Blogs
Ideas that challenge how firms are run.
Practical thinking on profit architecture, financial clarity, and what it actually takes to lead a professional services firm well.
The decisions that drain margin in professional services do not look like bad decisions when you make them
Thought Sketch · 05 . Strategy & Performance
That is what makes them so difficult to catch. Each one had a reasonable justification at the time. Together, they explain why the margin is not where it should be. This piece gives you a way to find them.
Treating symptoms is expensive. Dynamic management traces every number back to its source.
Thought Sketch · 04 . Strategy & Performance
The problem the firm is managing is rarely the problem the firm actually has. The firms that grow profitably know which metric to fix first, because they can see the chain that connects them all.
Scope creep isn't a client problem. It's a pricing architecture problem.
Thought Sketch · 03 · Product & Pricing
Every professional services firm has engagements that start well and finish underwater. The standard explanation points to difficult clients, unclear briefs, or poor project management. The honest explanation is simpler: the engagement was never priced for the work it actually required.
The partner is the bottleneck. And the partner built it that way.
Thought Sketch · 02 · Productivity
Partner Load % is one of the most revealing numbers in a professional services firm. It tells you not just how busy the principal is, but whether the firm has a leverage problem masquerading as a capacity problem.
Recurring revenue isn't a product decision. It's a business model decision.
Thought Sketch · 01 · Revenue Efficiency
Most professional services firms want retainer revenue. Few achieve it not because they lack the right service offering, but because they haven’t made the structural changes that retainer revenue actually requires.