Shireen Hilal: Growth Strategies for Professional Services Firms

Full episode page: Shireen Hilal: Growth Strategies for Professional Services Firms

Shireen Hilal is the founder and CEO of Maior, a consultancy helping professional services firms overcome their pain points and plateaus. Shireen started her career practicing law, and then served in several executive roles, including COO of a national law firm where she boosted revenue +20%, profits +30%, and secured spots on best places to work lists, leading strategy and operations for divisions of enterprise firms KPMG and BDO, and building out the growth division of a communications consulting firm. Now through her own firm, she helps growing firms skyrocket, early-stage firms scale, and mature firms gain a fresh perspective.

Summary: In this episode of The Business Owner’s Journey, Nick Berry speaks with Shireen Hilal, founder and CEO of Maior Consultancy, about her career and insights into helping professional services firms scale and overcome business challenges. Shireen discusses the pressures of meeting client expectations in today’s tech-driven environment, how firms can maintain their core values while scaling, and strategies to differentiate in an increasingly competitive market. She also shares unique tips for market research and her experiences with private equity's impact on professional service industries.

Takeaways:

• What being an 'accidental' business owner means.
• Strategies for meeting today’s client expectations.
• How firms scale while keeping their 'secret sauce.'
• Use conference agendas to track market trends.

Links:

• Shireen Hilal's Website: Maior Consultants
• Shireen on LinkedIn

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Transcript

Shireen (00:00)

So you have professionals who are just, they're great at what they do, right? They're excellent at their craft. But does that mean you're good at running the business? There's a marketing engine, whether you like it or not, which most of them don't, there's a real way to hire and retain your staff. There is a real rigor around collections. You you've done the work. Are you getting 100 cents on the dollar for it? How are you doing that? So these are all pain points that they're in every business, right?

Nick Berry (00:33)

The Business Owner's Journey. I'm Nick Berry and I've got real business owners telling their real stories, sharing their real lessons and strategies so you don't have to figure it all out on your

Nick Berry (00:45)

Shireen Hilal is formerly a practicing attorney and executive and now the founder and CEO of Maior Consultancy, her consultancy which helps professional service firms level up their businesses. Because, believe it or not, law firms, accounting firms, marketing agencies, they have the same business challenges that most every other business has. Shireen's unique background has molded her into a Swiss Army knife, her words. And she's proven to be an elite resource for professional services to call on to address things like financial performance issues, building innovative strategies, creating better processes. Shireen is Sharp, you'll be able to tell that right away. It's just a ton of great insights to share. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Shireen (01:31)

Yeah, I sort of have a unique career history and I never had sort of a linear process. I started in the AmLaw 100 law firms as a litigator. So for 10 years, I practiced law, defending large corporations, doing internal investigations, litigation, class action lawsuits, and frankly, litigation is a really blunt instrument for change as anybody who's been through the process knows. And where I sort of found myself getting itchy is I didn't really feel I was solving the root of my clients' problems. And I was way more interested in their businesses and how to prevent the issues. And so that's when I pivoted to operations and strategy. I first went to BDO.

They had a very strong audit and tax practice, but consulting was really young. So help them to scale that. Then someone from KPMG approached me and said, we're having the opposite problem. have a 5 ,000 person, $1 billion division, and we can't get out of our own way. Can you come in and help us to sort of gently break a few things and help us move faster and be more nimble? I then was the inaugural COO of a national law firm. So this was a firm that had been around for over 50 years, but it never had that position. So there was a ton of opportunity to improve them on the top line and bottom line. So both revenue and profitability and to get them sort of in a place where the workforce was also optimized. And then finally, I was the head of growth for a communications consulting firm, I built out marketing, sales, and client experience for them. And so I sort of took all that, glommed it together, and created my own consulting firm where I help professional services firms, not surprisingly, given my background, but with anything ranging from, you know, revenue issues, profitability issues, workforce issues, especially today with hybrid and remote, better engaging your clients and customers. And it's really just anything that helps firms overcome pain points and plateaus and where they need either somebody new to come in and help, or maybe they're too small to have an executive team and need someone who can come in and sort of be that Swiss army knife who's played in a lot of those roles and seen all of those departments.

