Pro Serv Blogs Archives - Collective 54

When Your AI Vendor Disappears Overnight: Lessons We Learned the Hard Way

Greg Alexander / April 23, 2026

If you’re a business owner looking at AI, you’ve probably felt the same tension we did: AI is moving fast, clients are asking for it, and it’s hard to justify building everything in-house from scratch. So we partnered with an outside AI firm to bring an AI capability to market quickly — and learned a painful lesson when that firm abruptly shut down with no warning. Here’s what happened, what we were building, and the safeguards we’ll never skip again.

Pro Serv Blogs

The Monday Morning Rebuild: Stop Answering the Same Questions from Scratch

Greg Alexander / April 21, 2026

If you’re running a boutique professional services firm, you’ve probably embraced Greg’s hyper-specialization thesis of winning by going narrow and deep in your market. Pick your niche. Own it. Become the obvious choice.

Pro Serv Blogs

Stop Delegating AI: Why Boutique Firm CEOs Must Go Hands-On Now

Greg Alexander / April 20, 2026

There’s a rule most founders learn early: work on the business, not in it. It’s good advice. Usually. Right now, it’s wrong. If you run a boutique consulting firm and you’re not personally spending serious time inside AI tools, you’re making a strategic mistake. Not a technology mistake. A leadership mistake.

Pro Serv Blogs

The Sales Data That Matters Lives in Your Buyer’s Words

Greg Alexander / April 17, 2026

You pulled up your pipeline this morning. The number looked reasonable. You’re about to make hiring, spending, and growth decisions based on it.
Half those deals aren’t real and you know it. Your sellers know it too. The CRM just doesn’t.
I see stages advance because someone sent a follow-up email, not because the buyer did anything. I’ve watched forecasts get built on records that haven’t been touched in a month.
Every boutique professional services firm I’ve ever seen has some version of this going on.

Pro Serv Blogs

The Problem with 90-Day Rocks in a 9-Day World

Greg Alexander / April 16, 2026

Recently our community had a pretty heated debate about EOS – specifically, whether the Entrepreneurial Operating System is still the right framework for running a professional services firm in 2026.

Pro Serv Blogs

The AI Adoption Curve: What We’re Seeing in Collective 54

Greg Alexander / April 14, 2026

At Collective 54, I talk to hundreds of founders and executives of boutique professional services firms every year. Right now, AI comes up in almost every conversation. Where to start, what tools to use, how to get teams on board, and how to think about the future of the firm. We believe the future of professional services is becoming AI native, and everything we do as a community is oriented around helping firms get there.

Pro Serv Blogs

Close the Gap Between What They Said and What You Heard

Greg Alexander / April 13, 2026

You just finished a big call. A real prospect. The kind that could change your year.
You took notes the entire time. Two pages. You feel good about it.
Here’s the problem: what you wrote down isn’t what they said. It’s what you heard. And those two things are not the same.

Pro Serv Blogs

From ‘Sold Project’ to ‘Strategic Partner’: How to Grow Inside Existing Clients

Greg Alexander / April 10, 2026

Most professional services firms put the majority of their energy into winning new business. New logos, new pipelines, new pursuits. And while that matters, it often comes at the expense of the most overlooked growth opportunity sitting right in front of them: their existing clients.
The difference between firms that grow steadily and those that scale meaningfully is not just how well they sell; it’s how well they expand.

Pro Serv Blogs

Your Next Sales Hire Has a 50% Chance of Failing. Here’s How to Beat the Odds

Greg Alexander / April 9, 2026

About half of sales leaders fail in their first 18–24 months. That’s according to Harvard Business Review. If you’re a founder hiring someone to sell your expertise, those aren’t great odds.
The cost of getting it wrong goes beyond money. It’s time, energy, culture, and credibility. You trusted someone to represent your firm. They didn’t deliver. Now you’re cleaning up the mess and starting over.

Pro Serv Blogs

Planning for the Plateau: Why Consulting Firms Stall at $10M and How to Break Through

Greg Alexander / April 7, 2026

For many consulting firms, reaching $10 million in revenue feels like a major milestone. And it is. It signals product-market fit, a strong reputation, and a leadership team that knows how to sell and deliver. But for a surprising number of firms, it’s also where growth slows – or stops altogether.

Pro Serv Blogs

When Your AI Vendor Disappears Overnight: Lessons We Learned the Hard Way

The Monday Morning Rebuild: Stop Answering the Same Questions from Scratch

Stop Delegating AI: Why Boutique Firm CEOs Must Go Hands-On Now

The Sales Data That Matters Lives in Your Buyer’s Words

The Problem with 90-Day Rocks in a 9-Day World

The AI Adoption Curve: What We’re Seeing in Collective 54

Close the Gap Between What They Said and What You Heard

From ‘Sold Project’ to ‘Strategic Partner’: How to Grow Inside Existing Clients

Your Next Sales Hire Has a 50% Chance of Failing. Here’s How to Beat the Odds

Planning for the Plateau: Why Consulting Firms Stall at $10M and How to Break Through

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