helpful. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. I’ve learned several additional aspects to the importance of managing yield. I like the way you presented your business in terms of the technology and the value aspect. So this takes us to the end of this episode. And as is customary, we end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows the listener to apply the lessons to his or her firm. Our preferred tool is a checklist, and our style of checklist is a yes or no questionnaire. We aim to keep it simple by asking only 10 questions. And in this instance, if you answer yes to eight or more of these questions, you’re running a tight ship with excellent yield. If you said no too many times you have a yield problem and this will be an impediment to scaling. Given the proprietary nature of Aaron’s business, I’m not going to put Aaron on the spot with these, but I am going to read off the questions for the benefit of our listeners. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:09] So the first one is are your average utilization rates above 85 percent? Number two, senior staff above 70 percent? Number three, mid-level staff above 80 percent? Number four, junior staff above 90 percent? Number five, are your average fees above $400 per hour? Number six, are your senior staff above $750 per hour? Number seven, mid-level staff above 500? Number eight junior staff above 250? Number nine are you assuming a 48 week year and 40 hours per week? And number ten, are you distinguished from the generalist with three to five forms of specialization? 

Sean Magennis [00:16:04] So in summary, yield is the ultimate measure of productivity for professional services firms. Watch out for the trap of over rotating to utilization rates and under indexing the second variable in the equation, which is dollars per hour. Drive up your fees like Aaron, by becoming more valuable to your clients by becoming hyper specialized. If you do so, the sky is the limit on your scale potential. Aaron, a huge thank you for sharing your wisdom with us today. It’s a pleasure having you. If you enjoyed the show and want to learn more, pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell a Professional Services Firm. Written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support, check out Collective 54, the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening. 

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Episode 60– Create Wealth by Converting Client Relationships into Balance Sheet Assets – Member Case with Mike Stern

C54 member Mike Stern, CEO of Connected, shares insights on how to convert client relationships into appreciating assets to attract buyers for your firm.

TRANSCRIPT

Sean Magennis [00:00:15] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis Collective 54 Advisory Board member and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that a key to attracting a buyer to purchase your firm is your ability to prove you have healthy client relationships. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing Mike Stern, CEO at Connected. Connected is a software product development firm founded in 2014 and headquartered in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Downtown Toronto Connected was born out of the belief that a new category of firm was needed to help ambitious companies leverage the power of product, not a dev shop or a design agency or a strategic consultancy, but a uniquely integrated product development firm built for the long term and driven by a singular focus on realizing business impact through software powered products. You can find Mike at www.Connected.Io. Mike, great to see you and welcome. 

Mike Stern [00:01:41] Likewise, Sean. Thanks for having me here. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:43] It’s such a pleasure. So let’s start by getting you to give us an overview. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of how you have built a really healthy client relationship? 

Mike Stern [00:01:57] I think my favorite example is a client that we’ve been working with for six years now, so we’re a seven year old firm. And that means that they’ve been with us for the lion’s share and they’ve grown with us. They’ve seen us from our infant stage all the way to, you know, whatever we’re at today. Yes. And that’s that’s one of the reasons that that I like them. But let me just tell you a little bit about them. They are a consumer electronics company. We don’t share the names of our clients. Absolutely. I can assure you that the vast majority of your listeners own at least one of their products, and they have a long, long history of excellence in hardware engineering. But as software showed up and the internet showed up and connectivity and IoT showed up, they started to look around for some help to accelerate their learnings and help them compete in this kind of new software powered product world. And we were, I think, lucky to be at the right place, at the right time to start partnering with them early in their journey. And again early in our journey. And I think this particular client relationship is so special to us because they pushed us to get better and better and better, just as we pushed them to get better and better and better. And I think that is kind of quintessential about what great professional services client relationships are all about. Sometimes both clients and agencies think that it’s just a one way street. Yes, but really we’ve we built something symbiotic with them and and that’s been very fulfilling and it’s been, you know, profitable and helped us grow as a business as well. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:16] It’s outstanding, and I can only imagine that the reference ability of that client because you’ve developed so much and I would, I would probably say a very authentic because if they’re pushing you and you’re pushing them, that relationship that you’ve developed is is really a co-creation relationship in a way. Does that does that resonate? 

Mike Stern [00:04:37] Yes, it does. Yes it does. Some of our service offerings that we now go to market with today are the result of this client and and our team looking at new problems and coming up with creative solutions. Yes. And then, you know, allowing us to take those new service offerings to market and as we make those service offerings in the market even better than we can bring it back to this client and help them even more than than we did before. So it’s a great virtuous cycle 

Sean Magennis [00:05:12] Brilliant and congratulations. That is a perfect example to kick us off. So what I’d like to do is get your thoughts on some of the best practices that we recommend in this area. I’ll walk you through them one by one. Get your thoughts on each. And if you want to expand on them, just feel free to do so, Mike. So the first one is we contend that when getting ready to sell a boutique professional services firm, a buyer is purchasing your assets. One of your assets is your client relationships, and like all assets, they should be proactively managed and cared for so that they appreciate in value. What are your thoughts on this concept of the client as an asset of the business? 

Mike Stern [00:05:56] Well, first of all, I think it’s important for me to say just in case my team or my clients are listening. 

Sean Magennis [00:06:05] Absolutely. 

Mike Stern [00:06:06] I want to be clear that connected’s goal is not to sell. Yes, we have a uniquely long term vision with no plan of selling. But for all the other listeners, if you’re considering joining the collective, you know, I want you to know that I get so much value from this group, just simply helping me build a better firm. Yes. And and so I’d really recommend it. Thank you. Now, you know, of course, I can’t rule out that being part of another firm in the future won’t help us achieve our vision even more or help us achieve an even bigger or more exciting vision. But that’s not the plan. Yes. And so I think that’s important to. To state up front, but onto the question, so when I first heard this advice, I was actually really intrigued. You know, I think it makes sense conceptually, but like from an accounting and reporting perspective, like I was wondering, like, do firms that take this advice actually translate that into their balance sheet in terms of how they report? Like, of course, our clients are an important asset, just like our people or our IP. But I was intrigued and then I went to my CFO and I asked her about this and she hadn’t heard about it before. Yes. And so, yeah, frankly, you know, we we have not done this, but I’m curious to learn more about it, and I’m looking forward to conversations in the collective about it. 

Sean Magennis [00:07:50] Yeah. You know, and you bring up a really interesting point. You know, it’s not so much from a it’s not so much a financial putting it on the balance sheet as a financial category because that that’s not commonplace. It’s a it’s a mindset shift so that when you are creating the kind of value that one day whether you decide to sell your firm or not, but to create enterprise value, if you’re a partner model, you decide to bring in other members of your management team into it. It’s clearly being able to articulate an inventory. What are the value props behind your? Your business could be your service line, your product, your uniqueness, your specialty, the way that you go to market, the example that you just gave of the six year relationship. So you’ve articulated that really well, and I want to challenge our listeners. It’s not so much to put this in your in the financial context on your balance sheet, but truly think of your clients from an industry inventory perspective as assets and not just as you know, numbers on a balance sheet because there’s far more to it than that. There’s relationships, nuances, the push on both sides that you’ve articulated so well, Mike. So that’s great. I mean, you’ve expressed that really well. The second area that I’d like you to give your thoughts on is many boutiques have really good looking financial statements. However, when you peel the covers off, some generate most of their revenue and profits from a very small number of clients. So if one of those clients were to leave the, you know, the firm or the boutiques, financials would not look great. In fact, some of them would fall apart. So we recommend being sure not to have any single client concentration equal to more than 10 percent of the billings of a firm. What do you think of this idea? 

Mike Stern [00:09:43] 100 percent agree. And I think it’s very related to the earlier point you made around clients as an asset in your mindset. Yes. Maybe not on your reporting. Like I said, we’re a seven year old firm. And I’ll share that at one point. Not too long ago, we had 85 percent concentration in just two clients. Wow. The one I spoke about before was one of them. Yes. And. In those early years, building up to where we are today, which is about one hundred and sixty five people, we were kind of fooled into thinking that we had grown up as a firm because even back then we were already, you know, over 100 people. And so we had reached that scale quickly. And a lot of folks on the outside, friends, family, they would be so impressed. But I knew that we still had so many eggs, so to speak, in just so few baskets, right? And again, this was only three years ago. So we we grew up through, you know, four years. But with that much concentration and of course, like I said, even though we looked kind of bulletproof from the outside, I hardly slept at night, you know, thinking, Oh, I know that feeling. What if? What if one or or God forbid, both clients went away? Yes. Now what’s interesting is that as an owner, I think it’s actually pretty easy to understand and feel this risk, whereas for an employee, it’s not always that obvious. Yes. And in our case, not only did we. Not only did we need to figure out how to diversify and build a scalable growth engine and build a scalable service model. We actually had to fight kind of an internal cultural inertia. Yes, as we look to diversify it, we had we had some even senior leaders who liked just having a couple of clients. Right. And that was as hard to overcome as as everything else. So, you know, on balance, we also had a lot of practitioners who wanted more from connected than just to clients to get exposure to actually. And like I said, also before we had, you know, those two clients wanted us to be more scalable to to be more sustainable and so that we could be able to bring more of that knowledge back to them, too. So working with multiple clients across multiple markets and across multiple technology platforms, I think is a big reason employees want to work at connected versus, you know, one of our our client organizations, and it’s a big reason we get hired in the first place. So long story short, I 100 percent agree that creating diversification discipline is essential yes, to creating a sustainable firm. Yes. And I think it’s also about realizing a lot of other benefits for our people and our clients. And so for me, at least right now and in my stage of business, I think it’s the most important organizational capability that matters. And the trick is to, you know, make sure you’re treating your existing clients like assets, not just always looking at the new client because diversification doesn’t mean getting good at landing new logos. It means getting good at doing both, keeping existing clients happy and helping them and getting better and better with them and landing new clients. And so that’s what we’re really focused on right now. Connected. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:37] You know, that’s brilliant, and you’ve touched on a couple of things that we’re going to get to in some of these other questions that I’m going to pose you and you know, you’ve articulated so well some of the, you know, the luxuries of only having two or three as you get really used to working with those clients, they become familiar. The risk is, is that, you know, you have relationships, maybe not at the institutional level and all of the things that you’ve just driven. So the third example and you led with this is tenure of relationships. So boutiques that generate billings from clients for years are very attractive. So this suggests that the client relationships are strong. If the boutique did not deliver value, clients would churn. They’d go elsewhere. And so a rule of thumb that we recommend is that the average client tenure should be three years or more. What is your opinion on that? 

Mike Stern [00:14:30] Yeah, another hundred percent agree. You know, and and I think it’s a it’s it’s a good principle. Yes. And of course, you want long term partnerships, not just financially, because it’s a better way to build a long term business and it’s more fulfilling. Like I said earlier, I mean, if you look at your life and you take stock of the relationships that have been most meaningful, they’re usually those that have lasted and the benefits have compounded in mutually beneficial ways. And so I think it’s the same in in professional services. There’s a little bit of nuance, of course, in that are firms. You know, I remember when I heard this, I was thinking she would like some of some of the current clients that I, you know, I think, are really the future of our firm. We’ve only been with them for one year or two years. And so I think younger firms need to figure out who they are and they need time to figure out who they are and who their ideal customers are. Yes. One of the patterns of great professional services firms that I’ve looked at is that they’ve they’ve, you know, they’ve they’ve had some stumbles figuring out who not to work with. Precisely. Yeah. Trial and error. And so, you know, I think it’s a great principle. But the exceptions are, you know what, what maybe proves the rule and you know, you shouldn’t you shouldn’t try to make every client a three year plus relationship. You should try to make the right clients three year plus relationships. And yeah, and that’s that’s something that you know again, you know, it’s very much part of what we’re what we’re working through right now, connected because we want to we want to keep our current clients for the very long term. Yes. And I think we finally found out who they they ought to be. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:39] And, you know, helping them, like you’ve said with identifying their ideal customers, helping them go through that, maybe giving them some benefit of your experience with the pain of other clients when they had similar challenges? That’s what I know you were getting at as part of your, you know, co-creation symbiotic relationship. Because you know what we have found at Collective 54. You know, we can help owners of boutique professional services firms not pay what we call the dumb tax. You know, share with you through a peer based, you know, methodology. I’ve been through this. I’ve been through at this particular pain. You don’t have to go through it quite the way I did to still get the learning and the and the benefit of the wisdom from it. So yes, thank you. That was great. The fourth one and this is also in the context of creating enterprise value for a boutique professional services firm that may one day consider selling is another meant measure of client relationship is what we call client quality. So, for instance, if your boutique generates its billings from start ups or new companies that haven’t quite figured it out, it may discourage a potential buyer from, you know, making an offer on your business. Start ups typically have a higher failure rate. Revenue from that segment may be unreliable as they figuring things out. In contrast, if you’re boutique generates its billings from the Fortune 500 or from larger enterprise players, it would encourage buyers and large enterprises are unlikely to disappear overnight. Revenues from that segment can be and are typically more reliable. What are your thoughts about this? And I know it’s a nuanced question. 

Mike Stern [00:18:26] I agree. You know, rapid growth start ups can look great from the outside or even not rapidly growing startups try to make themselves look great from the outside. Yes, but they’re usually, you know, really chaotic and less reliable than not. Mm-Hmm. And I say usually because statistically, they usually are more chaotic and less reliable. But of course, a few of them, you know, a few percentage points of all start ups, you know, of course, become, you know, the biggest companies in the marketplace over time. And so I think firms get getting a lot of trouble here if they try to work with too many startups or if they try to get too fancy on choosing the right startup or even taking equity, getting into, you know, our accounts receivable troubles. Yes. And so I’m not totally against it. Connected work with some startups usually past Series A Yes, but I’m I do want to express caution to other boutique owners are probably running startup boutiques themselves that you should tread carefully and read and make sure you’re not concentrating too much of your your your energy in that segment. And that personally, I found it. It is a segment where it can be a great place to learn, a great place to try out new offerings and to work at a clip like at a speed that is maybe faster than what larger clients might be used to. And so there’s those benefits in a number of other ones that I found from working with really, really early stage companies. But unless unless you really figured out how to, you know, pick the right ones and address a lot of the inherent issues with with that segment of customer, I think it’s important that you tread carefully and you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. 

Sean Magennis [00:20:58] Yeah, I completely agree. And then finally, a risk that, you know, again, in the context of somebody looking at the value of a firm, a key driver is employee turnover. Sometimes a key client relationship sits with a key employee. And so even from managing a firm, you know, I would want to know that these relationships are with the company, not necessarily with the employee. What do you think about this concept? 