Nick Berry (04:14)

Yeah, somebody who's going to come in and just see the problem, make it right.

Shireen (04:18)

Right, like a Swiss army knife.

Nick Berry (04:20)

Yeah. and you listed off the problems that they have. It's all the problems that every other business has. Right. So

Shireen (04:26)

That's right.

Nick Berry (04:27)

You said you're the inaugural COO of a firm that had been around since the 50s or for more than 50 years.

Shireen (04:33)

Yeah, over 50 years.

Nick Berry (04:35)

How do they get by that long without someone in that role?

Shireen (04:38)

You know, it's a few things. So they had great help working within particular functions and in silos. So for example, you have somebody in HR, you have somebody in finance. It was more where's the nerve center? But the good news with law, and look, this isn't every discipline in law, it's different.

flavors of law have different margins, but for the most part, if you are dealing with the corporate market, it's a high margin business. And so if you're operating very well, you're at maybe a 30 or higher margin, 30 % or higher, that's pretty good. So if you're not operating so well, you can still be at like a 15 to 20 % margin.

Nick Berry (05:25)

and still lets you outrun the mistakes.

Shireen (05:28)

That's right. That's right. And so a lot of firms, and this is not just firms, right? This is any company where they decide they need to change is when they hit that inflection point, maybe it's, no, the market has changed and now we're finding it harder to actually get and keep our clients or, we're now running into labor issues where it's getting really difficult to hire great people. Well, now we have a pain point.

And so there's a red light on the dashboard and we actually need to hire somebody. And so what's interesting is I, for some reason have always come in as sort of an inaugural position. So when I went to BDO, that position was net new. When I went to KPMG, that role didn't exist before I got there either. And same with the communications consulting firm. So I don't know, I must just have a pension for carving a new path.

Nick Berry (06:23)

Are you that unique of an object?

Shireen (06:25)

I don't know if I'm unique, maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment. I just, I really love having the opportunity to walk into something that's undefined and put my own print on it. And so I think it's that, that it's, the ambiguity doesn't bother me. Like I think a lot of people want to see a real job description. I never wanted that. I always wanted,

Nick Berry (06:28)

Maybe. Okay.

Mm -hmm.

Shireen (06:52)

Can I just come in and do what I know is the right thing to do? That's.

Nick Berry (06:56)

So you were meant to be an entrepreneur. You were meant to be in business for yourself from the beginning then.

Shireen (07:01)

You know, it's funny you say that, my husband is an entrepreneur. And so when I met him, it was one of the first things he said as he got to know me. And it took me a few years, but I was finally like, yeah, you know what? It's time for me to open my own business. You're right.

Nick Berry (07:17)

Yeah, I mean, anyone who wants to lean into the uncertainty that's one of the big boxes to check,

Shireen (07:22)

An unlimited upside, right? I also don't want to be limited by, and something I always found frustrating was, you know, here's your base salary, here's the bonus structure. And I was sort of always that person that was like, okay, but what if I do more?

Nick Berry (07:36)

if I make the pie bigger, if I make the whole greater than the sum of the parts, where's that upside going to go?

Shireen (07:42)

That's right.

Nick Berry (07:45)

So, so what it sounds like to me, and it makes sense, but it sounds like to me, generally like these professional services firms previously were mostly like practitioners doing their thing, doing it really well. But being a good practitioner doesn't necessarily mean that you're good at running a business. In some cases, or maybe most, they were fortunate enough to have enough margins that they could outrun that for a while.

Shireen (08:03)

That's great.

Nick Berry (08:11)

And someone probably did more than outrun it and kudos to them. That's great. But it started to catch up and now they need guidance on how do we, and this is something that a phrase I've used from my background. but it's like, okay, how do we turn this into a real business?

Shireen (08:26)

Yeah, no, you're right. There's a lot of, for example, I like to call them accidental business owners. So you have professionals who are just, they're great at what they do, right? They're excellent at their craft. But to your point, does that mean you're good at running the business? There's a marketing engine, whether you like it or not, there's, which most of them don't, there's a real way to hire and retain your staff.

there is a real rigor around collections. You you've done the work. Are you getting 100 cents on the dollar for it? How are you doing that? So these are all pain points to your point that they're in every business, right?

