The Full Business Review (FBR), my flagship service and where most firms begin, is a very unique, impacting solution for firms under the marketing umbrella (digital, dev, advertising, PR, communications, UX, consulting, etc.) or in the retail sector wanting a holistic, objective, candid assessment of their firm…and then specific recommendations to take them to the next step and beyond.
This program began in January, 1996 and was then deconstructed and rebuilt in January, 2012. Working with 900+ firms has enabled me to know right where to look, how to interpret the data, and what it means in the context of your industry.
It unfolds in four phases.
First, you contact me. We arrange a time to speak briefly about your situation and whether or not this is a good fit for you. So assuming you want to move forward. I will send you a pre-site survey where you answer some questions about what issues you have that need addressed.
Second, I find the next available dates and send you acceptance materials that will work with both of our schedules. By email, you’ll receive an agreement (to sign and return), a list of materials to gather, a proposed schedule for the on-site portion (with suggestions on who should attend each meeting), an invoice, a credit card authorization form (if you prefer that rather than a check or bank transfer), and a non-disclosure agreement that I have already signed to ensure confidentiality regarding your firm. Once you have formally accepted the engagement, I’ll send a second email asking for a census of all employees, including principals, so that I can issue qualitative surveys and quantitative personality profiles. This period before we work together on-site also allows you to gather the materials I’ve requested and send them ahead of time (roughly ten days) so that I can build a thorough performance benchmarking of your firm. That will be the first thing we cover.
Third, we’ll conduct the on-site portion. That can be anything from two to three days and depends on the size of your firm (two days is typical). You’ll receive the agenda beforehand, which will cover the benchmarking, your positioning and GTM strategy, the structuring of various roles in the firm, and any processes that you might need to put in place. Various emphases will emerge from the benchmarking. For example, if that reveals that you are consistently under-pricing and/or over-delivering, we’ll fix that through your positioning, people, and processes. So those three areas are the big buckets, but we look at each bucket through the lens of the benchmarking results. I’ll leave you with a clear picture of where your firm is now, where it should be, and how to get there. In each case, I’ll provide you with an outline to facilitate note-taking. Rather than regurgitating everything in a written report, the deliverable, so to speak, is the spoken advice I give and the notes you capture. It’s a better use of time and a more effective knowledge transfer if you take good notes, and I’ll help you do that.
Fourth, I’ll stand by during implementation. I’ll assist you via phone or email over a period of up to three months or three significant phone calls, whichever is first. (These are defined more clearly in the FAQ.) They are agenda-driven, which means that you might keep a log of questions and then set up a call when you are ready. (These calls are not like a coach might have with you, in that they are not regularly scheduled and they are not designed to keep you accountable.) I don’t count the quick phone calls or short email exchanges against this.
So those are the four stages. In that process I’ll make many recommendations, but the four areas we’ll examine the most closely are these:
- The first is benchmarking. How does your firm compare with other firms like yours. How do you score in all the metrics that might be worth watching, and where specifically are you scoring in the eight most important ones. These form a line on the wall where you mark your firm’s height as it grows and matures. What happens when you pull this lever? When should we hire someone? How much should I be making? How much money am I leaving on the table? I’ll construct a specific tool and leave it with you for updating every quarter.
- The second is positioning, marketing best practices, and lead generation strategies to find clients who need you and would find it difficult to locate a suitable substitute. This is designed to provide more control over your business life and significant expertise that is worth more in the marketplace. I’ve developed specific theory and application in this step that will keep you very engaged. After I walk through it, you’ll see clearly the if, why, what, when, and how the changes should occur. I’ll start with whatever level of sophistication you have reached and significantly stretch you to the next level. The purpose of this is to eventually give you more prospective clients than you can handle, essentially requiring less courage for you to make the courageous choices that will help your firm flourish.
- The third is staffing and structuring roles. This work is based on a significant primary research study I began in 1996 and have since spent thousands of dollars on, primarily by surveying, profiling, and interviewing thousands of people, individually, all in this field. This data resides nowhere else. I’ll apply it to you, explaining how much of each function you need, what profiles you might look for in certain positions, and how to avoid the dangerous combinations that render even great employees ineffective. You will see your own role and the role of specific employees in an entirely new light.
- The fourth is systems to move your environment from a deadline-driven one to a profit-driven one, all without losing the culture that’s important to you. Your client is very aware of the deadlines, which means that you watch them, too. But the client doesn’t care if you are profitable on any given project or even the entire relationship. We’ll explain several dozen methods to move work through your firm to enhance its effectiveness, generate greater profit, and still meet deadlines. Absent this system, your firm may just be busy all the time, making some money, and failing to achieve a proper utilization of the time you have. We’ll quantify that, explain how it is happening, and make specific suggestions on how to fix it.
You will begin to see positive change very early in the process. In fact, gathering the materials is a learning exercise. Some of the changes can happen quickly, and others may take up to eighteen months. The recommendations are a balance between the eventual positive impact vs. the short term disruption, which I attempt to minimize as much as possible.
For this service, especially, it would be good to review the FAQ.
Location. Your office or my office and then remotely.
Duration. From two to three full days on site, depending on the size of your firm. Two days is typical.
Scheduling. A TBR can usually be scheduled and locked in on the calendar within 3-12 weeks, depending on the time of year.
Deliverable. Hours of industry leading advice that follows a written agenda, very carefully and concisely stated recommendations for your note taking, and later expansions as necessary.
Implementation Guidance. Up to three months involving up to three significant interactions. They are agenda-driven, which means that you’ll keep a log of the questions you have and we’ll address them in a batch. We don’t count the quick phone calls or any of the email exchanges during those three months. (Our work is not like a coach.)
Participation Requirements. A principal or someone from finance gathers materials for roughly two hours. Employees each answer a survey and complete a personality profile, each requiring about thirty minutes. Principals participate for roughly one-half of the on-site time. Selected managers and key employees participate for several hours, based on their role. Selected employees participate in short interviews, where appropriate.
Qualification Overview. As a principal, this will be most effective if you personally are already making between $120,000 and $1 million in fixed compensation before distributions of profit. Or, your fee billings per full-time equivalent employee should exceed $100,000 per year. The best use of our expertise is to take ordinary firms and make them extraordinary.
Cost. 10-18,000 fee plus expenses ($2,000-3,000), estimated in advance, for firms of up to eighteen employees. Each employee above that number adds $200. So, for example, a firm with twenty-four employees would pay $19,200 plus expenses.
Payment Terms. Prepaid and non-refundable. The fee and expenses are added together. Approximately one-third is due within two days confirming the engagement (by credit card), and the remainder is due approximately ten days before the on-site portion, sent with the materials that we’ll request (by check or transfer). We’ll spell all the dates out for you before we ask you to sign anything, and you’ll have as much time as you like to be comfortable with the arrangements.
Special Note. As you’ll see in the one-page PDF referenced at the outset, we have a premium service called Advanced Disruptive Modeling. It is priced at $24,000 (payable at commencement) + 10% of the gain in billings per FTE employee over a one-year period (payable then). It also:
- Includes the entire Full Business Review as described above.
- Includes 12 (instead of 3) months of implementation guidance, with monthly agenda-driven calls.
- Includes Valuation (normally $5,000)
- Includes Succession Planning (normally $6,000)
- Includes access to all paid webinars (normally $160 each)
- Includes attendance for any number of employees at any seminar for one year (normally $800-1,600/attendee).
- Includes one additional on-site consultation (expenses are extra).