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Like many of our clients, our firm is at a size where we have to nail down the revenue production of our firm. That is, at our size, we have to have a machine that is now producing our revenue to support our team of 15, as well as the growth we anticipate over the next few years.  Like many things in scaling a service organization, we’re finding that what got us here won’t get us there. We have always been an ORG (“Owner Revenue Generated”) company. As the owner and founder, I’ve always sat in the seat of sales [...]

Our firm focus for 2025 is Mindset.  So imagine what a surprise it was to be asked to proofread an essay my 9th grader, Michael, had to write for his Honors English class…and find it written about that very thing!  His writing prompt was: “How should intelligence be measured?” And his entire essay is below. Intelligence is like being a turtle; dedicated to learn on its own, being patient with itself, and able to apply knowledge. Having the ability to apply your knowledge is the key to being intellectually smart. There are studies that show how you can work to [...]

How you have conversations in your organization, and the intention with which you speak, matters. “Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.” – Robert Frost Overspeaking, looping with no point, and speech riddled with generalities or exaggerations do no good to move your organization and your team forward. But transforming speech turns out to be a difficult challenge.  Your speech patterns are habitual, and likely have been allowed by those around you for years and years. So if you [...]

We coach and consult with many service-based organizations and we are finding some patterns after the pandemic. Many entrepreneurs are struggling with what it is like to now lead a company considering the remembrance of where they were before the pandemic, what the pandemic has done to their companies, and how they have been affected personally as leaders.  We’ve all been struggling personally after the impact of the pandemic on our lives and those around us. And now an unstable economy is bringing a lot of discouragement to service entrepreneurs. You are not alone if you feel this too. Many [...]

With experience comes a lot of value and power in business. You can typically raise your price or hourly rate as you learn more and hold yourself out as an expert. We teach entrepreneurs how to narrow into a market just so they can do this - become experts. But with experience and knowledge comes the belief that you ‘know enough.’ You prove this to yourself every day as you solve complex problems and you become the person that people go to for answers. You begin to believe that you know enough. This belief can sneak up on us as [...]

Remote jobs are a big draw these days to job seekers.  They are like a shiny new car…great in theory, with no maintenance for a while, better gas mileage than a similar used car, and the technology is top notch.  Sounds like a dream, right?  The only thing is, once you get that new car, a lot of times it’s more work than you expected.  You want to keep it looking nice, so you take it to the car wash once a week.  That remote work technology is great…when it works.  You can get out of bed whenever you want [...]

This year, the Blumer team has made a commitment to read more.  We are currently reading Atomic Habits as a team to benefit the Blumer community as well as to benefit ourselves as individuals.  One thing we are learning is that habits are made by repetition and consistency.  We also tend to keep those habits (good or bad) by focusing on what we want to accomplish, not just setting a goal.  Once you set a goal to “read a book”, you’ve met that goal when you reach the end, but if you focus on “reading a chapter a day” or [...]

This year is an exciting journey through the world of capacity planning, and research around resource planning for service firms that are growing. I’m partnering with Ian Vacin in this work and we are learning a great deal of information in the research we are conducting with service organizations around the world. For a brief primer, when service organizations (like agencies) scale and expand, they often run into the complexity of knowing the ability of their growing teams to be able to produce revenue. How you bring in your revenue is important. Project-based vs recurring revenue will dictate and change [...]

I know we’ve heard this before, but as a reminder, there are no people with magic skills who are smarter than us at business. But we do get confused when we see people who seem to have a touch of ‘magic’ in the craft that they perform. How do they do that? When you study these people you find that they have a different view of what it takes to achieve mastery in their work. Essentially, mastery of something is a matter of getting in more reps than anyone else in your craft. Kobe Bryant is one of those people. [...]

Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) Reporting is on the Horizon As you may have already heard, there is a new type of information reporting that will be required of businesses: Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI). This requirement was created in 2021, when Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act. This new reporting requirement involves submitting information on beneficial owners (those who own or control businesses) to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Department of the Treasury. New businesses (those that are started in 2024) are required to file a BOI report within 90 days of formation. However, for existing businesses, [...]