Nick Berry (09:12)

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's only getting more and more competitive. you, you, your margin for error, you can't overlook any of those, any of the functions in the business or any of your, opportunities for the, profit to leak out.

Shireen (09:28)

Yeah, you're right. We're in a time right now where the competition is especially fierce and corporate clients in particular are very budget conscious. And so what I hear from a lot of my clients is there's less work to go around and the clients are pushing back on bills. And so it's a few outside forces, right? Technology has opened up the options. So now

Firms of any size can have a very large online or social presence. There's access to a global workforce that enables lower cost options. And clients are expecting more efficient solutions because they know there's data, there's AI. A lot of firms don't know how to use it. Doesn't matter. The clients are hearing the buzzwords and they're expecting them to use it. And so at the same time, we're in a volatile economy.

a high interest rate environment, and we're in an election year, which has uncertainty of its own. And so it means clients are kind of watching the wallet and expecting and seeking more value.

Nick Berry (10:37)

Actually, I read one of your white papers pivoting to meet new expectations. I don't want to oversimplify it, but in general, all of your recommendations are, and it's great by the way, are just saying, be a better listener, be more attentive, be efficient, meet the clients where they're problem, this gap is...

Solvable, right?

Shireen (11:01)

Yeah, it's funny. So technology hasn't just brought more competitors and the fee pressure, it's changed the client experience. And so that personal touch and individualization has been watered down. And that used to be a big firm problem, right? Or a big company problem. It was the big companies aren't good at it, but the boutiques are better. But now firms of all sizes are operating remotely and communicating mostly on email.

And so this issue is pervasive and the result is cookie cutter template driven work product that gets the job done, but it's nothing special. And it's obvious to clients as soon as they start interacting with the sales funnel, your pitches are sounding like your peers. The pricing is just a complex matrix of rates. It's not a clear and compelling value proposition. and so they get confused and they're disappointed.

right from the start. And the white paper you referenced, what I really loved about writing that, I went straight to the corporate market and asked general counsels, chief compliance officers, CMOs, CFOs, what do you need to see from your outside providers? And how can I give better guidance to my clients where you're the client? What can they do to get bigger share of your wallet? And you're right.

It was, you need to listen and do a better job of meeting us where we are.

Nick Berry (12:34)

Yeah, don't treat me like, don't send me your templated mean, it's going on everywhere. So it's not just professional services, everybody feels it when you're taking a volume approach with them. And it's just a turnoff.

Shireen (12:42)

That's right.

Yes, the one size fits all. Yep, one size fits no one.

Nick Berry (12:52)

Yeah. One size fits no one. So the practitioners doing well now realize like, hey, I need someone to help me to make this a more efficient machine. I know at least in, in

you're now, it's becoming possible for non -lawyers to be, to have ownership in legal firms. Whereas that used to not be the case.

Shireen (13:16)

You know, it kind of varies state to state. It depends on the bar rules, but you're right. It's been opened up a little differently. And you even have firms that are offering what I would call kind of like quasi legal services. So they're not technically practicing law, but they're sort of coming right up against it.

Nick Berry (13:35)

So then, so what's that going to do to the landscape there with, if you have these excellent practitioners who are not as savvy on the business side, and now you're able to open up the market to like the savvy business minds to join

Shireen (13:53)

Yeah, I think you're going to see further commoditization, right? And so it's everything from, can I just get this on Zoom info or like legal Zoom? think it's call or one of these services where you just kind of get like a templatized contract online versus do I need to hire a lawyer all the way to, to your point, non -legal providers.

providing quasi legal services. And it starts to become a bit of a race to the bottom on fees unless you can truly differentiate and stand out in a crowded market.

Nick Berry (14:31)

It seems like there's also, there's going to be the potential for some conflict of interest

just think about like a mom and pop ish, you know, the values in a smaller, independently owned business, And then what happens to that business, to the culture and the direction when private equity takes over, right? It's like, now we've got this extra force.

that's saying this thing has to be a proud more of a priority than it was, which likely what would happen if you have, big money come in and actually have a stake have some type of equity or control over firms.

Shireen (14:56)

Yes.

