Kristina Safarova

Los Angeles, CA, United States

Posted

Feb 14 at 05:26 AM

[From Michael] Let's build a consulting practice, together.

Hi Fc,

Along with several significant and ongoing updates to Coaching, Insider, Legacy & the Strategy Control Room Advanced, we have a year-long series of programs that outlines the steps to build a consulting practice/business. From the early idea to a functioning practice and lots of sales strategies, we are going to take you along on that journey.

You can watch what we are doing, follow our guidelines, and assess yourself against the best-practice examples we will show you. The files will be loaded in the SCRA and the videos will be available to Insiders & Legacy members.

We want to start this in February/March so you have the entire year to follow our guidance, build your practice alongside us, and set yourself up for the first three months of the year after. Building a strong practice should be done slowly, sequentially, and with a strong foundation. Flash-in-the-pan sales, without a sustainable base, often do not lead to growth. We will show you each step as we build things out.

1-on-1 coaching clients can receive our focused personal guidance in our weekend clinics. To get the most from this year-long program, it helps to have done the prep work before we begin in February/March. 

Here are the different parts of the program.

Module 1: Point-of-View

Consultants must have a PoV. This differentiates you from all other consultants and is what clients buy. They buy your PoV and agree to implement it within their organizations. A PoV is your idea about how something works or does not work. Kris and I are going to use a single-threaded approach. Over the year, we will show you how to develop a POV, why it should be simple, and how to explain the PoV. Your PoV must be simple. Simple does not mean it is not valuable.

We will follow that one PoV as it leads to a proposal, into a study, an article, a book, a sale, and more sales. So, you can see how a single PoV evolves into a practice. We have not used this approach before in our sales training and it is complementary to The Consulting Sales Rainmaker Process, but it is a different process.

Prep:

Explain your PoV in about 5 minutes orally.
Write your PoV and edit it to cover about half an A4 page.
Is this PoV valuable to clients?
Is it your PoV because you are an expert here or because it helps clients?
What are the limitations of your PoV?
How have clients responded to it?
Why do you believe it is not working with clients?
What is the equivalent PoV at your three main rivals?
Does the PoV organically lead to upsell/spin-off work?
What assumptions are you making about why this PoV will be successful with clients?
Why make these assumptions?
Why do you believe these assumptions to be true?
What would need to happen for them to be true?

Programs within Insider/Legacy to review before we begin:

Re-Building a Consulting Practice
Partnership. Memoir
How to Build a Consulting Firm
How to Sell Like a Partner, While Facing Discrimination
How to Solve Big Problems
Competitive Strategy
Advanced Competitive Strategy

Resources within the Strategy Control Room Advanced (SCRA) to review before we begin:

One Week Immersion: Consulting Mastery Center of Excellence (1,078 SLIDES)
The Professional Sales Journal_draft (242 PAGES) (Update Coming)
Competitive Strategy Journal_draft (123 PAGES)
The Strategy Visioning Workshop Journal (214 pages)
Encyclopedia of Strategy Analyses Tools Center of Excellence (264 SLIDES)
Detailed Business Case Methodology Center of Excellence (709 SLIDES)

Module 2: Proposal

Once we have the PoV, we will show you how to convert the PoV into an engagement structure to generate the benefits from the PoV. Always remember that a PoV is just an idea/theory until it is tested on a consulting assignment. We will focus on the critical elements of the proposal, including work streams, staffing, pricing, and margins. Selling a PoV is the easier part. Structuring an engagement to deliver the proposed benefits is much tougher. In many cases, the engagement team is not skilled at the analyses required to find the anticipated benefits. This is a primary reason engagements fail. The PoV may be correct, but the team cannot unlock its value at a client. 

Prep:

Has this PoV ever led to a sale?
If not, why do you believe it did not lead to a sale?
What is the most successful proposal for this PoV?
Why do you consider it successful?
Have you been able to replicate the success?
How are you measuring success?
What are your strategic intentions with sales/this PoV?
Do you find sales for this PoV to be difficult and tiresome?
Why is this?
What assumptions are you making when determining whether the proposal is ready for the client?
Have the proposed benefits from a PoV ever been realized by a client? Why?
If not, why do you still believe the PoV has value to clients?

