1. As a firm, we signal to our market that we are of a higher value than our competitors by introducing pricing that is polarizing: it is both provocative and convincing. We intentionally price high as a statement that causes clients to choose or leave our firm. | | | | | |
2. As a firm, we recognize our value so we don’t offer our value broadly. The market we serve is chosen by our firm, and we decide who is able to consume our value. With our commitment to serving a narrow market, we will often say ‘no’ to a client. | | | | | |
3. As a firm, we often create new services (at least annually). Creating new services makes our work proprietary in the market we choose to serve, and thus makes us more valuable. We encourage growth on our team by having them deliver new services. | | | | | |
4. Our claim of expertise is stated clearly and boldly on our website, our writing, and our social channels. Our language is one of high value, narrowing, and speaks to the novel and particular ways we add value to the market we choose to serve. | | | | | |
5. As a firm, we do not leave the team on their own to track their own work. We have productivity software and systems to track how and when work gets done. Firm owners and leadership are able to see where the team stand at all times with their work. | | | | | |
6. Both the owners and team are expected to be responsible to plan for how their work will be accomplished. With that plan, the team are expected to employ their own initiative to get their work done according to the firm’s deadlines and value delivery. | | | | | |
7. As a firm, we expect a culture of solutions and avoid complaining and looping around the same issues with no resolution. When we have a difficult time with clients, we discuss solutions, make decisions, and then stop talking about what happened | | | | | |
8. As a firm, we have a culture of transparency where wins and losses are allowed to be played out publicly. The firm’s response is public support, yet we don’t hide what happened. We deal with personal struggles privately, and praise publicly. | | | | | |
9. As a firm, we utilize lists, calendars, or boards to display work to be done and upcoming leads to be pitched. We don’t trust our minds with the complexity of work planning, so we make our planning visible and agile to best see how to organize work. | | | | | |
10. As a firm, we take in revenue at the same pacing that our team can accomplish the work. We seek to avoid over using or under using our team’s capacity. We seek to match the availability of our team’s capacity with the level of revenue we take in. | | | | | |
11. As a firm, we understand that humans are the ones who produce productive work. We seek to leverage this truth by assigning all revenue production to a specific team member, thereby producing accountability for the production of that specific work. | | | | | |
12. As a firm, we recognize it is imperative to plan the assignment of work to team members before that work comes into the firm. The successful execution of work at a high level is done in the planning, so all revenue is planned before service begins. | | | | | |
13. As a firm, we are interested in the technical training our team is receiving. We regularly (at least quarterly) list courses we expect our team to take. The learning from these courses is for the firm, so the team document the learning for the whole firm. | | | | | |
14. As a firm, additional learning like product updates, interesting articles, and books are read and shared among the team. This is encouraged by the owners because the firm knows that a knowledgeable team will increase the firm’s value. | | | | | |
15. As a firm, we are aware of our technical and cultural weaknesses, and therefore share learning initiatives and objectives with the team (at least annually). Annual initiatives guide the choice of education for the team and enhance the firm’s value. | | | | | |
16. As a firm, we have a methodology to gather feedback from our team. We give assessments, offer surveys, and employ After Action Reviews to support our educational initiatives. In this way, our educational initiatives are informed by actual data. | | | | | |
17. As a firm, clients are accepted after making initial value determinations through meetings, interviews, and forms are filled out. We don’t take chances with client choice into our client base, so there must be up front initial discovery to make wise choices | | | | | |
18. As a firm, we have a process of onboarding clients, which determines how a client will methodically become a client. Client acceptance processes allow the firm to make wise choices of who to add to their client base, and who to keep out. | | | | | |
19. As a firm, we recognize that our initial work to scope the needs and wants of a new client may be inaccurate. So check in with clients after our 90 days of work to ensure our initial determination of scope was accurate and doesn’t need to be adjusted. | | | | | |
20. As a firm, we see no value in keeping poor-fit clients. Clients that are not right for the firm will be replaced for equal or similar revenue, or will be removed from the client base all together. We do this methodically without hurting the cash flow of the firm. | | | | | |