Why you’re not meeting your clients’ needs

I am excited to offer you a free downloadable tool to keep your services positioned for high-demand and high-profit. See below for the link. Read to find out why this is so critical to your career and financial health. You created your business model back when your company was formed or when you took over as CEO. You…

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Secrets of 7 successful companies that do some things badly

Is being bad part of your strategy? It seems counter-productive, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Successful companies know this secret and practice it so that they can be the best at their priorities. The concept of focusing on a single business model is not new. In 1995, Treacy and Wiersema wrote “The Discipline of Market Leaders.” They…

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Lessons on CEO burnout, how to spot it, how to resolve it

Part of being an effective leader is to constantly evaluate yourself. It can be difficult to objectively determine how you’re doing– to see yourself as others see you. The problem of leadership burnout is that no one is going to tell you. No one is going to come into your office and tell you that you’re…

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You don’t have to accept lower profit margins

Choices-random or planned?

Even though firms are reporting more revenue and RFPs, the profit on new work is lower. During a recession, pundits say that firms should invest the most in client relationships and sales during a recession, but they predicted most would not. Pundits predicated that as revenue declined within a firm’s market sector they would try to get into…

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Professional services industry trends and solutions

The industry sales model is changing. It is moving solidly to a seller-doer model and away from having dedicated sales responsible staff. The SMPS Foundation conducted and published a research report in 2013 called A/E/C BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT – The Decade Ahead that supports this. In the last ten years, twenty one-percent of SMPS member firms…

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In a successful organization, sales is part of everybody’s job

In a successful organization, sales is part of everybody’s job. Most firms have only a few persons who are actively engaged in generating revenue. There is often tension over being billable and helping to secure the next project. This is not limited to management. Staff at all levels feels this tension, so the action of…

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Prioritizing resources for growth

Small- and medium-sized professional services companies often have a hard time prioritizing resources for investing in their future.  And for those who understand that riding the new economy requires new skills, then the transformation into a learning culture is imperative. Analyzing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of your organization’s significant influencers is an adaptation of…

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