Module 3: Engagement Structure

Now, we have to design the sequence of steps and activities that must be done to complete the engagement. This is the engagement structure and contains the project logic, workstream charters, and activity plans for the major workstreams. The goal is to keep things simple. Simple studies can deliver astonishing insights and value to clients. Most engagements fail at this stage. The engagement structure is generic and the guidelines are generic which eats up billable hours since everything is tested and no one knows what is the hypothesized answer. Therefore, they do not know when to stop the analyses. Streams are built around hypotheses.

Prep:

What are your answer-first hypotheses driving this study?
How does the engagement structure focus on these initial hypotheses?
What assumptions did you make when developing the engagement structure?
What role did you intend to play, and what role did you end up playing?
Did you have an explicit goal to grow as a professional through the engagement?
What are those goals, and did you achieve them?
Did you assume that the act of completing the engagement alone would lead to your growth?
Have you explicitly built in a buffer/actions to grow the practice while delivering this engagement? What are they?
Where have you staffed the most insightful team member and best leader in the engagement?
Is the entire team trained in the same operating standards?

Module 4: Engagement

In this phase, we plan to concurrently release the full engagement that was completed as a result of the POV, proposal, and engagement structure we developed earlier. You will see the entire study and all of the analyses. This is what we classify as one of the core studies. Mastering the approach will teach you foundational skills in strategic thinking. The earliest full studies done for a POV are important since they become guides for other similar studies you will do. They help train new team members. They are the cornerstones of the practice. So, we often tend to over-deliver when documenting the initial studies. That said, documenting and documentation is critical to any professional services firm. Poor knowledge management is a lead indicator of a declining professional services firm.

Prep:

What percentage of your time in a week is required to work within your engagement teams to complete the engagement from the/a PoV?
Why did you pick this percentage?
Are you intentionally involved in the delivery of the engagement?
Is your engagement structure the ideal structure?
What would the engagement structure look like under ideal conditions?
Do you think you are working in the practice or on the practice?
Do you find there are conflicting demands from the firm as you grow your practice through this engagement?
How are you managing those conflicting demands?
What is your strategy for documenting the engagement analyses, best practices, methodologies, etc?
How will you explicitly use this knowledge?
Are there any instances where you will not share this knowledge within the firm?
How will this knowledge be used to improve the engagement teams' and their work?

Module 5: Writing Your Article

Potential clients must understand what you do. The best way to do this is to write an article. In this phase, we will show you how to write an article as part of the deliverable of the engagement. So, the article is not a distraction to the engagement, but it becomes the primary tool to guide the teams and update the client. The article will become the final deliverable to the client versus a set of slides. Though you can have both if needed, you will find the article is more powerful and is more likely to get the client to act. Articles tell a story that PowerPoint often fails to capture.

You will see the article we wrote for the engagement from the POV. And we will guide you on how to do this. We also have the Published Author Program where we can write the article with you or for you since consulting articles have an accessible yet technical style that is not found In general writing.

Prep:

Do you understand the strategic significance between the following three options; 1 - Writing an article unrelated to an active engagement, 2 - Writing an article after an engagement, and 3 - Writing an article as an output of an engagement?
What is/was your strategy from the options above?
Why?
When will you begin the article?
How will you structure the article?
What writing style will you use? Why?
How will the article be checked and circulated?
Will draft versions be shared? And to whom?
How have you built in the article writing to be an asset and not a distraction?
When, where, and how will you specifically use the article (please be as detailed as possible)?
What will you do to get the maximum return from the article?
How have you defined returns?

Module 6: Developing a methodology/book

Here we are going to do something that takes you to the next level. And we truly mean a level above most professionals. Once you solve a problem that can be useful to many clients, it is strongly encouraged to write out the methodology of what you did so your teams can use this approach as a guide. Yet, if you will do all this work to update the methodology from an engagement, why not convert it to a published book? This elevates your standing and places you far ahead of your peers.


So you will, by this point, have seen us develop a POV, convert that into a proposal, design the engagement, deliver the engagement, write an article, and now develop a book from all the work done thus far. All off a POV and without distracting you from your work. All of this supports your work and ongoing sales.

