CASE STUDIES
OUR BLOG
LEADERSHIP
When Service Firm Leaders Perfect Deliberation, They Reignite Growth
Five Reasons Service Firm Leaders Should Score Their Business Monthly
What Should You Expect From Your Service Firm Leadership Team?
Do You Have A Leadership Team Or A Leadership Council?
Ten Traits Of Organizationally Healthy Professional Service Firms
To Grow Your Professional Service Firm, Prize Culture Over Strategy
TP35: The One Tipping Point Mid-Size Service Firms Must Address To Keep Growing
Seven Reasons Most Mid-Size Service Firms Don’t Grow Very Much
Five Reasons Mid-Size Service Firms Need A New Leadership Operating Model
How Leaders Can Address The Growth Tipping Point For Mid-Sized Service Firms
Five Reasons Professional Service Leaders Should Prize EQ Over IQ
Why Mid-Size Service Firm Leadership Teams Need Collective Objectives To Grow
How To Grow Your Mid-Sized Service Firm: Jealously Protect Your Focused Energy
Why Professional Service Firms Should Consider Circle Of Seven Mentoring Networks
How A Leader’s Energy Field Impacts Team Productivity
Don’t Trade Misery For Money: How Professional Service Firms Can Leverage The Great Resignation
Strong Personality Vs. Strong Person: The Makeup Of A Leadership Council
Custer Or Marshall: Why Mid-Size Service Firms Must Choose Their Leadership Model
To Grow Your Mid-Size Professional Service Firm, Define And Defend Your Values
If You Want To Grow Your Mid-Size Service Firm, Establish A Formal Leadership Council
Want To Grow Your Professional Service Firm? Focus On The One
If You Want To Grow Your Midsize Professional Service Firm, Align Your Leaders
Why Midsize Service Firm Leaders Must Think Like Entrepreneurs To Grow
How To Grow A Mid-Size Professional Service Firm Today
Why It's Important For Great Leaders To Tell Great Stories
How Great Leaders Persuade Using Word-Pictures
How The Say-Do Ratio Influences Trusted Advisor Status And Profits
Why Service Firm Leaders Should Nurture The Entrepreneurial Instincts Of Their Top People
STRATEGY
How To Market Managed Services - Part 3
How To Market Managed Services - Part 2
How To Market Managed Services Today – Part 1
Ten Reasons To Adopt Managed Services
Hard Money. Fair Money. Easy Money
Do You Choose Clients Or Do They Choose You?
How To Market & Sell Professional Services Today
How To Break The Grip Of Rainmaker Culture
How Content Impacts The Service Sale
How To Know When Prospects Are Ready
How To Pull Prospects Into Conversations
Nurture Organic Relationships Online
How To Build Relationships With Jaded Prospects
Do Prospects Want To Buy Or Be Sold?
Can You Hack Service Firm Growth?
Close Deals Faster Using Proof Statements
Do Your Users Experience Content Regret?
Content Registrations Are Not Enough
Digital Marketing Perfect For Complex Sales – Part 2
Digital Marketing Is Perfect For The Complex Sale
Your Best New Client Is Looking For You
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 3
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 2
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 1
What You Must Do To Acquire New Clients
An Audience Of One
How to Attract New Ideal Clients
Are You A Content Marketer Or A Thought Leader?
Consider The Source: Theorist Or Practitioner
Why Pain Points Are Not Enough
SALES
Five Strategies For Midsize Service Firms To Break Through Revenue Plateaus
How Pro Service Firms Can Fix The ‘Drop Everything — Chase Money’ Problem
Prospect, Originate, Navigate: How To Fill Your Professional Service Pipeline
To Grow Your Mid-Size Professional Service Firm, Think Carefully About Your Promise
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 7
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 6
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 5
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 4
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 3
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 2
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 1
How Mid-Size Service Firms Can Acquire Great New Clients On LinkedIn
Five Ways The Consultative Sale Improves Profits
How To Win The Complex Service Sale Consistently
Do You Choose Clients Or Do They Choose You?
How To Market & Sell Professional Services Today
How To Break The Grip Of Rainmaker Culture
How Content Impacts The Service Sale
How To Know When Prospects Are Ready
How To Pull Prospects Into Conversations
Nurture Organic Relationships Online
How To Build Relationships With Jaded Prospects
Do Prospects Want To Buy Or Be Sold?
Close Deals Faster Using Proof Statements
How To Get Mindshare With Busy Decision-Makers
How To Get Great Prospects Leaning In
How Digital Marketing Creates Sales Funnel Velocity
Digital Marketing Perfect For Complex Sales – Part 2
Digital Marketing Is Perfect For The Complex Sale
Your Best New Client Is Looking For You
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 3
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 2
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 1
Do This to Fill Your Sales Funnel
What You Must Do To Acquire New Clients
An Audience Of One
How to Attract New Ideal Clients
Are You A Content Marketer Or A Thought Leader?