Yeah, interestingly, you're starting to see that a lot in the accounting industry. So private equity has come in and is buying up smaller firms and sort of glomming them together into these larger powerhouses. And you're right. It does change the dynamic. It changes the metrics. And I would say it sort of moves the goalposts closer.

like in terms of where we need to get and how fast. Because similar to a public company where you have to meet your investor needs every quarter, how easy is it then to focus on long -term value when you're very concerned that the stock price is being evaluated constantly and you're reporting on a quarterly basis, right?

It's really hard in a large business to get things done, I think, in these sort of quarterly sprints with any real meaning if you're not just looking for a sugar high.

Nick Berry (16:06)

Has it always been possible for anyone to have ownership in an accounting firm?

Shireen (16:13)

No, that also varies. I believe it's state law. And I believe it also ownership is different. So there's in accounting firms, you have folks who are considered partners. And then often you have folks that are considered principals. Your principal, you technically have the same share interest, but you're not allowed to be called a partner if you do not have a CPA license. So

There's kind of all sorts of little nuances, but then there's ways around that, right? So for example, being called the principal instead of the

Nick Berry (16:43)

I just, thought that was interesting about the dynamic and the potential shift in the landscape. So kind of going back to you getting started with Maior and you mentioned also to me that you have a,

Shireen (16:45)

It is.

Yeah.

Nick Berry (17:02)

unique approach to staffing.

Shireen (17:04)

think so. So, know, for myself, as I started my business, and as we kind of walked through at the beginning of this conversation, I have a unique background, right? And so what I find is when firms go to hire me, they're often interested in my particular exact background. Well, I can't do a bait and switch, right? Where I sell the work and now I give them somebody else who doesn't have that background.

And when I first started out, you know, it wasn't even on the table to have full -time hires, right? Like full -time onshore hires. How can I afford to do that when I haven't even paid myself and I'm just getting my first clients, right? So especially in the beginning, I really had to think critically of how am I going to start leveraging down without

derogating the work quality itself and making sure the clients are happy. And so I really tried to think about who I needed. And at first, I did what I think most people do, which is, OK, well, I have this background and who's like me, but the younger, cheaper version, well, here's the problem with that. Getting a less evolved version of yourself, you're just going to run circles around them. And so instead,

I went to fill the gaps that I myself can't fill and looked offshore. And so as way of example, I have one woman who's incredibly talented who works for me, who is like a data coding ninja. She is everything research, analytics, the coding when I need it. She's

Fantastic. That is completely not in my wheelhouse. As somebody who grew up as a litigator, tech was not my strong suit, right? But so hiring somebody in the areas where I'm a two, instead of bringing someone on in the areas where I'm a nine, I just get a lot more leverage. So I have her, I now have actually three folks who work with me.

one full -time to part -time helping me out with various tasks to give me the leverage to serve my client. The other thing that I can do is one of my selling points, look, I don't lower my rate, but I never charge for anybody else's time. You only get charged for my time and my time is spent on high level tasks so that you see immediate impact.

of my time.

Nick Berry (19:45)

So they're essentially outsourcing to a department starting at leadership with you, right? They get the benefit of you are a department, not just a single entity.

Shireen (19:56)

And so, for example, I was looking at one law firm's accounts receivable balance. They had a major issue with non -payment. So you sold the work, you did the work, and you're only collecting about 70 cents on the dollar for the work. I mean, that's a rough way to bring in the money. I took all that data, gave it to my data genius. They don't get charged for that.

They got charged for my time after that analysis was done, pulling together the conclusions and building the plan for them to move forward. And so now they're getting high level expertise and every dollar really counts. I think for me, lesson is talent is just not limited anymore to full time.

onshore hires. And so can you get something done freelance? Can you bring somebody part time? Can you bring a project based hire? Can you bring a fractional expertise, you know, high level expertise? It's also a great way to pilot. So meaning let's say I think I need somebody for marketing. Before I go hire, if I bring somebody on part time or fractionally, I can kind of test it out.

and see what I really need before committing to a full -time resource.

