Articles

Filter by Topic

Managing People
Managing Clients
Marketing Yourself
Growing Your Business
Succession and M&A
Developing Processes

September 27, 2019

Losing Effective Control of Your Firm

Regardless of the circumstances surrounding your firm’s birth, you were drawn to the promise of more control over your business life. You might have been tired of all the effort […]

Benchmarking, Clients, Developing Processes, Management, Managing Clients, Managing People, Marketing, Marketing Yourself

April 18, 2019

Why Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) Arrangements May Not Be Ideal

Though I’ve been dropping passive-aggressive hints trying to undermine this movement to MRR for twelve years, I’ve never written a logical insight piece on why. To clarify, MRR is the […]

Clients, Developing Processes, Finance, Managing Clients, Processes

April 4, 2019

Masking Rot Just Under the Surface of Your Creative Enterprise

I set my vibrating Apple Watch to go off at 5:00a today. That’s when the local landfill opens, and I wanted to get there before all the huge trucks line […]

Developing Processes, Finance, Growing Your Business, Growth, Management, Managing People

March 27, 2019

Eight Important Gauges On Your Financial Dashboard

In your mind, list all of the important metrics you’d like to track about your agency. Now tie each metric to one specific gauge, and your financial dashboard might look […]

Benchmarking, Developing Processes, Finance

March 20, 2019

Are You the Kid…or the Adult…in the Boxed Cereal Aisle?

If your young daughter is screaming in the boxed cereal aisle, maybe you can defer the whining until you get to the checkout line in 11 minutes, but good luck […]

Benchmarking, Developing Processes, Expertise, Growing Your Business, Growth, Management, Managing Clients, Managing People, Roles, Succession, Succession and M&A

February 22, 2019

How Frequently Should I Publish These Insight Pieces?

I’ve been writing you 2x/week as an experiment. Now I’d like your help in designing the frequency of these emails. Please help me decide how often to send these out: […]

Benchmarking, Clients, Developing Processes, Digital, Expertise, Finance, Growing Your Business, Growth, Management, Managing Clients, Managing People, Marketing, Marketing Yourself, Processes, Roles, Succession, Succession and M&A, The Work

February 12, 2019

Benchmark: Unburdened Compensation Load

Today’s post begins a multi-part series. From time to time I’ll publish a single benchmark that might be useful to you. My work life is focused on helping entrepreneurial experts […]

Benchmarking, Developing Processes, Finance, Management, Managing People

January 10, 2019

The One Thing That’s Going To Hold You Back

There’s one thing that will consistently hold you back from doing your best work and running a high performing firm, but it won’t come until later. In the early steps […]

Benchmarking, Clients, Developing Processes, Expertise, Growing Your Business, Growth, Management, Managing Clients, Managing People, Marketing, Marketing Yourself

December 19, 2018

If You Were Less Courageous

It’s been years since I’ve republished anything in this blog. I like to write from scratch. But every once in awhile, something bears repeating. I wrote this while sitting on […]

Developing Processes, Expertise, Finance, Growing Your Business, Growth, Management, Managing Clients, Managing People, Marketing, Marketing Yourself

June 12, 2018

What Would You Do If You Knew A Downturn Was Coming?

I’m not saying one is, but I think we all get a tad nervous when things are this good for this long. It’s like the good gods have held the […]

Benchmarking, Developing Processes, Management, Managing People

November 29, 2017

Your Multiple Anniversaries

The easy anniversary to celebrate is the founding of your firm. Mine was sometime in March, 1994. It’s easy to remember and there’s nothing private about it. All it says […]

Benchmarking, Developing Processes, Growing Your Business, Growth, Management, Managing People, Marketing, Marketing Yourself, Processes, Roles

August 22, 2017

What Three Words Describe Your Role?

I call myself an author, speaker, and advisor. What would you call yourself if you could only use three words, and needed to list them in a specific order?

The order I use is intentional because it’s an aspirational statement about how I want to impact my world. One-half of my income still comes from advising (it’s a term that’s not as loaded as consulting), but it’s not as sustainable as the other two.

What three words would you use for yourself? Some of you would use the same three words that I have. Most of you run sizeable firms, and for you folks I’d like to take a stab at answering that question. Even if I’m not correct, maybe I can get you thinking about this.

Here are the three words you should probably use to describe yourself, and in this order:

CEO. Or entrepreneur. Or maybe business leader. You’re in the business of running a business, which means that you’re successful over the long term if you make enough of the big decisions correctly. You keep your finger on the pulse of your firm’s financial performance. You make the final decision on positioning. How big the firm gets is carefully considered. The management environment and culture are a reflection of what you believe. The health of the balance sheet and what’s left at the bottom of your income statement–none of which you’ve achieved at the expense of doing what’s right–would be a good reflection of the job that you’re doing. There might be a bad year here and there, but most years more than make up for those tough ones. You’re in charge, and your firm isn’t a hobby or even a job–it’s an enterprise. If you want to think more about that, try looking at these eight gauges on your dashboard.
Leader/Manager. The best summary I can think of here is that you....

Developing Processes, Finance, Management, Managing People, Roles

Pages: 123456

Articles

Filter by Topic

Advisory Services

M&A Services