Mike Stern [00:21:29] Yeah, I think I think it’s a really important point, and especially right now, we’re in this moment that people are describing as the great resignation. 

Sean Magennis [00:21:39] Yes, I’ve heard the term a lot. 

Mike Stern [00:21:41] Yeah. So every leader I speak with is experience experiencing more turnover than ever and up and down the organization and a lot of places where they didn’t expect. And I think it’s exposing a lot of cracks and a lot of fragility. Yes, in a lot of places, but one of them is certainly in client relationships. And so, you know, I think I think it’s really, really important that boutique owners and operators are thinking very hard about this. This advice. Yes. Sure. When I when I heard this advice, I was torn, you know, I kind of, on one hand, felt that, yes, you know, institutionalizing client relationships and diversifying the key contacts across different places in the organization is important and creating systems and CRMs and all of that great stuff to to to, you know, to to to de-risk, you know, this aspect is important. But on the other hand, you know, I think it’s really important, especially in technology services. Yeah, that you remember that you know, you’re in client service and and it is about relationships and you want, I think, as an owner and operator to advocate for deeper personal connections with clients and that that’s really, really important. And great relationships drive firm value to exactly and create more meaningful work for practitioners and more meaningful long term career relationships for practitioners. And so I think it’s another place where there’s nuance and balance and, you know, it’s a bit of art and science. It is to encourage and empower. This is closeness while doing it in a way that doesn’t lead to single points of failure. 

Sean Magennis [00:23:32] Yeah. And it’s a great risk mitigation strategy. And, you know, things like culture and, you know, the kind of environment that you set up and all of those things play in. Mike, this has been phenomenal. Your insights have really added to, you know, what we have found to be recommended practices. So this brings us to the end of the episode. Let’s try to help listeners apply this. I’ve prepared a 10 question yes, no checklist. And I ask our listeners, ask yourself these 10 questions. If you answer yes to eight or more of these questions, you can prove you have healthy client relationships. Mike’s graciously agreed to be our peer example today. So, Mike, just simply answer yes or no to each of these questions as I take you through them. 

Sean Magennis [00:24:18] So, number one, are your client relationships. This is nuanced, an asset on your balance sheet, or I’ll add in your mindset? 

Mike Stern [00:24:28] Not on our balance sheet, but yes, in our mind set fantastic. 

Sean Magennis [00:24:32] Number two, is this asset appreciating in value? 

Mike Stern [00:24:38] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:24:40] Do you have a diversified client base with no one client worth more than 10 percent of revenue? 

Mike Stern [00:24:47] We are on our way, but we’re not quite at 10 percent yet. 

Sean Magennis [00:24:52] But that’s I mean, I heard everything you said, that’s a goal and I commend you for it. That’s really key. Number four. Does the tenure of your client relationships exceed three years? 

Mike Stern [00:25:05] Yes, some of our best clients. Absolutely, and we hope that our current ones as well. 

Sean Magennis [00:25:13] Are your clients business stable? 

Mike Stern [00:25:18] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:25:19] Number six, are your clients end relationships stable, so are their clients stable? 

Mike Stern [00:25:25] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:25:26] Number seven, do you have account plans? 

Mike Stern [00:25:30] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:25:31] Number eight, have you institutionalized your client relationships into a customer relationship management system? 

Mike Stern [00:25:39] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:25:40] Number nine, the client relationships with the firm and not with the key employee? 

Mike Stern [00:25:48] They are with the firm and with the employees. 

Sean Magennis [00:25:52] Excellent answer. Number ten, will the billings from your client relationships stay when the key employee quits? 

Mike Stern [00:26:01] We would hope so. 

Sean Magennis [00:26:03] We would all hope so. So thank you. If you answered yes to eight or more of these questions, you’ve got an excellent client relationship. This will make you extremely attractive not only to hire employees to a potential buyer as well as to your clients. So client relationships are an asset. Like other assets, some relationships appreciate in value and others depreciate. Appreciating client relationships will increase the value of your firm. Depreciating client relationships will decrease the value of your firm. So when trying to build value and or exit for a great price, please bullet proof your client relationships. I cannot emphasize that enough. Mike, thank you for sharing your wisdom. It’s always great to be with you.

Thank you for being part of Collective 54 and for our listeners, if you enjoyed the show and want to learn more. Pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the professional services firm written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support, check out Collective 54, the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening. 

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Episode 59 – Competitors: The 5 Competitors Boutiques Must Defeat to Grow – Member Case with Mark Riggs

There are 5 competitors’ boutique professional services firms must defeat to grow.  
Mark Riggs, CEO & Lead Strategist for Pemberton shares insights to win.

TRANSCRIPT

Sean Magennis [00:00:16] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis, Collective 54 Advisory Board Member, and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that there are five competitors boutiques must defeat to grow. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing Mark Riggs, CEO and lead strategist for Pemberton. Pemberton helps liberate marketing, PR and communications agencies, as well as consultants across a variety of industries from the dreaded RFP. Turning over clients and chasing RFP doesn’t have to be that way. There is a better, smarter, more sustainable and satisfying way Mike counsels clients and growing their business by focusing on the clients they already have, rather than continually wooing new ones. Check out his podcast Agency Insurgents. Mark, great to see you. Welcome. 

Mark Riggs [00:01:29] Thank you, Sean. Thanks for having me. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:31] It’s a real pleasure. Mark, let’s start with an overview. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of how you’ve experienced and overcome competition? 

Mark Riggs [00:01:43] Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s so funny when I read the Chapter Chapter three in the book, you know, we talk about the cost of inaction. You know, for us, when we first started this company, that was a real challenge and that we, you know, it was it was a nice to have, you know, but we had to we had to find that pain pill, right? So for us, we came up with the cost of inaction calculator. Very good with now with agencies and say, Hey, listen, this is the actual amount of money that you’re either leaving on the table, especially the small and mid-sized agency Sean, that we work with. Yes, you know, those agency owners have a horizon in their mind, right, that they have a time horizon and they have a number in mind so we can ask just a few questions. And we’ve developed this calculator and say, Hey, listen, this is how many, you know, new clients over the course of your five year horizon, you would have to win per per year per month. And it just becomes an overwhelming number. And once you’ve illustrated form that way, their eyes really bulge. You’re like, you know, I didn’t realize, you know, we can’t get there along with new business, and we say, Well, hey, how? How do we get there? And it’s in as revenue expansion. 

Sean Magennis [00:02:56] Fantastic. 

Mark Riggs [00:02:57] So that’s the way we wrote it out. 

Sean Magennis [00:02:59] That’s obviously become a major competitive differentiator for you, Mark. 

Mark Riggs [00:03:04] Yeah, it has I mean, we’d like to think we’re a category one child, but, you know, I’m sure that we haven’t been able to pinpoint just yet. Yes. Other companies who do what we do, I don’t think they do it the way we do it. But you know, whether it’s the number of new clients, you would have to win about a thousand. All right. You’d have to win every opportunity that you find. You’d have to find the opportunities have no attrition. Yes. Over the course of time. But then when you calculate attrition, they really they realize like, you know, gosh, I’m not going to get better with net new business alone. And it has become an advantage for us. And since we’ve been able to develop this calculator, I can ask a potential client for questions and illustrate to them, you know, we can come up with what we call the prime number here based on the percentage. This is how much faster we can get you to your horizon goal with revenue expansion and taking that approach and really making it a priority as opposed to happenstance. And when we do that, it’s it’s definitely increased our win rate for sure. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:10] Outstanding. That’s a brilliant example, mark. Thank you. So I’d like to get your thoughts and some of the best practices we recommend in this area. We’ve identified five competitors in order of importance based on the frequency they show up in sales campaigns that we’re aware of. The first is do nothing. So this is a project that went away because of a competing client priority. The second is internal resources. So this is an internal client staff who think they can do what you do better than you do it and for free in inverted commas. The third is boutiques. So these are firms like yours in size and specialty, the fourth are market leaders. So these are the mega firms that have the offerings in your niche. And then there’s other. So this is the other ways clients can solve the problem. Often there’s more than one way to skin the cat, obviously. So I’ll walk you through them one by one and get your thoughts on each. So the first one do nothing. So this is, you know, 40 per cent of deals, whether you know it or not. And the way to beat do nothing is to calculate the cost of inaction. And you said this earlier, this dollar figure will prove to the client that your project deserves their full attention. It’s a priority. So what do you think of this concept? 

Mark Riggs [00:05:33] Its spot on in the especially in our industry when it comes to public relations advertising agencies, right? We’re all busy all the time. There’s never a good time to start any sort of focused initiative. And so early on, what we found is, you know, this sounds great, guys, and this would be awesome to have. But you know, right, right now is not the time where we’re really busy with new business. We’re really busy with onboarding clients, et cetera. So we had to find, you know, that pain pill and the pain pills pointing out to them, I know you have business goals. You know, we’re in business too, especially in the agency business. We typically have this subservient attitude towards our clients, right, that we work for them when we’re in business too. We’re here to make money. And so we try to point that out to them. And that cost of inaction calculator allows us to do that. But we had to come up with that because it really poured people’s attention. And yeah, so. So doing nothing will get you nothing right? And so we try to point that out. 

Sean Magennis [00:06:36] Thank you. So the next one is internal resources. So as a reminder, it’s internal client staff, and I realize it’s weird to think about the client as a competitor, but they are about 30 per cent of the time. And the way to defeat them is to establish a deadline that the project needs to be completed by. So what’s your opinion of this? 

Mark Riggs [00:07:00] Well, you are giving them that, you know, defining the horizon, right? You know, when do you want to walk out of here? When do you want to sell? When do you want to pass this on to your children, whatever that may be? That’s one way. Yes. The other way is, you know, every agency we speak to, Sean says, Oh, we already do that. You know, we grow our business, right? But when you take a hard look at it, a lot of that happens through happenstance. You know, in our joke is that we’re a society of liberal arts vendors. You know, unless you’re the CFO or the CEO, you really don’t know how to rub two numbers together. And because you’re really good at churning butter, they eventually plate. you’re in charge of all the butter turners, so you get the VP level in the agency world. And all of a sudden you’ve got all these business you are responsible for. No one’s taught us that. Mm hmm. So our whole concept is let’s teach people the business of the agency before they’re in a position of responsibility. Right? And so if we can take that action, it becomes a very purposeful thing. And then, you know, most agencies have those handful of what we would call hunters. You know, typically we have hunters and farmers in our business. Yes. And you know, I encourage CEOs and COOs or get their senior staff as an investment portfolio. You know, you have assets and you have liabilities. Yup. The assets are the ones who are generating revenue. Hmm. The liabilities are those SDP EVPs, who have gotten to a position because they were really good at something. But are they generating revenue for your business? And we all know when you look at your investment portfolio, if there is a liability, those are things that are easy to cut. So as opposed to having five assets in the portfolio, let’s create a portfolio of 10 15 assets, right? Let’s teach people to grow business. And so we like to think we bridge the gap between hunters and farmers. 

Sean Magennis [00:08:51] I love that, Mike. I love that concept. You know, we have a concept, you know, where every member of your team should be an asset on your balance sheet, particularly when you’re thinking of selling your business one day. So what I took away from that is defining the horizon and look at every member of your staff as an important portfolio asset. I love that. So the third one is boutiques. So these are firms like yours in size and specialty. And our recommendation is offering your client a money back guarantee for any reason. No questions asked. Have you seen that? What do you think of that? 

Mark Riggs [00:09:28] We don’t do that. It’s a tough one right there. Yeah, we like to. We haven’t gotten there yet, but we are confident guaranteeing results. You know, when we first started this business, the tip of the spear was organic growth. Let’s grow the revenue. Yes, right? And as a byproduct of that, what we saw was personnel growth, human growth, executive growth rate. So as we’ve grown, we’ve kind of twisted that approach a little bit to let’s focus on the growth of the person in the in the team. And if we can focus on their growth as an executive, as a hunter, right, the new business will come. Now there are opportunities to come along and say, Hey, did you hear something? This is the this is an opportunity. Yes. But you know, we we feel like if we can do that right, what helps us differentiate ourselves from different boutiques that might do something similar to us is we don’t do train the trainer we don’t do. And after a full day training, as you and I probably both step in those trainings and you learn something great. Yeah. And then 48 hours later that it hits the fan and muscle memory takes over. Mm hmm. So our differentiator is we will only work with agencies who are willing to invest three to six months, at least in working with these executive, these teams, to change the muscle memory that makes them. Yeah, because we’ve been taught and account management to bend over backwards. Right? You know, do whatever it takes to keep them happy. So we got to change some of that muscle memory. 

Sean Magennis [00:11:04] That makes total sense. The fourth one is market leaders. So these are the mega firms. They have offerings in your niche. You’ll run into mega firms only we we see about five per cent of the time. However, these are sizable deals and they can make or break a year. So what do you think of this? 

Mark Riggs [00:11:25] Honestly Sean, in terms of what we do, we haven’t run into that a lot. I think where we run into that is the mega holding companies, right? The IPG is the the omni columns. They have some of these resources built in. Yes. And so it’s it’s the idea of convincing them that we can help mitigate attrition because to them, their businesses are going to grow. They’re moving so fast from a new business perspective. But if they’re having to replace 30 or 40 percent of their business every year, you know, I can help get you. Pemberton can help get you to a spot of, you know what? Maybe it’s going to be five percent attrition because we’ve grown the existing accounts. So you’re not starting out so far back every year, year over year. So there are agencies or companies out there who who touch organic growth, that type of thing. Mm-Hmm. But we really haven’t run into that Bain or McKinsey, and I’m sure they may do some of this right. Their focus is on the marketing communications industry. And so it’s kind of wide open for us. It’s just a matter of getting in front of the right people and pointing out their pain and saying We’ve got a pain pill. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:35] And knowing distinctly your market, which I’m hearing clearly from you. So the final one is other. So this is the other ways clients can solve the problem. So clients often think they can solve a problem by firing somebody recruiting new talent, and we recommend beating other by doing a postmortem. So highlighting to the client and you’ve shared some of this the last time they took this approach, it didn’t work. So what else in this area can you share with the audience? 