Nick Berry (21:20)

Do you have a particular resource that you use exclusively for finding your outsourced help or your offshore help

Shireen (21:28)

It depends. mean, I basically have a number of partners that I work with. So that's another part that I would say is unique about my staffing is I'm very aware that, for example, I may be working on a go -to -market strategy for a firm. Well, that's great. And I can help with it. But when we get down to fixing things on the website, I'm not a web designer, but what I do have is a number of web designers that I know that I can then bring in.

depending on who's the right person for the work and bring them in to help. And so having a great network of other professionals means I don't have to do it all, right?

Nick Berry (22:11)

Right. So what are the most common issues that you're seeing in professional service firms?

Shireen (22:12)

which is also.

You know, the big ones I see right now and what I get asked about the most. Number one, it's, I kind of already touched on this a little. Corporate budgets have gotten tight. And so firms want to know what can I do to maintain and hopefully even increase my revenue without lowering my fees. That's a huge one. And so I help a lot with

redoing the go -to -market strategy, redoing the fee structure, looking at the pitches and proposals and redoing it to get that higher win rate, working with the professionals on their business development approach. The other thing I hear a lot is labor costs have increased a lot. And so in these firms where their biggest cost is always going to be the people,

that majorly impacts profitability. And so I hear a lot around what can we do to increase our margins and get profitability up. Another one is the remote and hybrid issue. It's how do we keep our employees engaged even though they're not right here sitting next to us all the time. And like spoiler alert, free lunch is not gonna cut it.

So that's it. You're not putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

Nick Berry (23:39)

So what is the answer? That's what we need.

Shireen (23:42)

The answer is it's not going to be a quick answer, but interestingly, I also wrote a white paper on this and I published a Law 360 article on it and I'll send it to you later because I think you'll find it interesting. Instead of expecting people to retrofit back to process that no longer serves them, we've got to change the process. so part of it is

How are we disseminating information? Are you doing town halls? Are you doing all hands calls? I mean, look, even if you're a small company, I get it. A town hall might be overly over -engineering it, but you can still do all hands calls. Make sure people feel that they're getting the right information. And by the way, that extends all the way to knowledge management. Where are you maintaining your documents?

How are you making sure you're sharing the information? Does everyone even know what the company's doing or are they just stuck in their own silo in their own role? Then it's also what kind of training opportunities are you doing and how are you offering it in a way that better fits your people today? And so I'm a big proponent of like small bite -sized training and showing, not telling. And so it's one thing to say,

We treat our clients like VIPs. Great, who doesn't? But now you've got to show your employees what's a real example of that. How can you do that in your day to day? And so really having examples is critically important.

Nick Berry (25:16)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah. I mean, what I'm hearing you say is you've got to gain buy -in from every individual and because we can give them ideas, we can show them it has to be modeled. But at some point they're going to have to think for themselves and go off script. And that's how you get them ready is like gaining their buy -in.

Shireen (25:37)

That's right.

Yeah, there's a saying, culture has cult in it. And so you have to create believers and to your point, build buy -in. And a piece of that too is culture is not something that should be crammed down from the executive committee. It's something that is co -created. And so let your employees contribute to the culture.

And so maybe that is if you have a monthly lunch and learn, or if you're doing certain events, let your employees plan them. Let them be involved in picking the theme, picking the topic, picking the location. Instead of it constantly being some memo that comes down from on high and then asking people to join. If you let them build it.

You're building that momentum more naturally.

Nick Berry (26:39)

They're taking some ownership of it right there. If they're allowed. If they're not allowed.

Shireen (26:42)

Yes.

That's right. That's right. And on that note of order takers, it's sort of teaching context instead of control. Because a lot of what happens is as companies grow and start getting larger,

Nick Berry (26:46)

They're order thinkers.

Shireen (27:01)

to prevent mistakes, it's sort of like the Python process squeezes in to make sure things aren't going wrong. Well, the problem with that is you're now cranking out cookie cutter work and people aren't thinking for themselves. And so if instead you show them what good looks like and give them ways that they can actually meet the demand. And so for example, it might be

Look, we're gonna give you this much latitude to give a discount up to a certain percent if a client's unhappy. You don't have to go up the chain of command. Well, now you're really delighting clients and you're empowering your employees. That's like a small example.