Consider The Source: Theorist Or Practitioner
Why Pain Points Are Not Enough
MARKETING
How To Market Managed Services - Part 3
How To Market Managed Services - Part 2
How To Market Managed Services Today – Part 1
Why Service Firms Need A Multichannel Digital Marketing Strategy
Does Your Website Attract Ideal Clients?
Why Service Firms Need The Ultimate Digital Marketing Stack
The Myth Of The Time-Starved Service Buyer
Do You Choose Clients Or Do They Choose You?
How To Market & Sell Professional Services Today
Why You Need A Generous Brand
How Content Impacts The Service Sale
Are You Measuring Your Time Funnel?
How To Get Mindshare With Busy Decision-Makers
How To Get Great Prospects Leaning In
How Digital Marketing Creates Sales Funnel Velocity
Five Digital Marketing KPIs
Do Your Users Experience Content Regret?
Content Registrations Are Not Enough
Is Your Website Open For Business
How To Build A Great Digital Marketing Plan
Digital Marketing Perfect For Complex Sales – Part 2
Digital Marketing Is Perfect For The Complex Sale
The Value Of An Idea Driven Website
Who Benefits From Your Content?
Your Best New Client Is Looking For You
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 3
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 2
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 1
How To Get The Greatest Value From Content Marketing
Why You Should Absolutely Give Away Your Best Ideas
Do This to Fill Your Sales Funnel
What You Must Do To Acquire New Clients
An Audience Of One
How to Attract New Ideal Clients
Are You A Content Marketer Or A Thought Leader?
Consider The Source: Theorist Or Practitioner
Why Pain Points Are Not Enough
How To Nurture Ideal Prospects
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CASE STUDIES
THE IMPACT WE’VE HAD ON OUR CLIENTS
IT CONSULTING FIRM DOUBLES EBITDA BY ALIGNING LEADERS & TEAMS, ADOPTING MENTORSHIP PROGRAM
ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH INITIATIVE SOLVES PRODUCTIVITY AND STAFF ANXIETY ISSUES
The Client Situation
A successful IT Consulting firm in the U.S. Midwest region was looking for ways to take their organization to the next level. Specifically, they wanted to address productivity issues that leaders felt were impeding their ability to work more cohesively and collaboratively as a set of teams. Internally, the organization operated with one large technology team and several smaller teams in operations, finance, sales and marketing.
As we met with leaders of this business, we heard a specific word repeatedly—potential. Firm leaders believed that they had the potential to produce far more profit from their existing model without resorting to draconian control measures or hiring additional staff. The firm’s executives had instituted Managed Services a couple of years before engaging with us. This business model was delivering credible value to their clients and was profitable. But leaders believed they could do much better.
The Shattuck Group’s Recommendations
The Shattuck Group came to the table and interviewed the entire executive team, department leads and key employees. We also interviewed 10 foundational clients. Our analysis confirmed that business leaders were indeed correct. They could increase productivity and profitability without adding additional staff. But the strategies and techniques they were considering probably wouldn’t work.
The leadership team’s primary assumption was that they needed to change their marketing message to focus on value levers that would be more compelling to clients, allowing them to charge higher fees. But our interviews with clients did not confirm this. The clients we spoke with expressed a high degree of satisfaction with existing service level agreements but a very low tolerance for fee increases.
We suggested to the leadership team that their profit increases would need to come from within, by creating stronger alignment, collaboration and teamwork. Based on our deep-dive analysis of their situation, we recommended the following services:
- Principal Coaching—to help their COO and CTO focus on their most important growth initiatives.
- Leadership Council—to establish a formal leadership body to share responsibility.
- Leadership Alignment—to create gut-level trust and clarity about the mission between leaders.
- Organizational Health—to drive cooperation, adaptability and productivity among teams.
- Mentorship Coaching—to foster trust, good will and upward career mobility.
The Service Package
We began our engagement by instituting Principal Coaching with the COO and CTO of the firm. In any given month, these two leaders were presented with a host of business challenges, any one of which could be very time consuming to address. We helped them decipher which problems they were best suited to address and which they might delegate to other leaders in the business. This triage activity empowered both executives to apply their focused energies on their most important growth initiatives. It also allowed them to serve as coaches to other leaders in the business, helping them enhance their problem-solving skills and visibility within teams.
We also formed a Leadership Council which took effect almost immediately. We worked closely with the COO to identify five people within the business, besides the CTO, to join the council. We positioned this as an opportunity for emerging executives to advance their careers and to take greater responsibility for the outcomes of the business. Everyone who was extended an invitation to the council said yes.