Mark Riggs [00:13:06] Well, it’s very easy to look year over year, quarter over quarter of the impact of a client, especially if you’ve had a client for more than 24 months, right? I’ve had a client for more than 24 months, and I can I can identify the trends, the ebbs and flows. And were we able to fill in some of those gaps? Some level it out, right? Yes. Well, the other thing we were able to do from a postmortem standpoint is in the very beginning of our engagements, we do a senior leader. Scorecard. Mm-Hmm. So we have five criteria that these senior leaders have scored on, and we also do a proactive mis appraisal. Well, like that. So in our in our business, oftentimes we’re very reactive to the to the client. We have up the order taker type role and really that’s our fault and we let that happen. So for us from a postmortem, it’s either I can look distinctly at the revenue it has. The revenue changed as a number of opportunities with that client changed. Mm-Hmm. And I can score your people based on the senior leadership scorecard and the prior fitness appraisal and say, you know, here’s where they were deficient or we’re not confident, right? And we can go back and look, say after working with them for six months. Has that changed? And so it’s revenue, but it’s also the human growth because for us, it’s about sustained growth. Mm-Hmm. When they start working with Pemberton, we walk away from them. We want to be able to Sure progress and leave them in a good place. But what we have found is right. So when we started this, we said, Hey, three to six months of wear out, right? You know, but as I’m growing a company that I would like to sell next Sunday, yes, you know, how do I get recurring business? And so someone pointed out to me that, you know, hey, listen, after six months, an agency’s problems are not completely solved. They constantly have problems and challenges. So what we have done is we have morphed into other avenues that really the organic growth, the human growth is our Trojan horse. Yes, we can get in there. We can make an impact. We’re pleasant to work with. We develop deep relationships over the course of working with somebody, you know. Yes, we try to show them exactly what we’re preaching, which is deepening relationship with clients. And what that allows us to do is get into other challenges. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:22] Outstanding, Mark. Really, that’s you know, these additional insights to what we’re seeing is as recommendations are exceptional. So, Mark, thank you. This takes us to the end of the episode. Let’s let’s try to help listeners apply this. So we end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows the listener to apply the lessons to his or her firm. And our preferred tool is a checklist, a style of checklist as a yes, no questionnaire. We aim to keep it simple by asking only 10 questions in this instance. If you answered yes to eight or more of these questions, you’re on your way to defeating your competitors. If you answered no too many times, lack of a strategy to defeat your competitors is likely getting in the way of closing more business. So Mark has graciously agreed to be our peer example today, and I’ll ask Mark the yes no question so we can learn from his example. Let’s begin. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:23] Number one. Can you calculate a client’s cost of inaction? 

Mark Riggs [00:16:29] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:30] Number two, can you find a compelling event that puts a deadline or horizon on the client’s project? 

Mark Riggs [00:16:39] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:40] Number three. Are you confident enough to guarantee your work? 

Mark Riggs [00:16:46] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:47] Number four, can you establish credibility in the eyes of the client? 

Mark Riggs [00:16:54] Yes, and I will expound on that one just Sean. You know, it’s we don’t hire any consultant who hasn’t been the agency business for more than 20 years. It’s hard to walk into any agency without some sort of gravitas, yes. And say, Let me show you how I’ve done it in the past, I’ve taken accounts and grow them into multimillion dollar accounts. So the answer is yes. But there’s there’s some specifics there. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:19] Excellent. Excellent. Number five, can you signal quality to the client by delivering a best in class proposal? 

Mark Riggs [00:17:29] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:30] Number six, can you deliver much faster than the market leaders in your niche? 

Mark Riggs [00:17:36] No. But let me expand there again. You know, like I pointed out, this is about sustained growth. Yes. This is about changing muscle memory. So while someone else may come in and immediately point out an opportunity and they’re upselling, our approach is solved dont sell. On solving problems, should take care of itself. So for us, it’s not about speed. It’s about sustainability. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:59] Excellent. And every situation is different. Every client engagement is nuanced. The services are different. So thank you. I get that. Number seven, can you earn healthy margins and still be 25 percent less than the market leaders? 

Mark Riggs [00:18:16] We believe so, yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:19] Are you more enjoyable to work with than the market leaders? 

Mark Riggs [00:18:24] Yes, we are in fact pointing that out every time we start working with a new client, the we’re going to have a lot of fun. We’re going to do a lot of laughing. We get to know them very well. And again, we like it. You know, you have to have empathy for your client. They have lives, they have things going on, too, so but but but yes, we have a lot of fun. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:43] Fantastic. Number nine, do you understand the alternative solutions to the problem you’re addressing? 

Mark Riggs [00:18:51] Yes, assets versus liabilities, happenstance. Attrition. Absolutely. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:58] And number 10, will a postmortem revealed to the client that these alternatives have a poor track record? 

Mark Riggs [00:19:05] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:19:07] Mark, fantastic. In summary, a boutique must win a high percentage of the time they are not in enough deals to allow for many deals to be lost. No one wins every deal, but that should be the goal by establishing a competitive playbook. You can make sure you can beat the competition. Huge thanks again, Mark, for sharing your expertize today. If you enjoyed the show and want to learn more, pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the Professional Services Firm. Written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support. Check out Collective 54, the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening.

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Episode 58 – Growth Rate: The Ultimate BS Detector – Member Case with Darren Isaacs and Paul Emery

Your growth rate is important than the size of your firm. It is more important than your client roster, and it is more important than your service offerings. On this episode, we interview Darren Isaacs, Co-Founder and CEO, and Paul Emery, Co-Founder at Makosi.  

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:15] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis Collective 54 Advisory Board member and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that your rate of growth is your most important number. It’s more important than the size of your firm. It is more important than your client roster, and it’s more important than your service offerings. Potential acquirers want to see strong growth in both top line revenue and bottom line profits. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing Darren Isaacs, co-founder and CEO, and Paul Emery, co-founder at Makosi. Makosi helps audit firms drive growth, improve profitability and pursue important strategic goals by delivering an on demand audit workforce backed by their technology and their proven process. You can find them at Makosi M-A-K-O-S-I dot com. So Darren and Paul, great to see you both and welcome. 

Darren Isaacs [00:01:33] Sean, appreciate it. 

Paul Emery [00:01:35] Thank you. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:36] So let’s start with an overview, Darren, I’m going to call on you. So can you briefly share with the audience an example of why the rate of growth is such an important number? 

Darren Isaacs [00:01:47] Sure, I think you know, the saying used to be that if you’re not growing you, you’re dying? And so it’s really important to understand what market dynamics might actually be driving growth and also to ensure that your growth exceeds that of your competitors because of a long enough period of time. If you’re growing slower than your competitors. You are really slowly having your  lunch eaten, so you know they pay attention to how your competitors are faring in that equivalent market. Yup. And it’s also important to consider not only your rates of growth against your competitors, but also what that growth means for cash flow, infrastructure compliance and other things that go along with that growth. 

Sean Magennis [00:02:30] Fantastic. And we’re going to dove into those questions, but that’s a really good distinction. So making sure that your growth exceeds the growth of your competitors. So I’d like to get your both of your thoughts on some of the best ways to demonstrate growth in the context of a potential investor. The five specific things I’ll walk you through and get your thoughts on each. I’ll ask one of you to tackle an item and then I’ll rotate to the other. So the first one is the first thing to understand is what does good growth look like from the perspective of the investor? Darren, what are your thoughts on this concept? 

Darren Isaacs [00:03:09] I think an investor really wants to see a long track record of consistent and sustainable growth of revenue, but they’ll also pay very careful attention to how gross margins have fared over those years as well. There are also various inflection points along that path of growth that come into play again, particularly with respect to two to non-revenue generating infrastructure and people, so revenues and net margins should be growing together. Yes, and they should also be clear, defined as of the scalable expenses you know, as as as growth is, is ensuing. 

Sean Magennis [00:03:50] Excellent. Thank you. So the second one is we advocate a five to 10 year track record of consistent revenue and profit growth. And you’ve alluded to some of that. Paul, what’s your opinion on this concept of sustainability? 

Paul Emery [00:04:05] Yeah, I think from the perspective of Makosi, we’ve gone through like hyper growth over the last three years and and it’s something that we’re like very, very conscious about in terms of because we’ve gone through four digit growth numbers over the last 12 months, which is a lovely tagline. I think when you speak to investors, and it gets a lot of grins, a lot of big eyes, kind of rubbing of the hands into it. That’s great. But you know, from when you get to the stage of due diligence and you’re looking back, you’re like, all hang on a minute. Is this sustainable? Yes. So I think for us, we understand that, and I think that that’s kind of like our transition or an inflection point where we remain right now is that we’ve been focused on grabbing as much market share as possible over the last three years. And now we need to kind of transition from revenue growth to just really focusing on that profitability piece. So we have a consistent record over time. Yes. And especially for firms that are in hyper growth, I think you need to be hyper vigilant around that service offering. And at what point is it going to start slowing down? And do you have other strategies in play in order to kind of continue growth into the future over a five, 10, 15 or 20 year period? So you know what? That’s exactly where we’re at right now. It’s like, Okay, it’s great. We’ve had an awesome ride over the next three years, but is this just transition now to really say, OK, this part of the business is growing really fast, but how are we setting up three or four others under that umbrella to continue that growth into the future and make it sustainable? And I think for the founders, you like that rocket ship, you like that uncertainty. You like that chaos that comes along with all of it. But to transition the company from the grow to scale stage, yes, it needs that next level of professionalization. And that’s something that we’ve been working very, very hard on. And so transitioning from five to a track record of consistent revenue growth, I think it’s something that we’re looking at is like, OK, maybe we don’t have the skills internally to have that set building up management team really kind of doing some self-reflection on things of that. So it’s. It seems very simple, right, to say, OK, we need to get five to 10 years worth of consistent growth, but it always comes a little bit trippy because you are having to do a lot of internal reflection to speak. Speaking of profound is what our unique ability to do that sort of stuff. 

Sean Magennis [00:06:43] Fine tuning, building your team, you know, tweaking all the elements that an investor is going to look at. Yeah, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. So when our firm Capital 54, is considering making an investment or we’re doing advisory, we look at the following and I acknowledge these are incredibly high bars. And you know, not all. It’s not an apples to apples, but we look at a 20 to 30 percent top line growth, a 70-80 percent gross margin and a 30 to 40 percent net margin. Darren, what are your thoughts on these benchmarks and be open, you know, I mean, this is real talk that we’re having now. 

Darren Isaacs [00:07:23] So, I mean, pretty, pretty extreme numbers there, and I guess I agree with your thesis on top line growth and in fact, that that might even be a bit conservative in this COVID world. Yes. You know, I also agree on the net margin front, but maybe where I differ is on the gross margin front. So the first and I really generalize, I think that margins at those levels are potentially unsustainable in this new gig world. Mm-Hmm. You know, with access to global to, you know, to skills on a global scale. And then secondly, I’d be more interested in firms who are strategically positioned to grow those, those gross margins. So over time, this. Yeah, exactly. And know, unfortunately, I have this curse of being an accountant. So, you know,  those opportunities aren’t always, you know, visible in the actual numbers. Right. It’s really important to kind of dig into the strategy of that business and understand what the opportunities of the growing gross margins think. Things like automation to tech enable your service delivery. And so, you know, how are investors looking at strategy and seeing how this firm is going to grow out, you know? Rev Yes, grow gross margins even  faster. And it’s really a kind of a multiple from a strategy point of view. 

Sean Magennis [00:08:50] I like that and you know, my view is these are targets. You know, these are nice to have. It may not be real. And your example of the impact of the new gig economy businesses is very accurate. I think the important thing and Paul said it earlier, is to have some comparisons. Look at what your competitors are doing because that will give you a leading indicator, at least a benchmark. So thank you. That’s really great. The fourth one we recommend, including profit growth in our list of due diligence requirements. Many young firms don’t focus on profit growth. They spend their time focusing on and obsessing over top line revenue, and they haven’t decoupled their revenue growth from their headcount headcount growth. Paul, any thoughts or opinions on that? 

Paul Emery [00:09:43] Yeah, I mean, this question strikes very close to home. 

Sean Magennis [00:09:47] It’s your business. 

Paul Emery [00:09:48] In that gross stage where we were very, just focused on revenue. And so we built on what we call our advisory board, but it’s essentially we monetize a kind of ex-partners Rolodexes. And it was and it was great to kind of grab market share in a very rapid way. But as we kind of transition from revenue focused to profit focus with our growth, it’s that transition and making sure you have having those kind of big conversations and your kind of bolstering the organization to kind of address those issues because if you cut it, don’t get ahead of that and you kind of keep operating in that grow operation, that kind of growth mindset. It can kind of really, really hurt you because we’ve been going through such a rate of growth that, like a lot of our support functions, like our finance functions, operations functions have really struggled to keep up with the sales in the business development of the business. And so we’ve lacked a lot of transparency into those numbers to be able to say actually what we’re looking at and then, you know, you do catch your breath for five minutes and you look at those numbers not, oh, well, we should probably adjust this. And so I would very much advocate that you, you know, be proactive on that, making sure that you do have a solid finance function set up. So you’ve got visibility into the numbers, especially if you’re kind of an operator in the business now and you’re transitioning to the true owner. Yes, you need that top down view. It’s really, really important that you’re able to kind of dig into those numbers and have that clarity to make sure that the business is going to be profitable in the long term. 

Sean Magennis [00:11:37] Fantastic well-said. And then the fifth one, and we’ve touched on this a little bit of best practices to actively go out into the market. Seek accurate apples to apples comparatives. How do you do this, Darren? What’s your opinion on this? 

Darren Isaacs [00:11:52] I think it’s yeah, I mean,  it’s a good practice. You know, I think it’s mostly practical if you’re in a fairly vanilla category, you know those metrics might be quite easily attainable. Mm hmm. I think it’s been harder for us because we’ve created an entirely new category. COVID has also blown the doors off in so many ways. So to you looking in the COVID world, this is so fresh, which is really, really challenging. And so, you know, things, things just move so much quicker now. Mm hmm. So our view at the moment is quite simple. You know, just keep our eyes on the road and keep our competitors in our peripheral vision, you know? Yes. You know, and so just to kind of be aware of them, but don’t don’t be too focused on them. I think what’s more interesting for us is actually how our  clients are benchmarked against their peers. Mm hmm. And so if we’re able to benchmark how our clients are doing against each other, then it just enables us to add so much more, more value to them. So, you know, really enabling us to drive much more meaningful outcomes for them and thereby commanding higher margins and an overall satisfaction from their client. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:13] I really like that. That’s nuanced and it’s smart. Thank you. That’s great. So, you know, there’s so many variables on making sure you put your best foot forward in terms of, you know, the value of affirm, the value of the work that you’re doing. And I loved your comment. Darren, you’re an accountant, probably a recovering accountant, right? And facts always win out. So this takes us to the end of this episode, and as is customary, we end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows a listener to apply the lessons to his or her firm. Our preferred tool is a checklist, and our style of checklist is a yes no questionnaire. Our listeners ask yourself these 10 questions, and if you answer yes to eight or more of these, you have an excellent growth story that will attract investors. Darren and Paul have graciously agreed to be our peer examples today. I’ll ask Darren five of the Yes No Questions and Paul five, so we can learn from this example. So Darren, you’re first up. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:19] Question number one, are you growing revenue faster than your boutique competitors? 