Nick Berry (27:49)

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, the principle, it's easy to see at work. And then when you, think if you pair that with being able to either having the right people or being able to do some teaching of the soft skills so you can make, just make a customer or client feel felt, even if you can't fix their problem in the moment, understanding that you can affect the way that they feel at least show concern.

It goes a long way. Like we've all been on that side of it, right? And if you just would have acted like you gave a shit, I wouldn't be mad anymore.

Shireen (28:16)

Yes.

That's right. That's right. I mean, one thing I did for a mid -sized law firm, and this was incredibly successful, they knew they were kind of in that sea of sameness and they also could feel it. It wasn't just clients weren't engaged, their own employees weren't engaged. And by the way, I mean, when your employees aren't engaged and your people are the product, forget it. I mean, there you go. It's your downhill.

And that's where you get to commoditization. So we created for every role a way to delight the client. And so for, as an example, executive assistants, usually forgotten, never thought as being client facing, but in fact, they're incredibly client facing. They're constantly scheduling meetings.

talking to executives and clients to figure out, when can you come in? Can we do the meeting? Here's the document, whatever. So we gave them a small budget. It was only $250 a quarter, but it was their budget to use at their discretion. And it was the client delight budget. And so if you were trying to schedule a meeting with a client for the partner you were working with, and three times it got rescheduled,

You could send them a $20 Starbucks gift card and say, I can tell you're really busy. Just thought you'd appreciate this. I know we'll schedule that meeting soon, but in the meantime, just wanted to let you know we noticed. It goes a long way.

Nick Berry (29:54)

Yeah, I mean, I think did you do that as like a group exercise coming up with those things? Because I could see that just being like the thing that breaks the mold.

Shireen (30:05)

It was incredibly successful. you're talking about now executive assistants who were so much more engaged and felt like, wow, we are part of the client process. We're integral to client satisfaction. So first of all, letting them know you're important, you matter, you're an important touch point, and we're giving you discretion to do something special.

So like that Starbucks gift card or you heard the client say, it's our anniversary this weekend. Great, send a $30 bottle of wine. It means everything. And now you feel part of the process and the clients feel it too, right? That wow, everybody at the firm listens. Everybody at the firm cares.

Nick Berry (30:52)

Yeah, I think that that's fantastic. And I mean, again, there's giving them more opportunity to be bought in, to take ownership, start thinking outside of the box, like, how could I do that? You what does this look like from my perspective?

Shireen (31:05)

Right, and to your point, that works in any industry, right? So client service, customer service, let's say you're just a client service person that is on the 1 -800 line, there's a way to do this.

Throw in free shipping.

Nick Berry (31:22)

Yeah, absolutely. mean, probably the first obstacle is getting past the, just the thinking that can't because we haven't, right? It's you have to kind of open your mind to, well, you know, how could I, what might it look like?

Shireen (31:31)

That's right.

And it's giving employees autonomy and ownership.

Nick Berry (31:40)

So my episode that I released this week was John DeJulius. he's the customer experience and employee experience guy for several decades. He's right in line with what you're talking about. And he talks about it so well, know, like he lives it.

you two are totally in lockstep.

Shireen (31:58)

good, I'll listen to it this weekend. I'm looking forward to it.

Nick Berry (32:02)

you keeping the secret sauce when you're growing. I think, it's probably a good segue from what we were just talking about. Can you go into that a little bit?

Shireen (32:10)

Yes, so yeah, something firms do come to me a lot for is we're growing and now we're almost victims of our own success, right? So the very things that made us so successful are the things we're having trouble keeping, that secret sauce. And so there's a few things firms can do. One is what we just discussed, which is probably why you thought of it, which is that encourage autonomy.

with accountability, right? So let your people actually have real guidance and a framework for how to think for themselves, but within guided parameters, right? So it's a combination of you're accountable to the company, but you're allowed to use creativity to solve problems, delight the client or customer, work with your coworkers better.

bring up new ideas, be innovative. And so there's a few things that support that. Number one, you have to hire and retain only high performers. autonomy doesn't really work if you let anybody in the door. You have to be able to trust that people are able to execute within the guidance.

And that only happens if you're hiring people who are bought into that. And so this is for companies or firms that are honestly looking to not compete on price, that aren't looking to be the commoditized version and that want to be elite. And it starts with your people always. And the best perk that you can offer your people, it's not the ping pong table.