We established a Leadership Council meeting sequence of two-day in-person sessions and virtual sessions. Our first in-person session was a game-changer for this firm. The emerging executives gained insight into business operations and challenges and immediately began to make great suggestions. The COO and CTO said they felt more positive energy, support and camaraderie from that two-day session than the entire time they’d been with the company.
Our first task with the Leadership Council was to create alignment between them by getting clarity on several foundational questions:
- What are we trying to achieve as a business—the BHAG (big, hairy, audacious, goal)?
- What does our end-state look like—once all of our strategies have worked?
- What is our exit plan?
- What metrics indicate to us that we are on the right path?
- Which behaviors do we value and which do we abhor?
- How long do we reasonably think this will take?
- Which milestones are most important to us this year?
The Leadership Council identified Organizational Health as a top Collective Objective. They believed that an absence of free-flowing information was hindering the business and creating unnecessary side conversations that drained productivity and collaboration. Staff were spending working hours trying to understand what was happening with the business and why certain decisions were being made, rather than focusing on the work at-hand. This also resulted in trust issues with the COO and CTO, where their decisions were not acted upon with zest and gusto.
By committing to Organizational Health, the Leadership Council took it upon themselves to create clarity with everyone in the firm about what was happening and why. They also committed to expedited in-person communication with their teams so every individual in the firm could ask clarifying questions. Within 24 hours of Leadership Council meetings, all decisions and discussion points were presented to employees in down-flow communication. This also allowed for up-flow of concerns and suggestions from employees to leaders. Several important changes were instituted as a result of up-flow dialogue, which caused employees to feel heard and respected.
The Leadership Council identified Mentorship Coaching as their next Collective Objective. Specifically, they wanted to make advancement criteria clear and open to everyone in the firm so people knew what they needed to do to move up. They also made it a priority to mentor every employee who wanted it. Leaders formed circle of 7 teams so every employee was mentored by someone they admired and trusted. The mentor team leads also served as accountability partners to employees, helping them commit to do the work necessary to advance their careers. No one in the organization turned down the opportunity to work with a trusted mentor.
The Client Results
The results to this client were game-changing. Within one year, their EBITDA grew by 100%. Morale improved dramatically as employer net promoter scores (willingness of existing employees to promote their employer) improved substantially. Team conflicts decreased significantly as problem-solving and camaraderie increased. Even through a global pandemic, employees remained loyal.
Most importantly, clients began to notice the difference, telling the COO and CTO about what they were experiencing. Client satisfaction, which would have been negatively impacted by fee increases, was actually positively impacted without it costing clients an additional dollar.
CASE STUDIES
OUR BLOG
LEADERSHIP
When Service Firm Leaders Perfect Deliberation, They Reignite Growth
Five Reasons Service Firm Leaders Should Score Their Business Monthly
What Should You Expect From Your Service Firm Leadership Team?
Do You Have A Leadership Team Or A Leadership Council?
Ten Traits Of Organizationally Healthy Professional Service Firms
To Grow Your Professional Service Firm, Prize Culture Over Strategy
TP35: The One Tipping Point Mid-Size Service Firms Must Address To Keep Growing
Seven Reasons Most Mid-Size Service Firms Don’t Grow Very Much
Five Reasons Mid-Size Service Firms Need A New Leadership Operating Model
How Leaders Can Address The Growth Tipping Point For Mid-Sized Service Firms
Five Reasons Professional Service Leaders Should Prize EQ Over IQ
Why Mid-Size Service Firm Leadership Teams Need Collective Objectives To Grow
How To Grow Your Mid-Sized Service Firm: Jealously Protect Your Focused Energy
Why Professional Service Firms Should Consider Circle Of Seven Mentoring Networks
How A Leader’s Energy Field Impacts Team Productivity
Don’t Trade Misery For Money: How Professional Service Firms Can Leverage The Great Resignation
Strong Personality Vs. Strong Person: The Makeup Of A Leadership Council
Custer Or Marshall: Why Mid-Size Service Firms Must Choose Their Leadership Model
To Grow Your Mid-Size Professional Service Firm, Define And Defend Your Values
If You Want To Grow Your Mid-Size Service Firm, Establish A Formal Leadership Council
Want To Grow Your Professional Service Firm? Focus On The One
If You Want To Grow Your Midsize Professional Service Firm, Align Your Leaders
Why Midsize Service Firm Leaders Must Think Like Entrepreneurs To Grow
How To Grow A Mid-Size Professional Service Firm Today
Why It's Important For Great Leaders To Tell Great Stories
How Great Leaders Persuade Using Word-Pictures
How The Say-Do Ratio Influences Trusted Advisor Status And Profits
Why Service Firm Leaders Should Nurture The Entrepreneurial Instincts Of Their Top People
STRATEGY
How To Market Managed Services - Part 3
How To Market Managed Services - Part 2
How To Market Managed Services Today – Part 1
Ten Reasons To Adopt Managed Services
Hard Money. Fair Money. Easy Money
Do You Choose Clients Or Do They Choose You?