You are welcome to prepare the book yourself or you/your firm can use ourPublished Author Programto prepare (or even publish) the book with our help. Consulting books tend to be more complex, and this is something we specialize in. 

Prep:

What is the explicit value to you, your team, your firm, and your clients from converting the study methodology into a book?
Break down AND expand the benefits to you even further.
Write down how the book (and article) saves your time, saves money, improves your branding, improves your visibility, increases the size of your sales pipeline, expands your connections to clients, and allows you to market yourself 24 hours.
Repeat the question by adding in the non-financial and non-quantifiable benefits.
Are the benefits clear to you?
Are you able to explain the benefits?
What is your critical path to preparing the book?
How can some of the work to prepare the book be done within the engagement?
What are your plans to publish and distribute the book?
Will you do all of this yourself, use professional help, or a combination thereof?
What is your timeline to publish the book?
What is your critical path?

Module 7: The next sale

It is often the case that clients do not want large and wide-ranging projects. In this phase, we will show you how to adapt the largeer study into a smaller study that is more easily sold to a client. So, now you have two assets:

A - The larger detailed methodology.

B - A smaller piece to get into the client to develop the business case for the larger program.

Prep:

From the original PoV, what smaller concepts within/aligned to the PoV can be taken to clients to quickly demonstrate the value of the overall PoV/your practice?
What is the benefits case to the client of the smaller concept/s?
There are six primary benefits cases. Have you looked at them all?
What is your strategy AND plan to take this to your most promising potential client?
Why can these smaller concepts not be taken to an existing client?
What is the burn radius of the PoV and/or smaller concepts? (How replicable is the work at the same client in the same year)
How will you use the smaller concept engagement to gain a larger engagement?

Module 8: The Professional Sales Journal

In this phase, we will give you access to updated The Professional Sales Journal (which will be available within the SCRA and discussed within Insider and Legacy membership). This is a Journal we use with consulting teams to help them understand the conversations they need to have to build their sales. We will show you how to use the journal, specifically the conversations that should be held. Kris and Michael will release guides around the conversations within Insider/Legacy membership.

At the end of the program, you will have finished the only complete consulting sales practice building program to scale into major clients. 

Prep:

What is your sales bench strength? (how many people on your team bring in sales)
Why is this your chosen/accepted bench strength? 
What is your delivery bench strength? (how many people on your team can lead an engagement in your absence)
Why is this your chosen/accepted bench strength? 
What is your insights bench strength? (how many people on your team can generate valuable insights that lead to additional revenue for your practice)
Why is this your chosen/accepted bench strength? 
Do you train people to sell or do you hope it catches naturally?
Are you defensive of your clients, from the rest of your firm, AND your team?
Why is this?

Three Options to Join + Add-On

  1. Subscribe to Insider - gain access to video/audio materials related to this program.

  2. Subscribe to Legacy - everything within Insider plus submit your question and get an audio input from us tailored to your situation.

  3. Work with us via personal results clinics - 1-year executive coaching program where we work with you personally to help you build out your practice (email team@firmsconsulting.com to apply).


Add-on - Team access - Want to build out associated digital assets for your business? Use our nontechiesleague.com service, where our team will help you build out digital assets.

Add-on - Article + Book - Published Author program to help you write your article/book.

Sincerely,

Michael

Posted

Feb 13 at 06:29 AM

We have just released Executive Update 3 of the Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management Study in the Strategy Control Room, Advanced Level.

The ENTIRE study is now released.

***

Every so often, we release a study that is so powerful, so fundamental, that if you take the time to read it multiple times and really understand what it was teaching and how it was teaching it, it will teach you a primary/core skill that will change your ability to operate as a seasoned professional with a deeply analytical mind.

This is one of those studies.


The study focuses on asset management within financial services, an area that is becoming increasingly important worldwide as income levels rise. In this study, we are going to analyze an asset manager that is growing at a slower rate than competitors in one of the most dynamic markets in the world. And because it is growing at a slower rate, it's ultimately losing market share.

In this study, we will present a way to analyze the distribution of a financial services product, which, with a few tweaks and changes, could be applied to the distribution of any financial services product, even though our primary focus here is on investment products for wealth management.