It's not the free lunch, it's great coworkers. Every time. What people really want is to work with other people that they can trust, that they don't have to micromanage, that have their back. That is what they want, right?

Nick Berry (34:11)

Yeah, I think Nick Saban has a quote that I really like. And he said something, he just said it in one of his press conferences a few years ago. And it was something like, high performers don't like mediocre people and mediocre people don't like high performers. So.

Shireen (34:28)

That's right. That's right. I mean, the next thing is, yeah, you got to have a client centric culture that focuses on treating clients like VIPs. so what I always think of for that is really, there's sort of two guiding principles in my mind always. One is meeting demand.

Nick Berry (34:29)

I don't need to commingle.

Shireen (34:55)

is easier than creating it. And so what I mean by that is look at what the market actually needs and meet that. Don't go sort of into your laboratory creating things and then selling it and asking people if that's what they want. It doesn't work. But you would be surprised. I can't tell you how many executive committee meetings I've sat in where I've heard people talking about

but what's the total addressable market and what are our competitors doing and should we offer? And I'm like, do your clients need it? And that brings me to the second one, which is obsess about your clients and forget about your competitors. Understand what they value, anticipate their needs, and you have to align your services to solve their problems.

Nick Berry (35:46)

And it makes total sense when it's, when it slaps you in the face, right? When things aren't going right. And then someone points it out like that. But yeah, having been through some of this stuff myself, I can, I get how you get a little bit further away from the customer, you know, a few layers of personnel between a decision maker and the customer. And you just kind of forget that that's like where you need to have your ear to the ground.

Shireen (35:51)

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's so it's having that feedback mentality and whether it is listening directly to client feedback, which by the way, again, you'd be surprised how many companies and firms don't do postmortems. Don't ask, why didn't we get the work? Don't bother asking, how did it go after an engagement's over, a matter's completed? That's important. But the other one, and you just said it and you nailed it.

Great ideas usually don't come out of the boardroom. Go talk to your frontline employees. Cause a lot of times these are the people that know what are the pain points? What are clients really grumbling about? What are they happy with? Are they asking for things that we don't offer? Well, there's our next service idea or there's the next product idea, right? A lot of it comes from them as opposed to this. Let's put a bunch of smart people in a room with a whiteboard.

Okay, great. Now you're just, again, you're ideating in the laboratory by yourself.

Nick Berry (37:09)

that can be pretty risky.

Shireen (37:10)

No, exactly. But you know, it's like get out and ask. And so again, using the example I did before with I had a firm that had a bad accounts receivable balance. One of the first questions I asked, what does your person in charge of billing say? A lot of no, we haven't asked her.

Let's start there, right? What's the anecdotal evidence of what she's hearing on why clients don't pay? Do they need better options? Do they want a payment plan?

Are they confused at the bill?

Let's Ask?

Nick Berry (37:44)

Right, you potentially have a goldmine there, especially if you've got someone in that spot who's perceptive.

Shireen (37:49)

That's right.

Nick Berry (37:50)

So what do you do to sharpen your saw? How do you stay on the cutting edge with the landscape and your knowledge so you can go into a mess of a situation and work your magic?

Shireen (38:04)

Yeah, good question. I mean, I think you got to keep your ear to the ground to your point. And so the same thing that I'm saying others need to do, you you got to do it yourself. And so it's keep your eye on the industry, ask a lot of questions. So for example, given I service a lot of law firms and that happens to be a big part of my client base, something I've committed to doing, I write a quarterly column for Law 360 and it answers

law firm leaders questions on how to run their business. So it kind of serves a few purposes for me, but it makes sure I stay fresh, right? I better be able to answer those questions if this is my target market. The other thing you can do always is, and it's something I do myself, look, going to conferences is incredibly expensive. Not only from...

a monetary point of view, but it's your time, right? It's incredibly time consuming to take yourself out of the market for three days. And you can't go to everything, but here's what you can do. These agendas are online and they're available. And so if I were to look...

10 conference agendas that hit my target industry, pick any target industry, and look and see what's on the agenda. I think I'll have a pretty good idea of what these people care about, right? And so, yeah, think about it, think about clever. You don't have to go to all the conferences, but collect the data.