Darren Isaacs [00:14:25] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:27] Number two, have you been doing so for a few years? 

Darren Isaacs [00:14:31] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:32] Number three, are you growing your profits faster than your boutique competitors? 

Darren Isaacs [00:14:38] Oh, yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:40] Number four, have you been doing so for a few years?

Darren Isaacs [00:14:44] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:45] And number five, are you growing your revenue faster than the practice inside the large market leaders if you have a comparative practice? 

Darren Isaacs [00:14:54] So this is a tricky question. We are the market leaders. So yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:58] Fantastic. Paul, I’m going to switch to you. Number six, have you been doing so for a few years? In the context, well, you’re a first mover, so that’s a trick question, will give you a pass on that one. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:10] Number seven, while you’re growing your profits faster than the practice inside the lodge market leaders or do you think, given that you’re a market leader, that you’re growing your profits faster? 

Paul Emery [00:15:23] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:24] And you’ve been doing so for a few years. 

Paul Emery [00:15:26] Yes, we’ve been doing so for a few years. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:27] Yeah. And then number nine. Are you growing your cash balance to cover payroll for 12 months? 

Paul Emery [00:15:35] Hopefully. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:37] This is why we’re working on the business is key, right? But to me, you’re smiling. 

Paul Emery [00:15:44] I think so. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:45] It’s good. And then finally, number ten, do you have at least 12 months of forward visibility? 

Paul Emery [00:15:52] I would say somewhat. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:53] Okay. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:55] That’s that’s great. Listen, these are important things for you and our listeners to to think through and then to go back and answer for yourselves. Do you have them? And if you don’t have them or if you think you have them to double check. So growth matters a lot and relative growth matters even more. So a year or two of great results doesn’t mean that you’ve got a sellable boutique. A decade of market beating growth will command an outstanding price and excellent terms, and profit growth is as important as revenue growth. This indicates that you’ve cracked the code. You are one of the few who broke the link between revenue and headcount growth. Be sure to run a tight ship. And we’ve heard that from Darren and Paul. Be prepared to demonstrate reliable forward visibility and plenty of working capital. So Darren and Paul, a huge thank you to both of you today. I’m so excited for you and your business. It’s got to be thrilling to be a first mover, market leader.

And if our listeners have enjoyed the show and want to learn more, pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the Professional Services Firm. Written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander. 

And for more expert support, check out Collective 54, the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more. 

Thank you for listening. 

Posted on

Episode 57 – Life Cycle: A Smart Strategy to Make Scaling Easier – Member Case with Chris Rozum

Boutiques often suffer from an identity crisis. This makes scaling harder than it needs to be. On this episode, we discuss business life cycle strategy with Chris Rozum, Founder & CEO, of Insite Managed Solutions, LLC.  

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:17] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis, Collective 54 Advisory Board Member and your host. On this episode, I will make the case, boutiques often suffer from an identity crisis, and this makes scaling harder than it needs to be. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing Chris Rozum, founder and CEO of Insight Managed Solutions. Insight was founded in 2007, and it was established to provide a truly unique experience that marries together deep contact center expertise, enthusiasm for achieving unprecedented results and a culture of transferring knowledge. Insight then incorporates these characteristics into their suite of professional services, which are a site benchmarking, training, implementation workshops, process building, transfer staff, augmentation transformations and consulting. And you can find Chris at getinsight.io. Chris, great to see you and welcome. 

Chris Rozum [00:01:40] Welcome. Pleasure to be here, Sean. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:42] Thank you. Let’s start with an overview, Chris, can you briefly share with the audience an example of why it is critical to truly know what your firm is uniquely qualified to deliver in order to scale? 

Chris Rozum [00:01:57] Yeah, if I had to just put it into one specific example for us, it’s really about the human capital. Once we really know and are starting to lock in a bit of what our firm does, it really helps us zero in on the  hiring profile. What is the recruiting and testing approach we do to vet the people as they come in? How do we onboard and train them, which we’re not fantastic at today and we’re getting better at who gets into what is the organization Sure even kind of look like a little bit to include even roles and responsibilities on an engagement of who actually does what. And all these things are kind of different depending on what a firm is trying to do. But we found that we’re putting a lot of time and effort around those things. 

Sean Magennis [00:02:38] Fantastic. And you know, that human capital focus is, I think, vital not only in the context of the professional services firm, but your clients. Human capital, you know, is vital as well. So, Chris, they have five specific things that I’ll walk you through that we have found make it easier for a firm to scale. So the first one is sometimes a boutique suffers from an identity crisis. They’re unsure of the type of firm they are and the types of clients and projects they should pursue. This makes the challenge of scaling a boutique harder than it needs to be. What are your thoughts on this concept? 

Chris Rozum [00:03:21] You know, it was interesting when I first heard of the concept, I actually thought in my earlier days that I disagreed with it, and what I found was that I had not only myself, but I had two team members. Yes, that had the unique skill set and capability that they could basically take on any project they could because they were quick studies could could help solve problems that hadn’t been solved before, or they could provide industry expertise because we will learn really, really fast. And as you started to grow the business, though, I found it near impossible to be able to at the pace we wanted to grow to be able to find individuals that have that issue. It’s not smarts or talent, right? But that question to be able to announce any intensity. And there’s also a work ethic that is OK, working extreme hours to be able to run at that pace and love that energy around it. And so I’ve actually found as we’ve grown, I’ve not been able to replicate it. It held us back, created some less than desirable client experiences along the way because we signed up for some stuff that we didn’t want to do or couldn’t do. And we’re finding now that we’re having a lot more success in focusing on specific industries and getting deeper there, as well as focusing on services, even making hard choices around which ones we maybe don’t want to market and sell anymore. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:42] You know, and that’s probably, you know, half the battle is deciding, you know, when to say, no, you know, and we talk about that a lot. So we’ve also categorized three types of firms. First, we have what’s called an intellect firm and an intellect firm is typically hired by clients to solve difficult never before seen one of a kind problems. Second, we have a firm that we call a wisdom firm and a wisdom firm in our definition is hired by clients because they have been there and done that. The client problems new to that client, but it’s not a new problem. And third, we have what we call a method firm and a method firm is hired by clients because of their unique methodologies. The problem is well understood by the client, but by hiring a method firm, it can be sold faster and likely a lot cheaper. So, Chris, why, in your opinion, is it key to differentiate that time or what type of firm you are? 

Chris Rozum [00:05:45] Yeah. You know, it goes a little bit back to the human capital piece a bit and that there’s really kind of two things and I think you hit on it is if you go more using every candidate intellect. Yes, I have found that requires a talent that has had certain background, timeline, experiences, exposures, reference points, kind of. All these things kind of come together across somebody’s journey that allows them to take intellect and and be able to solve problems that have never been solved before, which are kind of exciting to go do. But that comes, those individuals come at a certain compensation level. Yes, then also drive a certain rate level. Yes. And if you go to the other end of the spectrum, methods are where on that you can get consistent. You can put tools, templates, processes in place, look to have different type of talent. Tell them again, you can bring people and I’ll use my personal example. We hire folks into our firm that are not traditionally part of professional services consulting firm, and they are operators that have been working in contact centers, in operations, and then we bring them into this environment. And then what I attempted to do was put them on intellect, type work, and they may have not had enough reference points or experiences to have been effective there. Yes, we’re finding, though, by taking hands on operators and bringing them in in the methods world, we’re having a lot more success. So some of that is getting the right people in the right slots and all of that. But there’s someone helps figure out what your pricing is, what you’re looking at. And then from the sales perspective, how do you go sell to a message and set expectations with your clients that align with kind of these three different types of firms. 

Sean Magennis [00:07:28] That’s really good insight and great examples. I can see in your context how, you know, the nuances are very clear and then the difficulties of trying to teach somebody, you know, who’s not being an intellect, you know, that has its challenges. Some could rise to the occasion, but you make an excellent point. Number three, we recommend that owners and many of them or our listeners connect the type of client and project to the type of firm they are. You know, we recommend they only go off to work that the firm is staffed to handle based on skill level. What are your thoughts on this and you have touched on it? 

Chris Rozum [00:08:08] Yeah. You know, I think. It might depend on where somebody is at in their their life cycle. I know even our early stage it was. It was kind of exciting to go try some different things and see where we are good and capable, what actually resonated with our clients and and also what were some of the activities that we also enjoy. So there’s a little bit of that in the early stage. I think I know where my firm is is right now as we are in the scale high growth phase. Yes. Yeah. The it the governor for me to go do that now is if I’m having too many bumpiness with our clients and not the experiences that I’m wanting or my staff, attrition is too high because we’re over stressing and we’re pushing them beyond their skill sets, too fast. When we’re hitting those moments, it really causes me to govern back and say, No, we’re just going to focus. Yes, and those are kind of the two metrics that I’m looking at. And then as I find those get to kind of stable points, I will then look to venture on things that I think are close enough tangents that do push us a little outside, and it does allow us to be a little innovative. But I find myself, I have to balance this dance and assess and retract back a little bit. So it’s it’s maybe not so hard, fast in any given moment in time, but I tend to use those indicators to drive me towards when I want to be a little exploratory versus when when I really should be more disciplined. 

Sean Magennis [00:09:38] That’s really well put, and that dovetails nicely into our next question. You know, we see owners lacking discipline and thinking that all revenue is good revenue and they take any deal that comes their way. So can you unpack that for us? 

Chris Rozum [00:09:54] Yeah, I am totally guilty of that. I even still today will get into these moments. And it’s being opportunistic. We want to keep growing at the pace we’ve been growing. And and what I have realized, though, is is early on when we were smaller, I could look at something and say, You know what, I can do that I can figure it out. It’s a little outside the lane, but I can see a path on how we can get there to be successful. Yes, and timing as we grow. That’s not always the case. And so we are getting, if you will, kind of more governance around how to do that and how some of those names, some of those negative impacts that can hit in that type of situation. 

Sean Magennis [00:10:37] That’s well articulated. And I think clearly understanding the risk reward of taking on projects that may not be be good in in the face of your scaling opportunity. And it also brings up the reality of sustainability and making sure that you can replicate what you indicated, you know, you alluded to earlier. So the final yeah, sure jump in. 

Chris Rozum [00:10:58] I think your viewers listeners would also appreciate this. So I have done this for a long enough period of time. Now that I’m getting more disciplined this year, it is much harder to unwind now that I am of this size and scale to to be more disciplined. And it’s a couple of one of the biggest things is how do you now unwind trying to take on every single project that’s out there? Yes, but not have a gap in revenue. So and slow down. And that’s what I’m dealing with right now is I’m trying to be more disciplined. How do I not just flip the light switch and now I lose 20 percent revenue and I got to then climb my way back up? So a bit of my learning along the way is how you make that shift early enough. Yes. You at least get to the size we are today. 

Sean Magennis [00:11:44] And then also, you know which which we see a lot of our members in collective 54 and I’m sure in a lot of our listeners is looking at the profitability of every client project because some projects, even though you may have this culture of taking them on, maybe at break breakeven or you may actually if you really do the math, you may be losing money on them. So that discipline, even though it’s tough to do if you’re looking at your numbers, you can prove out with facts that there’s maybe a good reason to do it right. 

Chris Rozum [00:12:15] Yeah, yeah, you’re exactly right. I actually had a conversation with the client next week where it’s it’s a loss to break even and we’re we either got to fix it or we’ll have to step away from it. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:26] Yeah, well, that’s exactly right. And then the final one is, you know, the firm’s just like us, as human beings are different based on where on the on the lifecycle curve they are. So, for example, it’s very common for boutique professional services firms when they first start to be an intellect. But the partners have some secret sauce, you know, they have a solution to a brand new problem. Then as time passes, that IP gets out. Others have it, and eventually it becomes a commodity and owner manages a firm very differently. When it’s an intellect firm than a wisdom or a method for everything is different. So, for example, pricing, staffing, utilization, salaries. So lifecycle management to us refers to the active management by the owner of the boutique as it scales through these lifestyle stages. What’s your opinion on adopting this life cycle management philosophy? 

Chris Rozum [00:13:26] Yeah, it’s I wish I knew about it years ago when I started through the firm, right? I think I think too. Yeah. You know, it’s as I look back, and for me, there were actually very clear markers. And whether you tie it to revenue or you tied to headcount in our my firm, they all correlate together. Yes, by the way, and even what my job was from from one to 15 folks, right at 15 was this really clear marker that I had to do some things different and where I even spent my time and where you were. Now I have a manager, Reverse admits, managing some of the work engagements and how do I sell and do some of these things that you talked about? And and how do you do that in a profitable way that you don’t make over invest in the organization? So I found that one to 15 was kind of a band for me. Yes, that 15 to 50 was the next band that I could do it away. Yeah. And and and when we crossed the 50, I spent a whole bunch of time to say now, how do I go from 50 to five hundred? Yes. Put that structure and roles and responsibilities and who does what. And even my job and where I’m spending my time and what I’m doing in a different way. And and those are kind of the markers for me that happen to be there. I think some other firms might have some different markers based on bill rates and stuff like that, but it was they were really like… 

Sean Magennis [00:14:44] Crisp, really clear. No, that’s really well said. So in your case, one to 15 was a band 15 to 50 and then 50 plus as you’re getting to five hundred. I mean, that is exactly the way we want our listeners to think and to really be highly present in in acknowledging and looking for those signals because it does it, to your point, require a very different set of skills, a different orientation to your time. I’m sure you’re working much more on your business now than you’ve ever done before. 

Chris Rozum [00:15:15] And as of today, yes, we’re working to change that a little bit. Yeah. And, you know, in their spots throughout the journey where I have drifted around a little bit and you know, I go back to some of the indicators that I gave before, which were also really got sensitive around these markers. Where where did I have some client experiences and we have high expectations? There’s a lot of times our clients don’t feel it, but were they not what we wanted to deliver? Got it. And what’s going on with our employee culture stress? Is it turning into attrition? Those are the two things that I saw at 15 started to really break. A 50 really started to break. So we’ll continue to monitor those. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:53] Outstanding Chris, this has been this has been great. Getting your perspective on this is fantastic. So, you know, again, it’s this is an illustration as to why there are only about 4000 firms of about the 1.5 million that truly reach scale. You’ve done that. It’s hard to do and you’re still scaling. It takes an exceptionally skilled owner like yourself to pull it off. So this takes us to the end of this episode, and as is customary, we end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows you are listening to the app to apply these lessons to your firm. Our preferred tool is a checklist, and our style of checklist is a yes no questionnaire. We aim to keep it simple by asking only 10 questions. So in this instance, if you answer yes to questions one through three, you’re an intellect firm. If you answer questions, if you answered yes to questions four to six, you’re a wisdom firm. And if you answer yes to seven to nine, you are a method firm. And lastly, if you answer yes to question 10, lifecycle management should be a top priority. So, Chris, thank you for graciously agreeing to be our peer example today. I’ll ask you the yes, no question so we can all learn from this example. So let’s begin. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:14] Number one, do your clients hire you for never before seen problems? 