This is a study that we encourage everyone to read. Take the time to work through it. Think about how you could apply this thinking to your own sector, which may not be in financial services. It teaches a fundamental skill: how to analyze a market across all key elements, all the way from asset management to distribution and administration. Whether or not you are in financial services or asset management, you are in an industry that produces something that you distribute.

The study is particularly interesting because it takes a very complicated subject and analyzes it in a sophisticated yet simple way to draw out very important analyses. It uses highly sophisticated frameworks developed for the client, and it pulls it apart in a way we have not yet applied in other studies.

This is one of those anchor studies like our study on Competition, the LAB Study, the Power Sector study, and the Tech M&A study. These are anchor studies because they teach foundational skills that we want our clients to master.

In this study, we tackle something incredibly sophisticated in an area where many people tend to be a little bit afraid. While most people are afraid of math and finance, when you analyze finances within the financial services sector, people tend to get even more intimidated. However, this is a topic that has become more important globally as the middle class has risen in most countries and the number of millionaires has increased.

So, this is a foundational study that we will be referring to for years to come. It teaches something so fundamental that every member should work through it. It teaches a skill of how to analyze a complex sector in a way that is easy to follow, even if you do not have a background in the sector.


Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management consists of 3 executive updates. The ENTIRE study is now released.

HOW TO FIND THE CORPORATE STRATEGY FOR ASSET/WEALTH MANAGEMENT:

1. Log in to The Strategy Control Room, Advanced Level, membership area.
2. See the "FULL ENGAGEMENTS" dropdown. 
3. Select "Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management."
4. The Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management consists of 197 slides for Executive Update 1, 107 slides for Executive Update 2, and 73 slides for Executive Update 3.

If you are The Strategy Control Room, Advanced Level, member, here is the direct link to these particular update.

If you joined an Advanced Level of the Strategy Control Room today, you would find the most powerful strategy, problem-solving, consulting, and results-oriented leadership reading library in the world. The resources include:

  • Michael's explanation slides for selected programs on StrategyTraining.com

  • 12 full engagements

  • Change Management Influence & Persuasion Center of Excellence 

  • Detailed Business Case Methodology Center of Excellence 

  • Encyclopedia of Strategy Analyses Center of Excellence 

  • Corporate Training Center of Excellence

  • One-Week Immersion: Consulting Onboarding / Consulting Mastery Center of Excellence

  • 31 proposals

  • Flipcharts

  • Layout guides

  • 17 strategy and problem-solving books which we do not make available anywhere else

  • 2 brand new strategy and problem-solving books just released and not available anywhere else

  • 11 book drafts never before available and not available anywhere else

  • Case interview materials for Felix, Rafik, Samantha, and Sanjeev, case interview exhibits, case interview solutions

  • The evolution of corporate strategy

  • The business case toolkit

  • Implementation and operation toolkit

  • Corporate strategy toolkit

  • Strategy maps

  • And more 

Enroll as a Strategy Control Room Advanced (SCRA) Member

And if you are not yet an Insider or Legacy member and want to gain access to video and audio advanced programs on StrategyTraining.com we invite you to explore membership options (scroll down). We recommend starting with Insider or Legacy membership as a base membership and adding the Strategy Control Room (Advanced Level) as an add-on when the time is right for you.

Take this opportunity to invest in yourself and your future. StrategyTraining.com resources can be transformative for your career, yet it's up to you to make time to study the resources and focus on quick integration. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at team@firmsconsulting.com.

Posted

Feb 13 at 06:14 AM

One Uncomfortable Truth: 

You’ve Been Thinking About Strategy All Wrong.

"The greatest mistake executives make is assuming they are in a competitive game. The best companies don’t compete. They change the game entirely." 

We have just released five new episodes of The Bill Matassoni Show, Season 3 and they challenge some of the most fundamental assumptions about business, marketing, and strategy.

Bill spent decades shaping the brands of McKinsey and BCG. Not by refining their marketing, but by redefining their position in the market. In these episodes, he dissects what truly drives influence, market power, and sustainable growth.

What’s inside:

  • Market-making vs. competing – The firms and leaders who dominate industries are not the ones playing the game better. They are the ones who create new spaces where competition becomes irrelevant.