How To Market & Sell Professional Services Today
How To Break The Grip Of Rainmaker Culture
How Content Impacts The Service Sale
How To Know When Prospects Are Ready
How To Pull Prospects Into Conversations
Nurture Organic Relationships Online
How To Build Relationships With Jaded Prospects
Do Prospects Want To Buy Or Be Sold?
Can You Hack Service Firm Growth?
Close Deals Faster Using Proof Statements
Do Your Users Experience Content Regret?
Content Registrations Are Not Enough
Digital Marketing Perfect For Complex Sales – Part 2
Digital Marketing Is Perfect For The Complex Sale
Your Best New Client Is Looking For You
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 3
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 2
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 1
What You Must Do To Acquire New Clients
An Audience Of One
How to Attract New Ideal Clients
Are You A Content Marketer Or A Thought Leader?
Consider The Source: Theorist Or Practitioner
Why Pain Points Are Not Enough
SALES
Five Strategies For Midsize Service Firms To Break Through Revenue Plateaus
How Pro Service Firms Can Fix The ‘Drop Everything — Chase Money’ Problem
Prospect, Originate, Navigate: How To Fill Your Professional Service Pipeline
To Grow Your Mid-Size Professional Service Firm, Think Carefully About Your Promise
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 7
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 6
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 5
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 4
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 3
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 2
How To Sell Professional Services Today – Part 1
How Mid-Size Service Firms Can Acquire Great New Clients On LinkedIn
Five Ways The Consultative Sale Improves Profits
How To Win The Complex Service Sale Consistently
Do You Choose Clients Or Do They Choose You?
How To Market & Sell Professional Services Today
How To Break The Grip Of Rainmaker Culture
How Content Impacts The Service Sale
How To Know When Prospects Are Ready
How To Pull Prospects Into Conversations
Nurture Organic Relationships Online
How To Build Relationships With Jaded Prospects
Do Prospects Want To Buy Or Be Sold?
Close Deals Faster Using Proof Statements
How To Get Mindshare With Busy Decision-Makers
How To Get Great Prospects Leaning In
How Digital Marketing Creates Sales Funnel Velocity
Digital Marketing Perfect For Complex Sales – Part 2
Digital Marketing Is Perfect For The Complex Sale
Your Best New Client Is Looking For You
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 3
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 2
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 1
Do This to Fill Your Sales Funnel
What You Must Do To Acquire New Clients
An Audience Of One
How to Attract New Ideal Clients
Are You A Content Marketer Or A Thought Leader?
Consider The Source: Theorist Or Practitioner
Why Pain Points Are Not Enough
MARKETING
How To Market Managed Services - Part 3
How To Market Managed Services - Part 2
How To Market Managed Services Today – Part 1
Why Service Firms Need A Multichannel Digital Marketing Strategy
Does Your Website Attract Ideal Clients?
Why Service Firms Need The Ultimate Digital Marketing Stack
The Myth Of The Time-Starved Service Buyer
Do You Choose Clients Or Do They Choose You?
How To Market & Sell Professional Services Today
Why You Need A Generous Brand
How Content Impacts The Service Sale
Are You Measuring Your Time Funnel?
How To Get Mindshare With Busy Decision-Makers
How To Get Great Prospects Leaning In
How Digital Marketing Creates Sales Funnel Velocity
Five Digital Marketing KPIs
Do Your Users Experience Content Regret?
Content Registrations Are Not Enough
Is Your Website Open For Business
How To Build A Great Digital Marketing Plan
Digital Marketing Perfect For Complex Sales – Part 2
Digital Marketing Is Perfect For The Complex Sale
The Value Of An Idea Driven Website
Who Benefits From Your Content?
Your Best New Client Is Looking For You
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 3
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 2
Why Service Firms Should Focus On Ideal Clients– Part 1
How To Get The Greatest Value From Content Marketing
Why You Should Absolutely Give Away Your Best Ideas
Do This to Fill Your Sales Funnel
What You Must Do To Acquire New Clients
An Audience Of One
How to Attract New Ideal Clients
Are You A Content Marketer Or A Thought Leader?
Consider The Source: Theorist Or Practitioner
Why Pain Points Are Not Enough
How To Nurture Ideal Prospects