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CONSULTING FIRMS

Profit Growth

over 4 years for the consulting firm on which this program is based, where we led the turnaround. We present all the strategies, tactics, templates
and toolkits we developed to help them reach this level of growth

842%

Learn the tools and tactics we used to help Amrit, a client in our flagship 1-on-1 private coaching program, propel his firm to sustainable profits in a competitive market

The challenge

At the start of the program the boutique consulting firm has $112,321.23 cash on hand. Their expected revenue should meet their costs for at least the next eight months while they complete their current project.

The company has spent so much time delivering on this one project they have failed to grow and find new clients. Once the project ends they have no foreseeable significant work beyond some small market sizing studies.

They expect their cash on hand to see them through the four months they will need to find new work.

A six-person consulting firm with flat revenue and profit growth in a very competitive city.
Breaks even but is unable to grow profitably. They expect sharply declining revenue over the next year.
Losing their largest client, responsible for 78% of revenue, in 8 months once a key project ends.
We track the process we used to increase revenue 977%, profits 842%, and the head count to twenty, while diversifying the revenue stream and changing their business model.

Across the firm, all employees were suffering from burnout. This is what they had to say before we started;

Amrit

CEO & Founder

The hardest part is acknowledging we do don’t have the time to develop a strategy to get us out of this cycle. Nothing seems to work, and we are tired out from completing the work. There is no energy to grow

Steven

Principal

It is hard to compete with the McKinseys’, Deloittes’ and BCGs’ of the world. We are struggling to find that one thing that can make us indispensable to clients.

Stefania

Principal

There are too many mundane admin things to do and we end up putting out fires. We don’t have the time to develop new ideas and tools, which makes us stale after a few years.

Dawood

Consultant

I love the firm and the people. Amazing and talented people. The client work is engaging, and I am learning a lot. However, not receiving a raise in 3 years is difficult. I would like to settle down with my partner.

Srikanth

Consultant

I wish we had better tools and training. I think if we could focus on the client, we could do better. We use very old tools and clients don’t appreciate them. They don’t value them.

Antonio

Consultant

We spend too much time on Google searching for the things other consultants take for granted. I spent 4 days trying to create a framework for an operations strategy.

The situation

Amrit is an ex-McKinsey associate who once worked with Kevin P. Coyne, ex-McKinsey Worldwide Strategy practice co-leader and the host of numerous FIRMSconsulting programs.

Amrit left McKinsey to join the internal strategy unit at a wealth management firm. He thereafter joined the internal strategy unit at a technology firm. He was eventually headhunted to lead strategy and growth at an emerging markets technology firm.

He founded his boutique strategy consulting firm seven years ago and has grown revenue to ~$2MM in that period. Revenue has been flat for the past 3 years. His team has consulting experience from Strategy&, Deloitte S&O and PWC.

“Working with FIRMSconsulting has professionalized us. We have an office that enhances our prestige brand, proper systems, the money to invest in growth, powerful tools and a diversified revenue base. We no longer fear the end of an engagement.”

Amrit, CEO

The program

The program is divided into segments. Each segment covers a different took, skill, capability and/or strategy taught to the firm to help turn them around.

Segments are between ten to twenty videos and are meant to be implemented in approximately 21 Days.

“The tools FIRMSconsulting made available brought us together as a team. The Professional Services Sales Journal is incredible. SLIDES basically is our own personal R&D and proposal unit. That truly transformed our firm. Because we followed the journal very carefully, and only used SLIDES, the results came quickly, within two months.”

Amrit, CEO

Implementing a Growth Strategy

The first step was stripping out all non-essential tasks and focusing the firm on growth to fund their turnaround

Most consulting firms make 5 mistakes;

Assuming insights lead to high margin sales.
Selling just enough work to keep themselves busy.
Focusing on strategy-type work to drive margins.
Building a consulting career vs. a consulting business.
Adopting a higher-variable cost business model.

The process

We developed a rigorous sales process and moved the partners away from managing a pipeline of sales opportunities. Their previous strategy was to have as many clients as possible in the mix in the hope of converting a few into paying assignments.

In the first action to turnaround this firm we concentrated them on just one client and laid out a set of six steps to increase billings and create a position to block competitors while increasing both fees and margins.

We also set up a planning process that could be used to integrate all the activity like marketing, delivery of existing assignments and more, to support the sales process.

The firm saw results within 7 weeks of implementing the new process. A key factor was moving away from labor intensive and detailed proposals.