  • How to sell the intangible – Whether it is consulting, financial services, AI, or high-end luxury, most leaders struggle to articulate the real value of what they offer. Bill explains how to sell trust, exclusivity, and access, not just products.

  • The McKinsey advantage – Most assume McKinsey’s success is built on expertise. Bill breaks down how they control market perception and how this applies to any business.

  • The strategy no one talks about – Growth is often framed as market share gains, but Bill argues that expanding the definition of your market is the more effective, and overlooked, approach.

  • The power of narrative – Decisions are rarely rational. The firms that win know how to control the story that executives, investors, and markets believe.

These are the real strategic moves used by the most dominant firms.

For Insiders and Legacy members, the episodes are now available to watch.

For non-members, this is the kind of thinking that changes careers and companies. Join to access the full series (and the prior 2 seasons of this program).

[Watch Now] | [Join StrategyTraining.com]


Most leaders will keep thinking about strategy the way they always have.
Those who watch these episodes will not.

In this latest season, Bill Matassoni goes beyond theory, delivering an unparalleled deep dive into the principles that have defined his career and reshaped industries.

He begins with a day of intensive introspection, distilling the essence of his most profound insights. Then, in a rare and candid series of discussions, Bill brings together his closest colleagues and confidants, leaders who have shaped strategy at the highest levels, to unpack the strategies that redefine markets and create enduring competitive advantage.

Bill’s approach is about fundamental repositioning. Drawing on decades of experience, from tackling some of the most complex healthcare compliance challenges to revolutionizing how the world’s top consulting firms market themselves, he reveals how market leaders create dominance, not by competing, but by reshaping the playing field entirely.

This season is designed for business leaders who are ready to challenge conventional wisdom and rethink their approach to value creation, growth, and strategic positioning.

We invite you to engage with this extraordinary season, one that pushes the boundaries of what strategy and marketing can achieve.

It is time to reframe how you see the world and how the world sees you.

Join us as Bill and his closest advisors share insights that will change the way you lead.

The Bill Matassoni Show Season 3 (Insiders & Legacy Members)

Posted

Feb 04 at 06:15 PM

Reimagine Your Career, Before It’s Too Late

What if your goal is completely wrong?

If you achieved your goal tomorrow, would your life be significantly better? Or just… slightly more tolerable?

Most people don’t have a career strategy. They have a survival plan. They work hard because that’s what they were taught. But have they ever stopped to ask if the end result is actually worth it?

You’ve done everything right. The best schools. The right job. The long hours. The sacrifices.

And yet, here you are. Wondering if this is it.

Most people don’t realize they’re on a treadmill until it’s too late. They spend their best years chasing a goal that was never truly theirs, following a path that guarantees struggle, stress, and, at best, a life that feels… just okay.

But what if your goal, the thing you’ve built your entire career around, is almost certainly wrong?

[The Stakes]

Look around.

Brilliant, hardworking executives are stuck in careers they don’t love, trapped by the weight of expectations, financial burdens, and obligations they never fully questioned. They work for money because they have to, not because they want to.

They’re deep into a strategy they never designed, chasing a version of success that, in the end, costs them everything: time, freedom, and fulfillment.

"Obligations may be the highest interest rate you will ever pay in your life."

We don’t talk enough about the cost of success. Not just financial, but emotional. The sacrifices you make in high school, university, and early career are not just your sacrifices. Your family, your time, your freedom, they all get entangled in a system that demands everything from you.

And for what?

A job that pays well but feels like a life sentence?

And here’s the worst part: they followed all the “right” advice.

They took the same steps as everyone else. Worked harder than most. And still, something feels off.

[Why It’s So Hard]

The system is designed to keep you moving forward without ever asking:

Is this the right path, or just the common one?

Am I optimizing for success or for struggle?

Is this even the right definition of winning?

"Everyone is following the same critical path, but it leads to the same struggles."

Executives and high achievers take pride in outworking everyone else, but what if effort alone isn't the answer? If you're following a broken model, working harder won’t fix it. You need to rethink the game itself.

Most people never ask these questions until they’ve already locked themselves into a career they no longer enjoy, tied themselves to financial obligations they can’t escape, and built a life they now have to sustain, whether they want to or not.

But there is another way.

