Erik Fike

I found Georgias Golden egg

“Sometimes there isn’t a good explanation for why bad things happen, but what’s in your control is how you react.” After a season-ending knee injury, @c4era_ is dedicated to being the best teammate he can be. He wrote this for his @TexasFootball family. theplayerstribune.com/cj-bax…

a moment for the big guy please 🤘 #HookEm

The cake vs pie debate has been mathematically settled

Not sure how to make an offer on an SMB acquisition? Want to see me draft an LOI to acquire a real business? Join @whentheresawill and me next Friday (Feb. 2 at 11am ET) as we "live" draft an LOI for a self-funded, SBA-financed search transaction. Registration link in my bio!

No matter how intelligent or capable you may be… If you don't have a sense of urgency, now is the time to start developing it. The world is full of very competent people who honestly intend to do things tomorrow or as soon as they get around to it. Their accomplishments, however, seldom match those of less talented people who are blessed with a sense of the importance of getting started now. The people who make things move in this world share the same sense of urgency. A sense of urgency is not just a subject for discussion, but rather, it is a state of mind that is necessary for success. Choose to have an impact now. The founder of a very successful company was asked, "What it took to succeed." He responded— “The same thing it took to get started: a sense of urgency about getting things done."

Big winners work for a decade or more on big ideas. But all the life planning systems think in days, months, or a year at a time. I hated that. So, I built a simple planning tool to plan my life, 10 years at a time.

Three reasons why top biglaw firms, Big Four accounting practices, and McKinsey/Bain/BCG can charge significantly more than competitors: 1. Consistent Quality 2. Client Service 3. Client Risk-Aversion Let's talk about how each contributes to firm pricing power 👇 1. Consistent Quality If you've ever engaged one of these firms, you know that they are consistently good at what they do, across all service lines and all offices. When a competing firm lacks that consistency in quality of work—in other words, if some practice areas are world-class but others are mediocre—it significantly reduces the power of the company’s brand, and it makes it more difficult for potential clients to think of that firm as a reliable “go to by default / break glass in case of emergency” option for any situation. Always remember: The more you have to compete for your client’s business—the more you have to sell them, rather than them seeking your support—the less pricing power you have. 2. Client Service Above and beyond the quality of their work, these firms excel at client service. It does no good to perform stellar work but fail when it comes to communication, project management, or even just making the client feel appreciated. In my career, I’ve worked with a vast range of law firms, accounting practices, investment banks, and consulting companies. As much as it pains me to say it, the top handful of firms in each industry absolutely crush their respective competitors when it comes to responsiveness, willingness to act as a true partner to their clients’ businesses, and overall focus on service. And everyone knows it, too. Because of these hard-earned reputations—and don’t think for a minute that the firms don’t know it!—they are able to price their services accordingly. Most executives really will pay a premium simply to be treated well. 3. Client Risk-Aversion We all know the old 80s adage that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. The same applies in the world of professional services, too. Because of (1) and (2) above, these firms offer a significantly less risky proposition for executives at client companies to engage. Here’s why: Think about the perspective of a division president at a Fortune 500 company, whose board tells him to engage a consulting company to figure out how to increase his gross margins 500 bps (for you people who didn’t graduate with a B+ average from a top-57 online MBA program, that means 5%). He goes out and gets several quotes, including from Bain, which proposes $1.5M, and Acme Co., which proposes $800k. The division president knows that Acme generally does good work. But: - Some of the board members have never even heard of it, which could undermine the president’s credibility when he shares their findings. - Acme’s team takes a few hours to respond to emails after business hours, while Bain’s consultants reply to all of his emails within seemingly 10 minutes, 24/7. (Are their associates even allowed to set their phones to “do not disturb” while they sleep?) - The division president doesn’t feel comfortable evaluating and comparing the credentials of each team. But he knows that every Bain team is reliably good at what they do, while he heard from a friend in YPO that Acme’s team—in a completely different industry segment, on the other side of the country—didn’t deliver stellar results for him one time. If you’re this division president, and you already have a board of directors on your case, are you going to try to save your company a relatively small amount of cash, or are you going to pay a $700k insurance premium and sleep better at night? Moral of the story: If you own a professional services company, what are you going to do in your business to develop a culture that allows you to compete with the three facts above as assets supporting your business, rather than as liabilities from the absence thereof? What are you doing to build a reputation for your firm that provides you the same relative pricing power as the world’s top professional services firms? It’s not about size. It’s about consistency, client service, and becoming a go-to safe brand for customers. Whether you have 10 employees or 100,000, you can instill the same culture in your company. You can drive the same results for your clients. And, over time, you can build the same reputation for excellence that allows you to price more strongly, operate with higher margins, and create more value for your own shareholders. So what’s stopping you? (Picture: Society if everyone responded to emails as quickly as Skadden associates do.)

It's an interesting comment. I left Canada and came to the U.S. in 1993 and I always found the anti-Americanism up there - sometimes subtle undertones, sometimes overt and explicit - to be frustrating. Canada is blessed in SO many ways. It's a wonderful country full of smart, decent, creative people sitting on top of some of the most beautiful (and valuable) real estate in the world. And yet, we would spend so much time putting America down as opposed to holding ourselves up. Yes, there's a self-deprecating Canadian charm at play, but it was deeper than that. We would often let resentment get the better of us despite how blessed we were. NOW, what concerns me deeply is some of those behaviors and attitudes are now alive and well here in the U.S., too. Just like Canadians didn't appreciate how blessed they were (IMHO), a lot of Americans don't realize how blessed they are, or they choose to ignore the greatness and focus purely on the negatives. I get it. We live in challenging times. A lot of things are broken or breaking. That said, sometimes you don't appreciate how good you had it until it's gone. That's true in so many ways - youth, health, friends, a job, etc. America has its warts, of course. It's got some big ones. This place isn't perfect and never has been. But this freaking country is beyond blessed in so many ways. I wish we all recognized that and tried to improve upon this amazing country, as opposed to feeling everything needs to be burned to the ground. This is not intended to be a political statement, although it will probably be interpreted as such. I think this mindset is taking hold across the political spectrum. I moved to America because I loved what it represented and, in my view, still represents. A noisy, messy, dysfunctional place that is arguably the most impressive and successful democracy in history. Full of creative, aggressive, and generally generous and good-intentioned people who want to make their own dent in the universe. Stop being consumed by the negativity, America. Keep your focus on the things that make America amazing and let's build from there.