Every professional services firm thinks it has what the market wants: expertise, experience, and a strong track record.
But in 2026, that is the baseline. Nobody pays a premium for smart people doing competent work. AI can already produce reports, frameworks, and recommendations that look as good as what your junior consultants bill for.
For professional services leaders who want to win more respect, reputation, and revenue, the worst thing you can be is forgettable. Look around. Your field has plenty of smart, capable, hard-working leaders, but only a few truly stand out. Even fewer have earned genuine trust.
Welcome, members of Collective 54. Today, we’re delving into a topic that touches the core of entrepreneurial ventures and the dreams of every founder – the exit strategy. Exiting, or selling your firm, is often seen as the culmination of a founder’s hard work and vision. However, the idea of timing this exit perfectly is more myth than reality. Here are the top ten reasons why it’s virtually impossible to time the exit of your firm precisely:
In today’s noisy, competitive marketplace, building Market Eminence is essential for CEOs, founders, and senior leaders who want to stand out, earn respect, and lead with authority.
Market Eminence isn’t about being the loudest in the room; it’s about commanding more respect, earning higher trust, and building a permanent presence in your industry.
The road to a successful exit is littered with the bodies of entrepreneurs that have attempted to time the market1. Lest you become another casualty, I wanted to give you some things to consider before you try your hand at predicting how future macroeconomic or sector-specific conditions are likely to unfold. Start by accepting that you are never going to know the perfect time to sell with 100% certainty.
In the ever-evolving landscape of professional service firms, one question looms large for boutique firms: How can we move up the market and focus exclusively on strategy work? In this article, we’ll delve into why your firm might want to make this shift and outline a four-step method to successfully transition from implementation to strategy. By the end of this journey, you’ll see why bigger is not necessarily better, but being more profitable is.
Are you looking for opportunities to make big sales? If you can land in the sweet spot of a surge in demand, your firm will experience exponential growth.
The service offering is how firms deliver value to their client. Designing it correctly is mission-critical. On this episode, we discuss how to re-think service design by interviewing Scott Conard, Founder of Converging Health.