[The Solution Exists]

"I re-engineered one step in the process, and it changed everything."

Most people assume their choices are limited, but what if one decision could change the entire trajectory of your career? What if you re-engineered a single step in your path? The difference between stress and freedom could be just one move away.

In our brand-new 1-Year Leadership Training program available to Insiders and Legacy members, we break down how high-achievers unknowingly trap themselves, and more importantly, how to rewrite the rules.

We’re not talking about motivational fluff. No vague “find your purpose”.

This is about strategy. A different way of thinking. A re-engineered path that changes everything.

For the first time, we’re opening up this program to our Insider and Legacy members, and if you’re serious about rethinking your trajectory, you need to be a part of this program from the start.

"The right goal is often the wrong goal if you don’t know how to achieve it differently."

Most professionals don’t lack ambition. They lack the right strategy. The reason most executives feel stuck isn’t because they aren’t trying hard enough. It’s because they’ve never seen an alternative approach that actually works. This program changes that.

But be warned: this may challenge some critical things you believe about success. 

Join us.

Enroll Now and Access the Program (select Insider or Legacy)

---

If you're an Insider or Legacy member, this program is now available in your account on StrategyTraining.com.

Not a member yet? Enroll here:
www.strategytraining.com (scroll to membership options).

We care about your success and are here to support you. Feel free to reach out with questions at
team@firmsconsulting.com.

Thank you for being part of the StrategyTraining community.

Access the First 2 Episodes of The Annual (Insider & Legacy Members)

Posted

Feb 02 at 05:33 PM

Ten Lessons from Creative Destruction

Hope your weekend is going well. Many of you know that I also run StrategyTraining.com, which, to my knowledge, the largest and most powerful strategy, problem-solving, critical thinking, case interviews, consulting practice building, and leadership video training platform worldwide. I work with very talented colleagues, and one of my colleagues was also impacted by fire and shared what he learned from the experience. I will include the letter he sent to the Strategy Insights community below so you can also benefit from these lessons. Below is an email he sent.

---

The California wildfires were a traumatic and shocking event. Though they tried, the media could never quite capture living through it. Many events stand out, but three will forever be etched in my memory. 

First, a neighbor stayed overnight and recorded the unfolding events over the first 24 hours. From the first reports of the brushfire to the now raging fire slowly coming over the hills, the embers flying at 100 mph, burning palm trees, and the eerie calm the next morning. Yet, it was not a true calm. In slow motion, he captures early morning footage of him tracking a fire burning closer and closer to his house, as he frantically runs around looking for the firemen. He wanted to clean out his neighbor's brush to prevent the fire from jumping from house to house. He seemed to succeed...until his house started to smoke and burn down in front of him. The look on his face cannot be described. I know every family in every home he shot; their kids, wives, and pets.

Second, my landscaper captured footage of those fleeing the fire as it engulfed cars, palm trees along the road, and a huge fireball jumping over a sports car with its top down. Then he zooms onto a mother I know getting out of her car and dragging her four-year-old child who is crying, screaming, and barefoot in one hand while pulling the leashed dog with her other hand.

Third, less than forty-eight hours after the fires, I found a way to drive back to my home. I was one of the first people to go back to that neighborhood. It was smoky and quiet. It looked like the war zones you see on CNN. That is when people still watched CNN. Homes were still burning when I returned. A few people were walking around. It exactly, and I mean perfectly resembled a Hollywood dystopian post-apocalyptic movie. 

From a young age, I knew that bad things happen, there will be little to no support, it's life and you need to advance. When I was in high school and most children were preparing for their exams, I co-led the student efforts of a social movement to topple a dictatorship. I spent little time in class and most of my time managing civil disobedience campaigns. Having spent most of my school years reading Time Magazine and The Economist, to me, fighting for what was right was normal. Not a single member of my family, community, etc supported me. They felt that fighting to gain equal rights was dangerous. If we failed, we would lose the very few rights we had. 

I was in Thailand after the devastating tsunami. I focused on helping people I knew move forward and find opportunities to grow and advance their economy. I saw the opportunity from the devastation. Though it's for another post, I once drove from the southern devastation to the north near the border with Laos to secure the rights for a group of bulls to serve as collateral to pay for a new home in the south.

