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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Is Your Firm Incentivized to Be Inefficient?

If there’s one indisputable economic principle, it’s that incentives matter. Inside professional firms, some incentives are obvious and overt. Firms are highly incentivized to issue timely and accurate billing, for example. The consequences of sloppy invoicing manifest themselves quickly in the form of unhappy, frustrated clients. 

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Why You Should Always Provide Pricing Options

Imagine a coffee shop in which there is only one size coffee. Or an electronics store that sells only one size TV. In the consumer goods world, we are surrounded by options. Small, medium, large, extra-large. Would it make sense for a professional firm — like an agency — to do the same?

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Why Your Firm Has An Incomplete Business Model

If you’re like most agencies and other professional firms, you’re likely missing a critical component in the model upon which you have built your business. Here's why having a cost structure is not the same as having a revenue model …

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

The Magicians and Logicians of Professional Services

When a talented ad agency transforms the global reputation of a brand through a brilliant marketing program based on unique customer insights, that’s an example of the kind of high-value problem solving professional firms get hired for in the first place. It’s the kind of “magic” that characterizes knowledge work, creative thinking, and professional expertise …

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Why Your Value Transcends Your Work

When sitting face to face with the buyers of your services, remember you’re not just selling the value of the work you create. The value your firm brings to the table is deep and multifaceted. But don’t count on your client to point them out for you …

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Costing Is a Science, But Pricing Is An Art

Knowing the costs of serving your clients is important, but it’s not the same thing as knowing how to price your services. Costing is objective and tactical; pricing is subjective and strategic. Costing uses formulas; pricing requires judgment.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Is Your Firm Signaling Its Value?

When we walk into a store to purchase a product in a category in which we have no prior experience, how do we make our choice?  Mostly, we depend on value signals.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Powered by Beliefs

Exceptionally talented professional firms are distinguished not by what they do, but what they believe.  Their work is unique because their beliefs are unique. They create dissimilar solutions because they have a dissimilar mindset.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

What Timesheets Don't Tell You

Take away timesheets, and most agency executives will proclaim the end of the world.  But back when agencies were earning average profit margins of 30%, there were no agency timesheets.  Talk about cognitive dissonance.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Don't Say "Full Service" Unless You Really Mean It

If your firm uses the term “full service” on its website, here are two good reasons you should stop. First, “full service” is one of the phrases that has officially joined the lexicon of expressions so overused they’ve lost their meaning — words like “quality” and “excellence.”

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Is Your Positioning Strategy a Myth?

Like all humans, we business executives are subject to what behaviorists call “confirmation bias.” Nowhere is this dynamic displayed more prominently than in professionals’ perception of how well their firm is differentiated from rivals.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

The Power of Positive Deviants

Strengths contribute everything; weaknesses contribute nothing. Such was the conclusion of the brilliant Peter Drucker after decades of consulting with some of the world’s best companies.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

The Key Indicators of Your Firm's Success

What exactly constitutes success in context of a professional services business like an advertising agency? Should success be defined exclusively in financial terms? Is it more about reputation and recognition?

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

The Outcomes Business

Answer this simple question: What is the value of three hours of your time spent on a client’s business? You can probably tell me what the cost of your time is (salary plus overhead), but assigning a value to the time is a much more subjective question.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Irrational Arguments Against Focus

Despite decades of books and literature supporting the importance and value of a clear, well-defined focus, most business firms persist in trying to be a little bit of everything to everyone.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

No Client Ever Buys a "Wide Range"

Imagine you’ve just received a notice from the IRS that they’re going to audit your most recent tax return. You’ve never been through an audit before, and because you’re in the habit of preparing your own tax returns, you decide it’s time to get some professional help.

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Tim Williams Tim Williams

Why You Should Stop Running Your Firm at Maximum Capacity

Has your billable time ever been scrutinized? If you work for an advertising agency or other type of professional services firm, chances are you have been subject to a battery of billable time evaluations, all designed to achieve one thing in the mind of the agency owner: maximize productivity.

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