In 1998 I was the CEO of Results Accountants’ Systems – the Accountants’ Bootcamp company. During a particularly difficult time I wrote a weekly report to our 100+ team scattered around the world. The report I wrote on August 15 talked to a “dream” I had about the way firms would be operating in the future. I picked 2008 as the year that defined the future but was out by 10 years. Read more…
Yesterday, a good friend of mine asked if I was enjoying “retirement.” I explained that I haven’t retired (and never will) but have simply changed careers from running a consulting business to writing about the SME consulting process through the lens of my own experience, my observation of the experience of others, and based on some important science Read more…
This is the story of how O’Byrne and Kennedy changed their business model from an unremarkable suburban compliance practice with 500 clients to a remarkable niche business advisory firm with 50 clients and in the process dramatically increased profitability, client loyalty, and team member engagement while having a life-changing impact on the clients they work with. Read more…
“Explain how I can attract and retain better quality clients” was one of the responses from 92% of the people who attended a webinar I presented last year in which I asked the following question: what are the top 3 questions you’d like me to answer in the book I’m writing on practice development? Read more…
I’ve been reading a biography on the Wright Brothers that describes in minute detail the hugely difficult process they went through to create an airplane. One of the side notes that caught my attention was a reference Read more…
They–the nameless and faceless people who make predictions about everything from the weather to the stock market–say it costs 6 times more to acquire a customer than it does to retain an existing customer. Interestingly, the literature contains references to acquisition to retention cost ratios ranging from 3:1 to 30:1. Quite frankly, I don’t know if the 6:1 metric is an urban myth or a thoroughly researched observation but I do believe Read more…
Yesterday I had a conversation with one of our clients who asked: “how can I get better clients?” He believed the problem he had was a marketing challenge. Read more…
I recently finished reading Geoffrey Blainey’s A Very Short History of the World – all 450 pages of it! As interesting as it was, I’m so glad it was the short version. I came away from that book with a renewed appreciation of human accomplishment but that’s not want I want to talk about. Of the many things that resonated, one was Read more…
There are 3 basic types of people involved with business ownership. They are Investors, owner-managers who primarily work “IN” their business so we’ll call then IN-guys, and owner-managers who primarily work “ON” their business so we’ll call them ON-guys. If you want to grow the business advisory side of your firm you need Read more…
It was a dark and stormy night. The power was out and I heard the back door squeak. I was sure someone was in my kitchen. I called out but I couldn’t have expected what was about to happen … Read more…