Resources

Who to Hire First?

January 29, 2024 Jason Blumer No comments yet

When designers and freelancers begin to think about growth, they eventually run into needing to hire. When you sell services there is no other way to grow except to hire people. You can use software, become more efficient, and even let AI help you do some of your work. But you will eventually have to replace yourself if you want to grow the revenue of your creative studio. Who do you hire first? Of course this depends, but there are some general principles we can learn from here. When growing, most smaller design and freelance studios think of replacing themselves [...]

I’m Going on a Deep Journey of Capacity Learning in 2024

January 18, 2024 Jason Blumer 1 comment

My partner and I work with a lot of service-based entrepreneurs that are seeking to grow their firms, agencies, and consultancies. We’ve been doing this for decades, and the more we work with these entrepreneurs the more we see the trouble so many have with something that is generally labeled “Capacity Management.” Many want to know if they have the right team capacity to take in a larger amount of revenue. Many don’t even understand how closely capacity management is tied to revenue performance. And many don’t look at these concepts at all, and their agency begins to consume them [...]

If You Only Do 5 Things In The Coming Year, Do These

December 21, 2023 Mariela Reiss No comments yet

If You Only Do 5 Things In The Coming Year, Do These So here we are again, facing the end of one year, and the beginning of a whole new year. A shiny, brand-spanking new and unused year, full of possibilities and opportunities. This time of year always has me reflecting on the past year, as well as thinking ahead to what I’d like the next year to look like. Here are some ideas for what I want to take into 2024; hopefully you can find something useful for your new year, as well. Decide what your work/business “word of [...]

Clients are Buying Our Continuous Firm Learning

October 16, 2023 Jason Blumer No comments yet

One thing we believe that sets us apart as a firm is our commitment to learning with our team. You can always know this about our firm: we are talking about new things, learning new things, being challenged by what we already (think we) know, and making presentations of new concepts to each other. It means we are in a constant state of maturing as a team. Of course, we have to do this on the technical side of our profession (it’s required!). And we let the team lead this learning too, from their own perspective. Our leadership team is [...]

Principles of a Strong Team

October 9, 2023 Andrea Hyman No comments yet

Principles of a Strong Team Team work makes the dream work, right? At least that’s what they say. But it takes effort and intentionality to get to that point.Yet a strong team is essential to good client service and a growing company. Let’s look at four principles of a successful team, shall we? Technical Capacity Technical capacity is when team members have the understanding of how to perform their role with some autonomy. When leadership is taking their time to micromanage or “stay in the weeds” doing the day-to-day tasks, this is robbing the agency of its technical capacity. Yes, [...]

Hiring Tips & Red Flags

June 23, 2023 Andrea Hyman No comments yet

Hiring Tips & Red Flags Team management…it’s constantly on every leader’s mind. It seems like every agency we know is either hiring, firing, or is having a team member leave. It’s like there is this big “Fruit Basket Turnover” happening in the corporate world right now, and it doesn’t look like there is an end in sight anytime soon. We’ve put together a list of “Hiring Tips & Red Flags” that can help you find the right person for the right seat in your company, and hopefully sooner rather than later. You need to add science, experience, conversations and anything [...]

Core Values and Characteristics Part 3

May 29, 2023 Mariela Reiss No comments yet

Blumer’s Characteristics are our goals. They’re what we strive for. They’re what we want our clients and those we come in contact with to say about our service and our team. Our characteristics are few, but they pack a lot of punch in each one. Check out how our team describes these traits. High autonomy, high accountability High Autonomy and High Accountability are 2 sides of the same coin. We are all adults on the team, and we are treated that way. That’s the High Accountability piece. We are accountable to each other, to do our work in a timely [...]

Case Study: Overcoming Failure with Kade Wilcox

May 12, 2023 Jen Blair No comments yet

Overview Kade Wilcox has been on a journey. From building teams to leading worship to running for office, he’s got a lot on his resume. He’s worked with Blumer CPAs before, but when he reached out within the last year, he was at a low point. It’s something you don’t typically put on your resume, but Kade has embraced it wholeheartedly in an attempt to squeeze every ounce of learning from the experience. Kade was leading a multi-million dollar marketing agency. Then, he wasn’t. The company failed, plain and simple. Through an extremely difficult, introspective process, Blumer CPAs helped Kade [...]

Core Values and Characteristics Part 2

April 27, 2023 Stephanie Kuchle No comments yet

The Blumer Team’s Core Values are what we believe in. They’re what drive our work. Today we, as a team, want to take a few minutes to break down each of the 5 core values that we have adopted. Commitment leads to Loyalty People who are committed to the success of the team/company/goal, will do what needs to be done to find that success and are respectful, honest & loyal to those team members and company who are working towards the same success/goals. - Jenny Andrejack, Customer Ally Jason and Julie define commitment as “really embracing your job description and [...]

Core Values and Characteristics Part 1

April 27, 2023 Andrea Hyman No comments yet

By now you probably know a little bit about Blumer CPAs. You know we are intentional in every aspect of the firm, from onboarding clients to internal operations and firm values. We wanted to take some time to shed some light on our internal Core Values and Characteristics that we appreciate as a firm. Each week we set aside time in our team meeting to do “Core Values and Characteristics” call outs. I’ll be honest. When I first started at Blumer CPAs, this was hard for me, but over the last couple of years, I am learning to embrace the [...]