Chris Rozum [00:17:20] Not so much today. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:23] Number two, do you employ leading experts in the field? 

Chris Rozum [00:17:29] Yes, we do. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:30] Three. Do you have legally protected intellectual property? 

Chris Rozum [00:17:36] We do, we have a pattern as well as a bunch of copyrights. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:39] Number four, do your clients hire you because you have solved their problems before? 

Chris Rozum [00:17:46] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:47] Number five, do your clients hire you because you have direct relevant case studies? 

Chris Rozum [00:17:54] Yes, they do. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:56] Do your clients hire you because you help them avoid common mistakes? 

Chris Rozum [00:18:03] Yes, but less today. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:06] OK, got it. Do your clients hire you because they’re busy and need an extra pair of hands? 

Chris Rozum [00:18:12] Yeah, absolutely. That’s much more dominant today. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:15] Yes. Number eight, do your clients hire you because you can get the work done quickly? 

Chris Rozum [00:18:21] Yep, more of that today than before. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:23] Number nine. Do your clients hire you because you have an army of trained people to deploy immediately? 

Chris Rozum [00:18:30] Yes, they do. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:31] Yup, that’s your that’s your bread and butter. And number ten, does your service offerings start out as leading edge and over time become commoditized? 

Chris Rozum [00:18:43] Not so much as of yet. It’s interesting, we’re somewhat we’re solving some same problems we were solving 14 years ago. See, things have maybe matured, but so this one surprised me when I said no. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:55] Great. Great. That’s what it’s designed to do. So in summary, a lack of a life cycle awareness can make scaling more difficult than it needs to be. It can lead to poor cash flow. Unhappy clients and employees Chris, a huge thank you to you for sharing your expertize today if you enjoyed the show and want to learn more. Pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the professional services firm written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support. Check out Collective 54 the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening.

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Episode 56: Cash Flow: Where to Find Working Capital to Scale – Member Case with William Lieberman

C54 member William Lieberman, Managing Partner of The CEO’s Right Hand, shares insights on cash flow and where to find working capital to scale your professional services firm.

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:15] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis, Collective 54 Advisory Board Member, and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that boutiques run on cash flow. They do not run on net income or EBITDA. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing William Lieberman, managing partner of the CEO’s right hand. William provides outsourced financial CFO and accounting services to clients that are growing or scaling. They offer end to end solutions for ongoing or one time project needs that span a broad spectrum of industries, including finance, technology, e-commerce, investment banking and digital advertising strategy. You can find William at theceosrighthand.co. William, great to see you and welcome. 

William Lieberman [00:01:29] Thanks, Sean, it’s great to be here. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:31] Excellent. So let’s get started, I’d like you to do an overview. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of why cash flow is so critical to scaling a boutique? 

William Lieberman [00:01:43] Absolutely. You know, everyone’s heard the old adage. Cash is king, right? Cash flow is the fuel of your business. And without that fuel, the race card can’t go around the track. You have to have positive cash flow in order to make investments in the people, in the systems and other equipment and things like that that are necessary to truly scale the business. So as a quick example, we have a professional services firm as a client that’s doing large multi-million dollar projects and they have municipal clients and they stretch out their payments 60 90 days plus. And these are large, large payments. And that causes a great deal of cash strain on the business. So they don’t have the fuel because they’re cash poor to really increase the business and increase the investment in sales and marketing. So we’re helping them raise some capital to get that fuel because the business itself doesn’t generate enough cash enough cash flow. Yes, but there’s lots of examples where cash flow is generated from the business, and that’s truly what you need to scale. 

Sean Magennis [00:02:47] You know, it’s it’s such a good point. You make, you know, one cash is king, you know, in your example, you know, aging receivables and the inability to collect on those in a timely fashion on big numbers. That’s a variable that that is sometimes very difficult to manage unless you have a great client relationship. We have a really good team that can help you with that. So thank you for sharing those particular examples because I think for our listeners, those are things that are very recognizable and understandable. So I’d like to get your thoughts on some of the best ways to think about finding cash to scale. I’ll take you through four things that we have seen and get your thoughts on each. So the first one is and this is in the form of of a of a question is why is cash flow more important than net income and EBITDA for a firm trying to scale? 

William Lieberman [00:03:44] Well, net income and EBIDTA are important measures of profitability. So how well, how healthy is the business, but they’re done on an accrual basis, not a cash basis. So they give you a picture of my generating enough revenue or how much revenue generated when my expenses to generate those revenues and therefore what of my profits? But that’s not the fuel of the business. That’s not how much cash is really being thrown off by those revenue generating activities. So if you are, you know, delivering $100000 worth of services and it costs you $60000, you make a $40000 profit. But what are you really collecting and when are you going to get that $100000? And they take a month or two or three. And so in some cases, your cash flow could be negative if you’re not collecting in a timely fashion on the revenue generating. But at the same time, you’re profitable. Yes. So you really have to look at cash all the time, as it is truly the key measure in order to know how much fuel you have to invest in the business to scale. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:47] Really well put simply put, very understandable. So the second issue it’s often said entrepreneurs mismanage cash flow. Do you agree with the statement? And if so, how can an entrepreneur prevent the lack of cash flow in their business? 

William Lieberman [00:05:05] Well, to answer your question, absolutely. Entrepreneurs mismanaged cash flow all the time. And by the way, it happens large public, multibillion dollar companies, too. Yes. It’s not just the smaller companies would happen. So what, what we really do and we do this for ourselves, we do this for our clients is we look at a 13 week, week by week cash cash. So how much are we going to collect from each of our clients? And what do we forecast for sales and how is that going to turn into collections? And then what are the operating expenses that we’re going to have to pay on a week by week basis for the next 13 weeks? And then as importantly, what are the cash expenses that are not operating? So do we have debt service? Do we have capital expenditures, maybe distributions and dividends, things like that? Yeah. So we get a full picture of all the ins and outs. And from there we know are we going to run out of fuel in the tank? And therefore, what can what do we need to do about it now so that we proactively, you know, don’t don’t run out of gas halfway around the track? 

Sean Magennis [00:06:07] You know, those are those are excellent. And so my challenge to our listeners going out would be to adopt exactly what William has said, the 13 week week, two week cash forecast. Clear understanding of expenses by week. And then other things that need to be service like debt service, etc. And you know, the ins and the outs, as you’ve said, I mean, absolutely vital. And I’m going to go out on a limb here, William, and say, if you’re not doing that now, there are people, there are specialists and advisors that can help you. Is that is that a good a good recommendation? 

William Lieberman [00:06:42] Yeah, absolutely. You know, we do that for our clients and there’s lots of firms out there that provide expert advice in terms of how to best manage cash flow and in your forecasting methodology. 

Sean Magennis [00:06:53] Excellent. So number three, I often see our listeners who are owners of boutique professional services firms trying to raise capital when they do not need it. They think they need X amount of capital to scale when in fact they’re often generating enough cash from operations to fund scaling. Now, sometimes this isn’t the case, but what do you think? What is your opinion on this concept? 

William Lieberman [00:07:19] Well, first and foremost, capital is expensive, outside capital is very expensive. You’re giving up a percentage of your business if you’re raising equity. And if you’re raising debt, you know debt can be risky depending on how much you get. So to the extent that you can always rely upon the working capital coming out of your business to fund investments to scale? That’s absolutely ideal. Right. So that’s that’s the critical piece to this is to make sure that you understand how much bit, how much cash is being generated and ensuring that you have enough fuel in that tank. So, you know, when you think about the forecast modeling that you should be doing it, every entrepreneur should be doing it. It gives you those knobs and dials of the business so you can decide how much cash you’re able to reinvest in the business versus taking it out as a distribution or leaving it in the business and not making any money. 

Sean Magennis [00:08:14] Right. And that’s a balance, right? How much can you reinvest should you build a certain cash reserve depending on the type of business you have? Is this is there forward visibility to a book of business coming in? I’m sure all those variables are in your knobs and dials. 

William Lieberman [00:08:30] Correct. And it’s one of the important things that we’ve seen is that entrepreneurs often make a mistake by relying upon the forecast from the salespeople, right, which are always optimistic. Salespeople are optimistic by nature. Absolutely. We always recommend have the CFO, you know, really look in at those forecasts and really dial it based on historical results of delivering on what the salespeople are saying. 

Sean Magennis [00:08:57] That is a great piece of advice and I’d like you have seen, you know, I’ve seen forecasting go go sideways when you have a disconnect between, you know, the accuracy of the forecasting and the reality of either previous business or what you’ve got actually in the pipeline. That’s great. So we’ve we’ve seen that one of the best ways to boost cash flow is to measure it correctly. And we have found the best way to measure it is at the project level. You know, when you measure cash flow in the aggregate, it can hide waste. What are your experiences in this? 

William Lieberman [00:09:33] Well, yes. You know, I love what you said because it’s it’s the whole and it’s you cannot measure it and cannot manage it and funds that right. Yes, I absolutely agree. If you look at things in an aggregate, there’s all sorts of hidden gotchas, hidden expenses that you wouldn’t otherwise see. So by looking at it, a profitability and cash flow on a project by project or client by client basis, you can see which clients are really generating the profits of the cash that are fueling your business and which ones maybe sucking cash precisely those ones. Hey, maybe when you make a decision here, guys about either firing the client or increasing your fees or decreasing expenses, whatever dials that you need to change, you need to do that on a client by client basis. And we look at that every month for our clients as an internal business, as well as helping our clients do the same for theirs. 

Sean Magennis [00:10:28] That’s extraordinary valuable. And you know, listeners, please take what William is saying seriously into consideration. Your ability to scale is directly proportional to your capability to have these dials, to have this detailed knowledge at your fingertips, project by project really, really manage your cash flow as carefully as you can, and you will be surprised at how it could potentially unlock additional source of sources of funding so that you don’t have to give away a high percentage of your business to attract an outside investor or an expensive debt source. William, thank you. It’s super clear that managing, measuring and boosting cash flow is key to scaling a boutique firm. So this will take us to the end of the episode, and this is customary. We end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows a listener to apply the lessons to his or her firm. Our preferred tool is a checklist, and our style of checklist is a yes no questionnaire. We aim to keep it simple by asking only 10 questions in this instance. If you answer yes to eight or more of these questions, you need to have a solution to cash flow. If you answer no a lot, you don’t have an issue. William has graciously agreed to be our peer example today. I will ask William the yes, no question so we can all learn from his example. Let’s begin. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:00] Number one. Will you run out of working capital if you double your firm? 

William Lieberman [00:12:07] And for us, it’s a no, we are completely virtual companies, we have really low overhead and our operating expenses are less than 10 percent of revenue. Fantastic because we use contractors to deliver our services. If we double our client base, we just add more contractors. And that’s the beauty of the accordion model.

Sean Magennis [00:12:27] I like it very clear. Number two, will you need short term debt if you double your firm? 

William Lieberman [00:12:35] For us, no. What we do is we keep an amount of cash on hand that covers our operating expenses in our contractor expenses, so we always have a minimum level. And as we grow, we increase that minimum reserve so that we never have to borrow money. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:51] Excellent. Number three, will you develop a collections problem if you double your firm? 

William Lieberman [00:12:58] So no, what we’ve done is put in place from the beginning from the sales point of sale understanding with the client. Here’s how we build. Here’s how we invoice. Here’s our net terms, etc. And then we have a formal process that escalates up if something looks to become a problem starting with client service, but all through invoicing and collections. And so we and we review it every week. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:22] So you have a weekly review process with triggers that alert you to any difficulties. 

William Lieberman [00:13:28] Absolutely. Finally, go through every client every week. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:31] Outstanding. So, William, question number four, will your cash flow payments exceed your cash income if you double your firm? 

William Lieberman [00:13:42] No, because our model is to have a very specific percentage, say, 55, 60 percent of what we believe to our contractors. So no matter how much business we’re doing. I know exactly how much cash is going out and how much we’re able to retain. And this, of course, assumes that we don’t have any collection issues which would solve.  

Sean Magennis [00:14:04] Outstanding thank you. Number five, will you have a hard time getting enough cash on the balance sheet to double your firm if you decided to do it? 

William Lieberman [00:14:14] No, because we have a very controlled growth plan in place, so we’re purposely not making large, large investments that outstrip our ability to fund from operating cash flow. So, you know, I always like to lead with. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:28] Good. So number six, when growth has spiked in the past, did your cash flow ever turn negative? 

William Lieberman [00:14:36] So this just happened recently where the answers no. But we had a big spike in quarter two of this year, and we had a best quarter ever way, way higher because we had a lot of one time money. So we build and collected and paid our our people and generate enough cash flow to pay out the partners of a significant distribution. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:55] Very nice. Congratulations. That’s a problem all our listeners should have. It’s great. Number seven, will payroll growth exceed accounts receivable growth when you double your boutique? 

William Lieberman [00:15:09] So because our contractor costs are 100 percent tied to revenue growth, there’s a one to one relationship between our growth and revenue. So, no, as the revenues go up, we pay out more. As revenues go down, we pay less. And so as we double it will, it will be perfectly fine. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:29] Excellent. Number eight, will cash flow problems be hidden due to lack of forward visibility? 

William Lieberman [00:15:36] No, because we implement, you know, we eat our own dog food, so we implement a 13 week cash flow forecast as we every week we update it and we can see what’s going on with cash. So we always have that forward visibility on here. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:49] Very nice, William. Number nine, will it be hard to generate the yield on your cash deposits? 

William Lieberman [00:15:57] Well, so assuming I understand the question, then this one’s a yes. Okay. If you mean cash that’s sitting sitting around in a bank or some kind of financial institution that doesn’t generate anything right? So we prefer to either distribute out to the partners and we make our own investments or preferably invest back the business. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:16] Excellent answer. That’s exactly what I was getting at. And then number ten, will you be at risk of paying your future obligations if you double your firm? 

William Lieberman [00:16:26] No, we have a very controlled model, so no, not at all. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:30] Outstanding, William. In summary, boutiques run on cash. They don’t run on net income or EBITDA, which is measured on the accrual basis. As you so rightly pointed out, do not run out of cash as you try to scale. A huge thank you to you, William, today for sharing your expertize and for our listeners if you enjoyed the show and want to learn more. Pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell a Professional Services Firm. Written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support, check out Collective 54, the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening. 