Nick Berry (39:24)

That's exactly right.

I love that. That's gonna tell you what's on everybody's mind, what are they talking about, what's coming.

Shireen (39:36)

Right.

So you just gotta keep your pulse on it and where you can, like, that's a great shortcut. So that's a shortcut I use, it's a shortcut I give to my clients. I mean, you may be a marketing agency that serves five different demographics as your key demographic. What are you gonna go to all the conferences for five different industries? You'll never get anything done.

Nick Berry (39:42)

Mm

Right, yeah. It's a shortcut that I'm gonna use now, so thank you.

Shireen (40:02)

It's a great one. The other one is create a client advisory board. And so whether it is a formal one, that's sort of a quarterly real meeting, or even if you're a smaller company, you pick three clients that one quarter you do a Zoom, one quarter you take them out for a nice dinner, if they're local, if you happen to be local, and it's just an opportunity for you to understand.

What are you all doing in your businesses? Let me understand the insights. What do you need? How have you seen the market for what you're doing change? You're gonna learn a lot.

Nick Berry (40:43)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you know some of your customers, from my experience, if you are willing to pick the ones who who you can elicit the valuable information from, like their game, just most of the time customers don't really know if you want that, or the ones who are maybe too eager to give it to you aren't really worried about your thinking and your best interest. They need to get something off their chest.

Shireen (40:55)

Yeah.

Nick Berry (41:08)

Like there's some skill to it and it's another one of, it's a gold mine.

Shireen (41:13)

It is and it's also a way for them to learn from each other. So this is now helping me to remember another tactic I created for, this was a mid -size law firm as well. We created a round table where they did a workshop for chief compliance officers and they brought them in.

And instead of just lecturing to them and doing your usual cocktail hour, they actually did a workshop where they let them sit at tables and they put a partner from their own law firm at each table. And we created this so talk through common issues you hear from the business and help each other workshop how to deal with them. Well, by the way, what did we do the next day? I got the blog partners together and I said, okay, now what did we hear?

Give us, let's think of all the insights because you just had a wealth of information talking to your target market.

And now you know what are the biggest pain points they have that they are having trouble solving.

Nick Berry (42:21)

that's, I mean, you're creating an environment there where they'll talk to their peers in a different way than they'll talk to you. So you're gonna get a different, probably some different language, maybe a little bit more honest or transparency.

Shireen (42:27)

That's right.

And it's a way to do it where they get value too. So it's like, they don't feel that I'm just here to give you ideas and feedback. It's no, no, no, you are coming to this because you're going to get valuable information and come away with new tactics and strategy for yourself. And by the way, we have an interest in sponsoring that and doing it for

Nick Berry (42:56)

Yeah, I think that is a great idea. I've been, I think that service businesses in general should all be looking for ways to create small, like intimate peer groups of some of their best customers for reasons like that. Find a reason. There is one. Get them together. Let them help create value for each other and for you. It's win, win, win. It's the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Shireen (43:11)

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

Nick Berry (43:24)

Well, Shereen, this has been fantastic. you're a great guest. I really love your content. Do you write all of that yourself?

Shireen (43:32)

well, first of all, thank you. I do. I do write it all myself. And it's something I think is really important. It's how actually I do my own marketing. I am somebody who, like most business owners, hates selling. Who wants to sell? And so instead, what I do is I just provide value. I write a lot.

I commit to doing that Law 360 article and I do white papers every six to eight weeks, which it's a lot of work. But to your question earlier on how do you stay relevant in your own market? It means I have to make sure I know what's going on in my client's world if I'm going to write about and give them real insights. And it gives me something to give them.

And then what I find is they come to me when they have a...

Nick Berry (44:26)

I can totally see that. think the thing that got my attention about your content is like you make your point so well, It's captured and articulated very well. It's like the content has substance to it.

Shireen (44:33)

Thank you.

I try to stay very tactical and practical and give real examples. So thank you. I'm glad it resonates.

Nick Berry (44:45)

well done. And thank you for spending your time with me this afternoon, having this conversation. I appreciate it.

Shireen (44:51)

Thank you for having me on. You have such a great group of guests and it is a privilege to be among them.