The second half of the year is where discipline matters most. You’ve already launched your 2025 plan, and undoubtedly, conditions have changed. Some of your original assumptions are holding, others are not. The target remains the same: profitable growth. But how you get there will depend on how quickly and decisively you adjust.
Boutique firms often struggle to scale because they lose touch with what their clients truly need. Yesterday’s solutions may no longer be relevant today. Without a consistent way to listen and adapt, you risk missing valuable growth opportunities—or worse, becoming obsolete. Firms with strong Voice of Client programs deeply understand their clients’ needs, are able to uncover hidden revenue opportunities, and better develop targeted services that solve the problems clients value most.
The Collective 54 members at the Founders Summit last October completed an exercise that forced us to summarize our work succinctly to uninformed audiences. Frankly, most of us seemed to struggle mightily with completing the C54 “haiku”:
In any business an accurate forecast is one of the most valuable things one can achieve. An accurate forecast is the basis of effective resources planning and reduction of risk in the business. As we think about recruiting, hiring, and resources without an accurate forecast, our plans are merely guesses. Many of us are also thinking about maximizing our exit valuation. The ability to forecast accurately reduces business risk significantly thereby increases business value.
Since college, I have been a hustle-and-grind professional. It only got worse when I became an entrepreneur and ran my own show. I’d never taken more than a week-long vacation. Then recently, in September 2024, I took a huge leap and embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime journey: hiking the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route spanning 500 miles from the Pyrenees in France to northwest Spain. My wife and I hiked it in 26 days, carrying everything we needed on our backs. While it started as a personal adventure, it became a transformative experience for me and unexpectedly for my company.
For those using AI to transform their business, it’s an exciting time. Most companies have already begun implementing AI to make their operations faster and more efficient, freeing up resources to take on more initiatives. It’s clear that those who use it more reliably will see substantial improvements in profitability in the coming months and years.
As a founder of a boutique professional service firm, you might find yourself at a crossroads, pondering if competing on price is the right strategy for your business.
Making your firm more valuable for clients isn’t as simple as X’s and O’s. Greg Alexander shares the do’s and don’ts of strategy.