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Episode 54: The Client: 2 Sales Tools to Win Bigger, Faster, and More Often – Member Case with Nate Kievman

There are two sales tools that allow boutique founders to win bigger, faster, and more often. On this episode, we discuss these tools with C54 member Nate Kievman, CEO of Linked Strategies.

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:16] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis, Collective 54 Advisory Board Member, and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that there are two sales tools that allow boutique founders to win bigger, faster and more often. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing Nate Keivman, CEO of Linked Strategies. Nate, I’m known and getting to know for a while. He’s a highly sought after digital strategist. He brings a no nonsense business approach to digital and social strategies, and his company Linked Strategies is a consulting firm that specializes in delivering clients a steady stream of highly targeted and pre-qualified meetings with top executives, CEOs, VP’s thought leaders and other key decision makers who are typically made extremely hard to reach. He can be found at linkedstrategies.com, Nate, great to see you and welcome. 

Nate Keivman [00:01:33] Thank you, Sean. Thanks for having me today. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:35] It’s such a pleasure. So let’s start with an overview. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of a sales tool you developed to win bigger, faster and more often? 

Nate Keivman [00:01:49] Yeah, absolutely, Sean, I think it’s an interesting perspective to think about the tool itself that helps you win deals. And I think there’s actually two and I call it an impact analysis, and this is something that is a self-created tool for any organization, especially in the management consulting space who we serve. I think about 90 percent of our clients are in that space. So what they’re looking for is a way to articulate value more clearly and then get their client to agree to that value. And what’s interesting about that is if you do it really powerfully, it very quickly ups your price model and in and it builds your pricing based on the value you’re bringing versus the market competition. So, for example, we just wrapped up our biggest deal ever at a four and a half million dollar contract. Our average deal prior to this was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. And what we’re looking at doing and the reason that we did this as we said, OK, what’s the market value that we’re bringing? And then can we scale that? And so what we did is we created two things and I said two, right? So one is the impact analysis. The other is the sales process of a thing called we call co-creation. And if you can build a sales process that builds a co-creation model into it, then that, coupled with an impact analysis, is almost impossible not to land very significant deals. 

Sean Magennis [00:03:15] I love that. So an impact analysis and a sales process, you’re co-creation model. Outstanding. So, Nate, I’d like to get your thoughts on two tools that we also recommend in this area. I’ll walk you through each one and get your thoughts on each of the two tools are the demographic profile and the psychographic profile. So let’s start with the demographic profile. This is a description of a particular type of client based on unique identifiers such as gender, age, industry, job title, geography. And it focuses on quantifiable attributes and is objective. What are your thoughts on this concept? 

Nate Keivman [00:03:59] I think it’s a baseline for being able to access any given market, right? You have to understand who they are. We call it your total digital universe. Like how do we know our market right? And in the day and age that we live in, we have such accessibility that we’ve never seen before in our in our world to where there’s no excuse for you as an organization not to have your total digital universe at your fingertips. And what I mean by that is the ability to communicate with them, by email, by phone, by social and having that database something that’s always in your hand and always live. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:35] Well, that’s right on. So the next one is a psychographic profile. This is a description of a type of client based on also on unique identifiers such as once needs, goals, challenges, priorities. It’s the qualitative attributes and it’s more subjective. What do you think about that, Nate? 

Nate Keivman [00:04:56] Well, I mean, it’s the holy grail of data, right? So if if if I could figure that one out permanently, we’d be doing a lot more of those bigger deals, right? So the we end up figuring the psychographic out through a thing called the five psychological triggers. And this is a way that executives actually interact, not just think it’s interesting. So we’re most marketing and most sales fall into the habit of if I say my client is this and I talk about my big background and pedigree, that’s enough, right? But it’s not for an executive what an executive actually makes decisions on and when. The reason they’re executives, by the way, is they make great decisions fast. That’s kind of part of the the role too great. So, so, psychologically and globally. This is applicable. So in Abu Dhabi, to London, to New York, to Australia and Sydney, it’s the same for executives, which is there are limited on time. They’re good at making decisions and they make decisions on three core areas outside of trust and credibility. So trust and credibility is the baseline, but time, money and risk are the three critical components that get them to say yes, that’s what’s been able to get us from like just a single call. The email that’s extremely long, by the way, and that’s a different conversation point. Yes, that’s what we’ve been able to land a conversation for one of our clients with with Elon Musk and then one with Tim Cook, right from an email. And it’s something that opens the door that you never knew possible because of the way you articulate your value as it pertains to them and how they see time, money and risk. 

Sean Magennis [00:06:39] You know, that’s that’s absolutely fascinating. And I love what you’ve just shared. One of the one of the things that differentiates you is what you said at the end of your remarks, which is this long email. And because so many marketers go out with trying to get something catchy, some pain points to two word line, you know, two sentence line. Give us a quick insight into this long email concept because I think our listeners need to hear this. 

Nate Keivman [00:07:08] As it’s really important, everybody so executives are great at making decisions, but they also don’t have a lot of time. So a long emails, actually respectful of time, not disrespectful of time, and people don’t understand that because what you need to be able to do is give them enough. And remember, there’s four what if you if you look at the various personality tests out there, there’s four kind of primary personas, maybe six, depending on which one you’re using. Yes. And and CEOs tend to fall on one of two classes and then a little bit of one of the third and. And so what we do is we write to each of those different persona types in order of their attention span. And so when you write that way, you have to understand that there’s a thing called the power statement that you have to build to get their attention. And that’s all short. That’s true, yes, but they’re not going to make a decision to give up their most valuable asset, which is their time, unless they can get a little more information right there without clicking on something and having to go dig for it. So that’s why we’ve been able to modify this over 10 years of and tens of millions of emails and and figure out the Hey, this stuff, this is this is the way to get executives. It doesn’t mean that’s the way to get sales professionals, by the way is going to be better for them, right? But if you want executives? Yeah, you go. There’s a model for it. 

Sean Magennis [00:08:26] Outstanding that that that was a great definition. So we’ve also found that selling services is much harder than selling a product. So when a prospect buys a product, they put their trust in the product itself. When a prospect buys a service, they put their trust in the people delivering the service. So therefore, and you’ve said this establishing trust is essential. What do you think of this? 

Nate Keivman [00:08:50] I think that the reason that the sales process is one of the critical tools to success that we talked about earlier. I I teach a methodology where rapport building and this is from some really great colleagues of mine that have fed into this and are happy to give them as resources. But you know, we’ve done a combination of learnings over tens of thousands of sales calls, hundreds of thousands of sales calls now with our clients to the market that we’ve been serving them right. And we can see out of all that, all that data. Who’s winning at higher percentages versus others? And what do they do differently over others? Well, the ones that are really, really good at closing on a brand new conversation for the first time from a new relationship. They’re really, really good at building rapport, and the process for that is a consultative sales. So consultants and the reason I love serving the consulting industry is by default, you’re naturally a consultant. You have all the tools within you to be very good at this process. However, by default, what most people do is they get into their pitch and they sell themselves. And yeah, they just throw up on them. And right, and that’s honestly your consulting because you’re super smart in your category. But the bottom line is, is you’re doing something that’s the same for everybody. Rapport is not built by talking about the city you live in and connecting on something really generic on a sports team. It’s built by understanding their challenges, understanding where they’re trying to go and watch the gap between them. And can you or can’t you solve that? That’s how Raptors built. And that’s what we do as consultants anyway. We just don’t always recognize it. So what we tend to do is we want to get into really hurry up and tell them about us. But they don’t care. They want to know is what we do able to solve their problem first. And that’s what we need to focus on. 

Sean Magennis [00:10:42] That is a powerful distinction. And listeners, please remember that. So sales tools like those we just discussed, they’ve been around forever. If they truly can help win bigger deals faster and more often, you would think they’d be used more often. So when when I look at firms and I think you’re the same, they’re either not present or if they are, they’re not used properly. So why is this? Why should leaders of boutique professional firms care about what you’ve just been sharing? 

Nate Keivman [00:11:15] Because it will grow you exponentially. I mean, we have we have a I have a great management consulting firm and they’re but on the smaller end of the companies that typically start with us, they started about six hundred thousand dollars right when COVID hit. And we help them understand this methodology and the combination of understanding some of the tools that we’ve outlined, right? The tools are the beginning, the sales process, the impact analysis that by itself should double triple quadruple, sometimes topple your your price. They went from a seventy thousand average deal per year to a $500000 average deal per six months. Wow. And then on the back end of their contracts, they got a three year contract at a million dollars a year, so they went from all that and just over the last 18 months, and now they’re a $5 million firm. So I think about the speed of impact and the speed of growth. You can grow in three primary areas really, really fast as a management consulting firm, increase your price right there over a shorter term or consolidate the term over a longer period of time either way, and then close more deals and get more leads, like if you can do all three at the same time, you’ll have exponential growth and it’s almost guaranteed. So that’s where I think that if what I’m saying resonates, you know, an impact analysis, understand how to build a rapport and have a really well-structured first call because you win the deal on the first call and and then understand that process will increase your prices very quickly. And that’s the fastest and easiest way to grow your company. I did that 100 percent growth for three years straight, and all I did was focus on my price and my term. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:52] So those are outstanding points. And, you know, brings me to brings me to a question. So a lot of our listeners will get off this podcast and they’ll go, OK, so how do I implement this? How do I get started in this? Give them some. Give them some tips on what to do immediately after hearing. You know what you’ve just said 

Nate Keivman [00:13:13] Sure, I think. It’s really hard to get to your own core value. I was just looking at a website of a person I’m talking to later today, and he’s in the management consulting space and I’m like, Wow, they really struggle to articulate their value. And so what happens is most management consulting firms grow from referrals because they can’t articulate their value clear enough for people to actually want to desire it because they’re not saying it clear enough, right? And so. So I think that the starting point is to get really, really clear on your core value to the market, right? And how to articulate that spend time, spend money on that because that’s going to create the big breakthrough, right, where we’re working with one of the largest financial institutions in the world coming up and the first thing they’re hiring us for is that as the core message, right? What’s the core value? How do I crack through on the messaging first and then we can go start sharing that message with the market? And so the second thing I would say is an impact analysis is a simply put, it’s an Excel sheet that grabs certain assumptions and articulates everything you do into a monetary impact on their organization. So like the the company I mentioned earlier, that went from six hundred to five five million a year culture transformation company and well, that’s a hard one to articulate into. You know, what’s the financial impact of this? Yes. And so but but there’s a lot of ways to do it, and so turn everything from whether it’s time saved or it’s hours saved or it’s, you know, you know, risk eliminated or whatever it is that all translates to dollars. Figure out how to translate it to a dollar and a bottom line impact and then use that into your process. And then what it is is it’s a little quick gut check, and what it becomes is a business case that helps you win the bigger deal, right? 

Sean Magennis [00:15:13] Yeah, I love that night. I absolutely love that. That’s very practical, very doable. And obviously they can always reach out to you, which would be really in a very important for those that would need your type of expertize. So this is great. There is no part of the boutique that this information will not change. Every sales script changes. Every process to deliver a service would get rewritten to reflect this enhanced understanding of the client. So a firm should change its marketing messages, its pricing position and the hiring profiles realistically of its staff. So to win bigger, faster and more often requires the boutique to obsess over the client every little detail without this information dynamically updated regularly. You’re not client focused. So this is a good reminder tools that can truly help you understand your client. OK. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:11] This takes us to the end of the episode. Let’s try to help listeners apply this. We end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows a listener to apply the lessons to his or her firm. Our preferred tool is checklist, and our style of checklist is a yes or no questionnaire. We aim to keep it simple by asking only 10 questions in this instance. If you answer yes to eight or more of these questions, you know your client strategy is working. If you answer no too many times, your lack of client knowledge will impede your ability to win more business. Nate has graciously agreed to be our peer example today. And Nate, I’ll ask you the yes no questions, so we’ll all learn from this example. So let’s begin. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:58] Number one, do you have a demographic profile of your target client? 

Nate Keivman [00:17:03] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:05] Number two, do you have a psychographic profile of your target client? 

Nate Keivman [00:17:11] I do. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:12] Number three, do you have an elevator pitch that speaks directly to the target client? 

Nate Keivman [00:17:19] Absolutely. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:20] Number four, do you understand the personal goals of the client? 

Nate Keivman [00:17:26] I do. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:27] Number five, do you understand the professional goals of the clean? 

Nate Keivman [00:17:32] I do. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:33] Number six. Do you understand the obstacles preventing the client from accomplishing their personal goals? 

Nate Keivman [00:17:42] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:43] And number seven, do you understand the obstacles preventing the client from accomplishing their professional goals? 

Nate Keivman [00:17:51] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:53] Number eight, do you understand the likely objections that your client is going to submit to you? 

Nate Keivman [00:18:00] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:02] Number nine, do you understand the client’s top priorities? 

Nate Keivman [00:18:07] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:08] And number ten, do you understand the emotional makeup of the client? 

Nate Keivman [00:18:15] Most of the time. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:17] I love that, you know, and this is an example to our listeners, somebody like yourself that literally this is your business should answer yes to those. And the challenge to our listeners from both you and I need is please think through all of these, apply them to your business. And if you can’t answer sufficiently, then go back to work and really focus, focus on getting to know your client. So in summary, know thy client. Get inside their hearts, their souls, their minds. Try to know them better than they know themselves. Take this knowledge and drive it into everything you do. Because when a prospect bumps into you, they should say to themselves, These people get me, Nate, thank you for sharing your expertize with us. It’s great to see you.

If you enjoyed the show and want to learn more. Pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the Professional Services Firm. Written by Collector 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support. Check out Collective 54 the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms.

Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening.

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Episode 55: Mistakes: 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Your Business – Member Case with TK Herman

There are 7 common mistakes made when trying to sell a professional services firm. On this episode, we interview TK Herman, President and Co-Founder of Aptera, a focused IT consultancy and managed services provider.

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:15] Welcome to the boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis, Collective 54 Advisory Board Member, and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that there are seven common mistakes made when trying to sell a professional services firm. I’ll try to prove this theory by interviewing T.K. Herrman, president and co-founder of Aptera.  Aptera is a focused IT consultancy and managed service provider.  Aptera transforms your ability to deliver custom software with high performing development teams, coaches and consultants. They are a trusted partner of Fortune 500 companies with a track record of tackling complex global development projects. TK, great to be with you and welcome. 

TK Herman [00:01:21] Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Sean, I really appreciate the invite onto the show. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:25] It’s such a pleasure. Let’s start with an overview. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of a mistake to avoid when selling your firm? 

TK Herman [00:01:35] Yeah, I think, you know. So we recently went through an acquisition, so I’ve got experience in this realm and you know, one of the things that I would say that there are three areas of knowledge in the world. There’s the what you know, there’s the what you don’t know. And then there’s the what you don’t know that you don’t know.  And and through the whole process, there were a lot of things in the realm of what you don’t know. You don’t know that I came across. And so I’m I’m a much smarter person today than I was, you know, four or five months ago. And one of those things would just be, you know, kind of asking the question and really trying to spend more time aligning some of the changes that are going to be happening with the integration of the two companies. Because, you know, I think that everyone is focused on getting to the same endpoint, but how to get there in the timeframe and in how to go about that, I’d be a slight difference. That’s just one example of of something that you might consider thinking about. 

Sean Magennis [00:02:35] That, you know, that’s a wonderful example. And I share that with you because in a in an example that we’ve helped with recently. Soon, as the acquirer was identified, they advocated for starting integration conversations early on because it is often left to the end. And it really does make a difference when the rubber hits the road that you’ve thought through all the nuances so. So thank you for that example. It’s a critical one. And you know, if I think about selling a boutique, we know it’s a high risk, high reward initiative. We also know that every situation is different. So I’d like to spend some time getting your thoughts on the common mistakes made when selling. I’ve selected seven to walk you through, and I’ll ask to get your thoughts on each and feel free to share whatever comes up for you as we go through these. So the first mistake is that boutique owners are unclear as to what they want from a sale. So if you’re unsure of who you are, you’ll be unhappy with the sale. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you’ll be unhappy with the sale. What are your thoughts on this concept? 

TK Herman [00:03:47] I would completely agree with that, I think that before you. The more time that you can spend sort of self reflecting and look in the mirror to really understand what is the goal and why you’re heading down this path, the more likely likely you’ll be to be happy on the other end of the transaction. You know, and again, I think you hit on those points, whether it’s, you know, what am I looking for for my company? Because, you know, more often than not, acquisitions are done to move the company forward. Right? And then also, from a personal perspective, you know, what is life look like after that? And what does that mean to you? And and if you’ve had the business for quite some time and you have somebody else coming in and kind of running the business, you know, is that going to affect you emotionally? Some people will say yes, some people will say no, but I think, I think really sitting down and reflecting on those points and having a very clear understanding of where things sit for you personally on the side. And I think to the last thing I’d say is is the more conversations that you can have with people that have gone through this process to just try to learn from them along the way, I think that that that would be extremely helpful. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:55] Those are those are great points of advice. And that brings up mistake number two, which is sometimes boutique owners try to sell an unsellable business. And so your boutique needs to be attractive to a buyer. It almost requires you to look at your business through the lens of an investor. What do you think of that TK? 

TK Herman [00:05:17] I would 100 percent agree with that. You know, when when you’re selling a professional services company, there’s no, you know, machines to buy or inventory to buy. The person that’s acquiring your business is really acquiring the team that you’ve built and the client relationships that you’ve cultivated over the years. And so you need to be really need to become really clear on that. And then also look at and say, how reliant is this business upon you or you and a few people? Because the the the more you can get the business to the point where it’s not really reliant upon you to drive the day to day pieces forward, the more value there is in the business. 

Sean Magennis [00:05:58] You know, again, I can’t agree with you more because that’s what we see so often. Getting in the way of a successful sale is that the owner founder hasn’t thought of it in the way that you’ve just expressed.  You know, mistake number three. It can take years to sell a boutique. Yet some owners try to sell a boutique in a matter of months, and a good exit is an exit on your terms. It does take time to stack the deck in your favor. What are your opinions on this? 

TK Herman [00:06:29] You know, it’s so interesting because we did not anticipate going through the acquisition even at the beginning of this year. And so this is we obviously knew an acquisition would happen at some point in time. That was always the end game. But did not expect that this year, even really in the next couple of years. And and the right opportunity came along and we decided to move forward with it now. We were fortunate that we had sort of positioned the company and set things up in a way that it made that process easier. But I’ve spoken with a handful of people since the acquisition that just reached out for some advice. And you know, I can’t stress enough the importance of again, making sure you have the right leadership team in place, making sure you have, you know, processes and procedures and those kind of things that are easy for an acquire to come in and kind of take charge of and move forward. But then also there is just a tremendous amount of back back office work that needs to be done. So making sure that you’re accounting, you know, is all in order making sure our files are all in order. Because the more that know, the more time you spend there, the the easier it’s going to be through the diligence process. You know, that’s one of the things that that, you know, our comptroller had mentioned to me during the process. Gosh, if I had known we were going to do this, I could have spent the last year actually even preparing that much better. And I couldn’t argue with that. That’s a very valid 

Sean Magennis [00:07:52] No, it’s a very valid point. No. And but that’s a great point for our listeners, too, is that, you know, you’re a practical example of somebody that was fortunate because you were prepared and you had a lot of things in place. But if you had had to do it over again, potentially, you know, in the example of the accountant having that time to prepare is so much better and could potentially impact, you know what you get out at the end of the day from the from the sales price. So let’s talk about you. You alluded to this several times. Let’s talk about succession planning and often owners under invest in succession planning. And after you sell, you’ll want to see that your boutique does well without you. So what are your thoughts on the importance of succession planning? 

TK Herman [00:08:42] I think it’s I think it’s highly important again, even if a sale is is. You know, a decade down the road. Yes, I think from day one, when you start a business, you should start setting the business up for it to run without being there day in and day out. And it’s the old adage, you know, you have a choice. You can either work in the business or you can work on the business side. And it’s it’s very difficult. You know, I’ve certainly empathize with companies that are small that have, you know, just five or 10 people because the owner has a really difficult time sort of balancing those two things. But if you can, if you can from the beginning focus and say, I’m going to spend, you know, even if it’s 51 percent of my time on the on the business things. And over the course of time, you’ll get to the point where where that becomes kind of your main role in the business. And I think there’s there’s to me, there’s three key ingredients to setting up a leadership team or setting up a team to be able to carry the business forward. And they’re very simple. The first one is just hire outstanding human beings. Yes, just just great people. Obviously, they need the skill set that they they you just want great human beings to represent you to to work with you every single day and to help deliver that great experience to your clients. And then the second piece is is point them in the direction that you want them to go. And the more narrow that direction can be, the better, obviously. So yes, we we were for a long time kind of a shotgun approach, and we started trying to narrow that down to more of a rifle, but point them in the direction you want to go. And then the third piece is, in my opinion, it’s the hardest piece and that is get out of their way. So in other words, you know, you’ve hired great people, you’ve pointed them in the right direction and then now it’s your job to get out of their way and let them move forward and let them make mistakes, you know, and let them learn from those mistakes. A phrase that I always use is Don’t let perfect ruin good. If there’s one thing that I can say that my business partner and I have did a good job of over the years was creating an environment where we let people try things and make those mistakes. And there were times where I, I would look at something that somebody wanted to do, and I would think in my head, that’s never going to work. But I also looked at and said, OK, if it doesn’t work, is this going to be a detrimental thing to our business? Is it going to hurt the client hurt and hurt an employee? And if the answer was no and there really wasn’t a significant risk and let them go down that road because A, I could be wrong, I’m not. I don’t have all the answers, right? But B also, if if it if it didn’t work, there’s a whole lot of lessons to be learned there. And the more that you empower people like that, the more you’ll find yourself having time to work on the business as opposed to in 

Sean Magennis [00:11:25] Outstanding and I loved you three key ingredients, and I’ll refer back to them at the end of the of the podcast because I think they they certainly resonated for me. So let’s talk about mistake number five. This mistake is where entrepreneurs think that they can sell their business on their own. It can result in tactical execution errors that can cost millions of dollars, and our recommendation is to hire the best advisors that money can buy. What is your opinion on this best practice? 

TK Herman [00:11:55] So actually, it is actually kind of a funny story that reflects back to Greg Alexander, who obviously has been on your podcast numerous times. Yeah. And so we were fairly deep into diligence and deep into the process, and I was having a conversation with Greg and and he said, Hey, do you have counsel? And I’m like, You know, of course we have a lawyer, and he goes, No, but do you have somebody with experience in this? And I’m like, Oh, I think they are. And and he goes, OK, hang on. Let’s pause a second. And he said, You have to you’ve got to go out and find somebody that really not only not only in an attorney, but also your accountant, and make sure that they’re experienced in this. And so I did that. I took that advice and and asked around, found somebody and holy mackerel. My eyes were open because we again we were we were fairly deep into diligence. I was very fortunate that that that this law firm was able to to take us on. But there were so many things, so many things that I had. I would have had no idea of the level of questions that needed to be asked. And so I can’t stress that point enough. That’s 100 percent true. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:01] Absolutely fantastic. And then mistake number six is boutique owners often get attacked after the sale. This is more personal. You know, they can take it personally, and this causes seller’s regret. So our recommendation there is give yourself the permission to not take it seriously and really guide yourself. What are your thoughts about this? 

TK Herman [00:13:24] Yeah, I would agree with that. I think that you have, you know, a wide variety of reaction, you know, everything from from people that are very upset that you sold the business to people that are excited about the opportunity and it’s easy to find yourself like anything else. For example, if I was a new YouTuber and I started a new YouTube. You know, I’m going to get some heat and some shade thrown at me on on the comments and I have a choice to make. Do I focus on those? Yes, or do I focus on the positive things that are coming out of it? And so like anything else in life, whether it’s whether it’s selling your business or anything you do. You know, the more that you can like align your your, your mindset and and your heart under the positive things, the better off you’ll be, for sure. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:10] Yeah, wonderfully answered. And then finally, mistake number seven is to be sure to understand who the business is being sold to and what their motives are. It’s particularly important if you’re on an Earnhardt or rolling in some equity. This prevents unwanted surprises from cropping up. The buyers ultimately own the asset once you’ve sold it. What are your thoughts about this? And I know it’s early in for you, but what are your thoughts? 

TK Herman [00:14:36] Yeah, I would totally agree with that. And even if there’s not an earnout or there’s not equity, I’m very much I’m very much invested in the people. You know, we had our business for 18 years and I care deeply. I care to actually care more about the people that work for us than I care about the work product that they delivered. And I always believed that if we if we operated that way as a company that will come back and give us good karma sort of in return. And so, yeah, I would totally agree with that. The more that you can align yourself and ensure that the things are aligned, the better the whole process will be. And you know, some of those things, that’s where it goes to, I think, going out and asking a lot of questions of people who have been through the process before because you as somebody new coming into this won’t have any idea of what questions to ask. And and that’s that’s certainly an area where there are things that that could probably be easily missed 

Sean Magennis [00:15:33] A great point. And again, thank you. I mean, these are all very vital mistakes to avoid, and there are many others, too. To your point, I mean, going through and having great advisors, having them give you the benefit of the wisdom of what they recommend asking is also very key and every situation is different. However, we’ve given you seven of the most common mistakes for you to avoid as a boutique owner of a professional services firm. TK thank you. This brings us to the end of this episode. I prepared a 10 question Yes/No checklist, listeners. Please ask yourself these 10 questions. If you answered yes to eight or more of these, you will avoid making these mistakes when selling your firm. T.K. has graciously agreed to be our pure example today. Thank you, TK. So I’ll ask you the essential question so we can all learn from this example. So question number one, do you know what you want from the sale? 

TK Herman [00:16:38] I would say yes, when we went into this, I would say yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:41] Excellent question number two. Do you know what you were going to do after the sale? 

TK Herman [00:16:48] Yes, that was a yes for for me personally as well.

Sean Magennis [00:16:52] Great. Number three, is your business attractive to a buyer? 

TK Herman [00:16:57] Yes, it was. You know, and again, we we worked hard over the years to to to be very deliberate about creating an attractive company. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:07] Great. Number five, do you have a handpicked successor? 

TK Herman [00:17:12] We did have a leadership team that was able to basically roll the business forward, even if we hadn’t sold the business they were, they were making the majority of the decisions along the way. So we we were in a good spot for sure. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:24] And I did skip number four because you had a sellable boutique and you’d kind of illustrated that before. Number six is the successor ready to take over? 

TK Herman [00:17:36] Yeah, I would say yes. But again, we we were purchased by a large company, so that’s a little more complex. But but as far as that, the people we had, yes, I would say without a doubt, they’re just top notch people. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:49] Excellent. Number seven, have you lined up an all star team of advisers to help you? 

TK Herman [00:17:56] I didn’t, but I have them now. So if I was ever going to do this again now, I would know who to call. Excellent. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:05] Eight. Are you prepared for the post-sale criticism headed your way? 

TK Herman [00:18:10] You know, I don’t think that I was I know that there would be a lot of emotion around it, but some of that I did not expect. But I understand it for sure. And so that’s probably one area that I didn’t prepare mentally for, like I like, I probably should have. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:25] Yes. And then number nine, do you understand who you were selling your boutique to? 

TK Herman [00:18:30] Yes. Yes.

Sean Magennis [00:18:32] And No. 10. Do you understand their motives for buying? 

TK Herman [00:18:37] Yes, we’ve we’ve we felt pretty confident in in their motives and why they wanted to acquire us. We actually had the good fortune of having a very, another company that was acquired by them that we were very friendly with their owner. And so we were able to get some behind the scenes look into things prior to the acquisition. 

Sean Magennis [00:18:57] T.K. Fantastic. I’m just going to remind the audience again about the three key ingredients that you alluded to during the course of our time together. The first was hire outstanding human beings. I thought that was profound. And then point them in the direction that you want them to go and keep it narrow. And then the third, which I think is a vital lesson. Certainly, it has been for me and I think it will be for our listeners. In fact, I know it will be for our listeners is get out of their way, which is the hardest thing to do. So again, thank you all of our listeners. You’re building a business that you could likely run forever. You’re also building a business you could sell tomorrow if you do decide to sell. You want to do so on your terms. Give yourself plenty of time to avoid the mistakes that T.K. and I have shared with you today.

And if you enjoyed the show and want to learn more, pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the professional services firm written by Collective 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support, check out Collective 54, the first mastermind community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms.

Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster.

Go to Collective 54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening. 

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Episode 53: Leverage: Work Smarter Not Harder and Make More – Member Case with Lawrence King

Boutique firms often grow but do not scale. On this episode, Lawrence King, CEO of Headstorm discusses how to work smarter, not harder and why improved leverage increases incomes and wealth.

Transcript

Sean Magennis [00:00:15] Welcome to the Boutique with Collective 54, a podcast for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Our goal with this show is to help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. I’m Sean Magennis, Collective, 54 Advisory Board Member, and your host. On this episode, I will make the case that sometimes boutiques grow, but don’t scale. I’ll try to prove this counter-intuitive theory by interviewing Lawrence King, CEO of Headstorm. Headstorm is a technology consultancy dedicated to building innovative technical solutions for Fortune 500 companies. Fast growing start ups and literally everything in between. Lawrence’s expertize includes designing, developing and supporting distributed systems, cloud platforms, mobility data analytics and token based security models. You can find Lawrence at www.HeadStorm.com. Lawrence, great to see you and welcome. 

Lawrence King [00:01:24] Thanks for having me, Sean. 

Sean Magennis [00:01:26] Such a pleasure. So too many boutique owners are growing but are not making more money in the process. Can you briefly share with the audience an example of how you’ve dealt with this issue? 

Lawrence King [00:01:37] Yeah, I think that there becomes a time if you’re not, there was a point in which we weren’t too focused in terms of our service offerings. And and in doing that, you’re trying to solve lots of different problems and you end up throwing lots of bodies at it. Bodies that you’re throwing at it may be their skill sets may not match up with the work that’s needed or they just in many cases, it the profitability would would get hit in that way. But you’re growing, you’re still adding revenue incrementally, but your profitability is really taking. 

Sean Magennis [00:02:13] Yeah, listen, you’ve hit the nail on the head. And so there are, you know, there are some thoughts that I’d like to to get your input on that we recommend. So I’ve selected five things I’ll walk you through and get your thoughts on each. So the first is if revenue growth and headcount growth are proportional, the owner doesn’t increase necessarily his or her income from that growth. So it’s not until headcount growth is decoupled from revenue growth that an owner grows his income. What are your thoughts on this? 

Lawrence King [00:02:48] Yeah, that’s a little bit of a tough one, because if you think about it growing literally eight or linearly, I could say if a company, if their net net, let’s say they’re a bit as 15 to 20 percent, yes. And I know that if if I’m doing 10 million this year and 20 million next year and and I’m operating the business the same way, I’m just adding headcount and my mark, my EBITDA is already 10 or 15. I’m going to get more, you know, revenue, right? I think that where that where that starts to fall apart is, is as you start to scale those profit margins. They don’t they don’t stay the same. And as you’re adding headcount, you’re also probably not running a leveraged model. And so your your EBITDA and end number is going to be, you know, much lower than probably where you started. 

Sean Magennis [00:03:35] Yes. Yes, that’s that’s an excellent point. And you know, it brings us to our next question, which the top expense by a wide margin for a professional services firm is their labor cost and more headcount. Naturally, more means more expense, potentially less income. And as a firm takes on more work, don’t they need more heads to complete it? Or how do you think differently about that? 

Lawrence King [00:04:00] Oh man, it’s yes. But to get to a leverage model is is really a challenge. It actually forces you to start with the service offerings in mind. You have to really focus on what you’re offering and scope. It is something that you can hire against, something that you can train against and something that you can deliver against with low cost resources. And so if you’re trying to deliver all different types of solutions, you’re never going to get that opportunity. 

Sean Magennis [00:04:26] You know, you’ve again, you’ve dovetailed right into the next thing that I was going to talk about, which is re-engineering your service and also you’re scoping. So let’s talk about leverage then. So the definition of leverage is the number of employees to owners. And an example of how to calculate the leverage leverage ratio is a firm with, say, 30 employees with three owners would have a 10 to one leverage ratio. The higher the leverage ratio, the more money the owner makes. So why is this? You know, it’s because a profit pool divided by three people is obviously better than a profit pool divided by up to 10 people. How do you think about leverage in this context, Lawrence? 

Lawrence King [00:05:09] Yeah. So I look at it as a shape and we’re a leveraged pyramid. 

Sean Magennis [00:05:14] Yeah. 

Lawrence King [00:05:15] And I can tell you that when we hire to maintain that leverage, I’ll give you an example of last year. Last year, the way that we were hiring, we were hiring very reactively to different projects. And we actually when I looked at our staff from consultants, senior consultants, project leaders, directors and partners, yes, we formed a diamond. 

Sean Magennis [00:05:32] Interesting. 

Lawrence King [00:05:33] And so I built out this whole pro forma so I could play out the numbers and see if I was to hire against the forecast and maintain my pyramid to where I had more consultants than I did senior consultants, more senior consultants than I did project leaders and middle management and so forth. Yes, there’s a gain of about 10 percent there to the gross margin. If you manage that properly. Mm-Hmm. 

Sean Magennis [00:05:56] I mean, that’s that is a unique ability and kind of what I would advocate probably your secret sauce in that area. So when you you’ve spoken about owners often have expense of senior staff performing junior grade work. This obviously destroys profitability and owners income. And so what do you think the fix is for for that scenario? 

Lawrence King [00:06:21] I think how we solve it is when we build our project teams, the project teams take on pyramids in and of themselves, and there is utilization pyramids in there. And so if we have a partner that’s managing quality, they’re probably billable five percent of the time. I like it. And then a director is also a part of that, and he’s probably billable 10 percent. Yep. And then as part of our expectations framework, the directors know, hey, overall, you need to be billable for 30 to 50 percent of the time, but your other, you know, 60 and 70 percent needs to be focused on high value, high, high fee craft. Yeah, I the type of work and that could either be doing business development activities, thought leadership, building intellectual capital within the firm that we can resell coming up with new go to market service offerings. Yes, all of those type things. So we really break it down in terms of what the expectation at every level is and the allocation of time from billability to working on internal intellectual capital. 

Sean Magennis [00:07:25] I mean, it sounds remarkable and you’ve obviously got the process and the systems down, you know, almost to a fine art. How do you how do you keep track of that? What sort of tools techniques do you use to keep track of that, Lawrence? 

Lawrence King [00:07:38] Yeah, great question. So the very first thing I started that drove that really drove that our strategy was building this pro forma. I knew it. Let me start with the end in mind. So I said, Listen, I want to be able to do a 20 to 25 percent EBITDA. Yeah, so that means I have to do if my is probably going to be 20 to 25 percent and I know that my gross margin has to be 50 at all times. 

Sean Magennis [00:07:59] That’s right. 

Lawrence King [00:08:00] I know what we pay our staff now. I just have to work. I know how many PTO days they have. I know the vacation, the holidays, how many hours are there. And then I look and I plug all that in and it spits out the rates that I have to charge. And then I look at those rates and I say, Wow, those are high. How are we going to get those? Yes, that’s when it’s a pivot moment. They say, Listen, we have to be super focused. We have to come up with go to market strategies and engagement models that aren’t time and materials based, their fixed fee, even contingency based, and they have to be tied to high value solutions that we’re delivering in order to get that. And so that’s really framed up how the focus of where we’re we’re looking at if we want to compete, if we think of consulting as a spectrum, staffing on the far side and then high end differentiation on the other, we want to compete over here, so we have to be delivering those types of solutions. Got to get back to earlier question. So we built an internal application called MTM Headstorm MTM. And what that does is it’s a dashboard every day as a as a leadership team. This is directors and partners. We look and we see what their utilization is across the company. We see what the realization is by project and we try it. We’ve got a threshold there that we try to be at 100 percent realization. That’s meaning that we’re charging 100 percent of our standard rate. If it’s if it’s the partners have the opportunity to to discount it by 10 percent if they want to. But we have to. But the pro forma accounts for that. And so if this matches, if we’re staying within this 90, 90 percent to 100 percent realization, then we’re on target with the pro forma. And that’s really sort of how we manage where these projects are. And then we got a bench, you know, and there’s times where, yes, you hire we we now if you hire, reactively, what we’ve done is if you hire, reactively, you get a project and then you start hiring for it, you’re going to compromise talent, you’re going to compromise the roles and the leverage. Yeah. So rather and you may have attrition and culture issues down the road. So we did areas as we simply created a forecast to give to our recruiting department to say, you need to hire this many of each of these levels every month. And that will make sure that we 

Sean Magennis [00:10:04] stay, stay in that pyramid. 

Lawrence King [00:10:06] In that pyramid. And then it’s up to us as as the partners to sell the work and to make sure that we’re putting those people, you know, getting them busy and billable. 

Sean Magennis [00:10:15] You know, thank you for sharing that because what that illustrates to our listeners is the importance of being on the data and the information and the intelligence of what’s happening daily. You said that, you know, your MTM system gives you a view every day, and I’m assuming that that also, you know, enables you to to really accurately address the trigger point for your pivot because you can’t afford to pivot just, you know, once a quarter, once a year or once every six months, right? I mean, you could you could be pivoting literally on a daily basis with with with what you have at your fingertips. 

Lawrence King [00:10:49] Right. That’s right. And and so we really manage that. We also look at so so we have our utilization, we have our realization. And then we’ve got with Pipedrive is our CRM. Yes, it’s really cool because we book in there all of our existing work and income that’s coming and the revenue coming in monthly that’s already sold work. Yes. And we have forecasted work on a monthly run basis. So we know, hey, we’ve got enough in the pipeline that we’re going to be doing, you know, two million next month or whatever those numbers are. And that gives us a really predictable way to think about staffing and hiring, scoping these scoping right. 

Sean Magennis [00:11:31] Which is critical. Lawrence, this is fantastic. I mean, you know, the idea of leverage is not new. It’s obviously been around for a long time, and it means that the solutions are readily available. I mean, your examples of. Of how you built MTM, how you’re running Headstorm. A just extraordinary and I think a really important lesson for our listeners who are building boutique professional services firms is take Lawrence’s his lessons and really apply them. It’s not easy to run a professional services firm. It’s not easy to maintain leverage right? 

Lawrence King [00:12:05] No. It’s a challenge. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:07] It’s a challenge. But the way that you’ve architected it and the tools that you’re using, the information that you’re getting on realization, on utilization, on seniority, on scoping, very, very key. So this will help you if you adopt some of these lessons and insights, it’ll help you work less, hopefully earn more, work smarter and not harder. So this brings us to the root cause of the big issue. Revenue outside of scope should be turned away. Lawrence, what do you think about that? 

Lawrence King [00:12:40] Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I’m doing. I’m doing it today. 

Sean Magennis [00:12:44] Excellent. So again, this allows you as an owner to balance expense of senior staff and allocate assignments to junior staff capable of doing the work at good cost profile. It’s what pushes up the leverage ratio and your pyramid example of what allows an owner to make more money as the firm grows. So, Lawrence, this takes us to the end of this episode and as is customary, we end each show with a tool. We do so because this allows a listener to apply the lessons to his or her firm. Our preferred tool is a checklist, a style of checklist as a yes, no question, we aim to keep it simple. So in this instance, if you answer yes to eight or more of these questions, leverage or lack thereof is not preventing you from scaling. If you want to know too often, then poor leverage may be the reason that growth is not equating to your personal income. So, Lawrence, I’m going to walk you through these, and let’s begin. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:42] So number one is your leverage of employee to owner at least 10 to one? 

Lawrence King [00:13:47] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:49] Excellent. Number two is the proper mix of junior middle and senior staff clear to you? 

Lawrence King [00:13:56] Yes. 

Sean Magennis [00:13:56] Yeah. Given your example, I mean, that’s so well done. Number three, do you understand the skills mix of a project before you sign it? 

Lawrence King [00:14:06] Most of the time, most of the time, I would say the only caveat there is is that potentially if you don’t have the staff but you want to take the project, then then you know, kind of putting some. We tend to air on putting, you know, more senior people in for junior roles in that case. Yes, but it has to be a strategic account. There has to be a reason for doing it. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:25] And then, you know, at your fingertips, what are you know, what your return is going to be on that? All right. Yeah. So number four, do you understand which revenue is good and which is bad? 

Lawrence King [00:14:38] Yeah, it’s hard, but you know, all revenue seems good, but there’s there’s a lot of times that, for example, you know, if the account’s not a strategic account, if it’s not one that is going to become a flywheel, yes, there’s just distract you if it’s going to take away your bench. So you might perhaps miss out on another opportunity. Yeah, those are the types of things that go through our head and we make those decisions. 

Sean Magennis [00:14:59] Excellent. Number five, do you have a zero tolerance policy for one off projects? 

Lawrence King [00:15:07] Mostly, I think it just comes back down to the strategic nature of the project. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:12] Number six, do the owners work on the business instead of in the business? Do you work on the business instead of in the business? 

Lawrence King [00:15:21] I am. That is that’s a great question. I am transitioning, that is a tough one because I still bring in, you know, probably the lion’s share of the revenue. Yes, and I need to keep that going. But realizing that I this to create the value for the firm, I need to be able to hand it over with, you know, turnkey where I’m not needed. And so a lot of the focus is building processes and training and right now, that type of thing. So I could step step away more. 

Sean Magennis [00:15:52] And that’s brilliant. You know, the first step is in acknowledging that and then it’s literally having the discipline and holding yourself accountable to getting there, right? But it’s it’s a balance. Everything is every business is nuanced. Number seven, do your service offerings come with procedure manuals for the staff? 

Lawrence King [00:16:09] Yes. Yeah, so we call them playbooks, are run books. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:12] Excellent. Number eight, do you assign work to teams strategically versus reactively? You address that a little bit. 

Lawrence King [00:16:21] Yeah. When we have a bench, it’s more strategic. Yes, when we don’t have a bench and we’re just trying to, you know, take on new projects and hire at the same time, it becomes a little bit more reactive, but there’s a balance. We’ll try to make some strategic folks on the account and then come back a couple of months later and fix it. Maybe rebalance it. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:43] Excellent. Number nine, does your hiring plan forecast demand for a specific leverage ratio? 

Lawrence King [00:16:51] Yes, absolutely. 

Sean Magennis [00:16:52] And number 10, do your financial goals match up with the leverage ratio assumptions in your business plan? 

Lawrence King [00:16:59] Yeah, that’s that’s the that’s that’s pro forma that drives everything. I’m on that thing probably twice a week. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:04] I love it. I bet you. I bet you. Three quarters of the people listening and the members of Collective 54 would love to get insights on that from you. 

Lawrence King [00:17:12] So happy to share. It was great building it, going through the process of building it, understanding all of the levers. Just going through that process now makes me understand it that much better. 

Sean Magennis [00:17:23] Well, you can see it. I mean, you’ve got your you’ve got all of the all of the information, all the facts at your fingertips. So, Lawrence, thank you. In summary, scaling means working less and making more. It does not just mean growing. If you want to earn what you’re worth, decouple revenue growth and headcount growth. Follow the leverage tips that Lawrence has given you, and your definition of success is not the number of employees you have, but rather it’s how much net income you produce. Lawrence, a huge thank you for being with us today.

And if you’ve enjoyed the show and want to learn more pick up a copy of the book The Boutique How to Start, Scale and Sell the professional services firm written by Collector 54 founder Greg Alexander.

And for more expert support, check out Collective 54, the first expert community for founders and leaders of boutique professional services firms. Collective 54 will help you grow, scale and exit your firm bigger and faster. Go to Collective54.com to learn more.

Thank you for listening. 

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