I was in Chile during the devastating 2010 earthquake. I helped the guests in my hotel coordinate their evacuation and was one of the last people to leave the hotel. My harrowing trip over the Andes from Chile to Argentina is for a different post. Between being detained at the Chilean-Argentinian border for not willing to pay a bribe and the horror of traveling in a packed bus on unpaved mountain roads with no lights and 1,000-meter drops, it was not for the faint of heart. I did it and I was back to work within 24 hours.

In my first attempted carjacking, I returned to work the same day despite being held at gunpoint. I was back in my office and working within two hours. I have many stories like this. I was also, what it felt like, the lone foreigner in the middle of one of the deadliest riots in Asia. Everyone had evacuated and I was in the middle of the street with the rival factions advancing towards me on either side. 

I have been very fortunate to have grown up in a world where I simultaneously had very little support and faced trying circumstances from a young age. I am thankful for that. I am grateful to the many people who
did not help me, did not support me, and did not reach out to me. I am not being facetious. Without them, I would not be equipped to deal with things like this. I would not be the person I am today. That's the first lesson. A tough life is a privilege if you give it the meaning of it having prepared you to lead in all circumstances.

The
second lesson is to avoid excessive planning. I discuss this in detail during our new Insider program, "The Annual". You can plan as much as you want. Yet, I can assure you that society, your family (especially your inlaws), and Mother Nature throw you curve balls. You have to be like Neo in The Matrix to bend around them, but, and this is the key part, study each curveball and pick out the one that can be reinvented to be a great opportunity for you. I also discuss this in "The Annual". For example, when I was preparing for university, my family did not support me, and refused to pay for me, and I did not want an academic scholarship since those scholarships never covered all costs. That became one of the best things that ever happened to me. That curve ball, which I selected from all the curve balls flying around me, led to me reinventing my life.

The
third lesson is counterintuitive. When friends were in tears and breaking down during the fires, all I could do was look at them and admire that they were so fortunate in life that they could break down. It truly is a great privilege to be in so much pain that you cannot even work. They could take a posture of being vulnerable and letting down their defenses. They knew they had people in their lives who would step in to protect them and their families when their defenses were down. They are Simba's of the world, from The Lion King. Simba was willing to take risks and go on adventures because Mufasa loved him so much that Simba knew he was protected. When Simba was hiding from Wildebeests, he knew Mufasa would come for him. He did not know how, but he was raised with this belief. In life, there are the protected and the protectors. The protected have the unique gift of having the opportunity to grieve, heal, and rebuild on their terms because they have a protector. For the protectors, we must be the cavalry for whom we are waiting. Reinforcements are not coming. 

Who stands by you? That is the fourth lesson. Life is easy when it is easy. Life is nice when it is nice. I watch many reality shows and in the few dating shows I watch, contestants almost always want someone educated, well-off, good-looking, adventurous, generous, funny, etc. Anyone can buy you nice gifts, be happy, be nice, and be a fun person when life is nice. Yet, life is never nice all of the time, let alone most of the time. The most important thing in life is to be present. Be there. Be there all the time. You don't have to be the best father. You need to be in your child's life and be a father. The people who stand by you are serious. They help you by being there. They have committed and are committing each day they stand by you. That is a daily renewal of vows, for couples, versus a once-off staged renewal of vows on the beach.

I was surprised about the deductible discussions by my neighbors. That is the
fifth lesson. Essentially it went like this. "I was shocked to learn my insurer would only forward me any money after I had incurred $500,000 of damages. That is my deductible and is it fair?" This was common. If you dig in closer you realize in most, though not all cases, the husband was managing the finances. During the fire, the husband focused on work to generate income and handed the insurance claims process to their unprepared wives. This is unfair and is a bad strategy. The best person to handle a critical issue should manage it, albeit by pulling in help from the family as needed. Managing the claims for multi-million dollar homes is not a small issue. For critical life-changing tasks, the best person must lead and it should be the person who has always been managing the task.

During crises, we often adopt a survival mindset and hope and pray for something good to happen. We take something or anything versus what we paid for. We often are the victims of bad actors, or good actors who take advantage of the situation to become a bad actor. This is the
sixth lesson. Most of us have the primary aim of surviving a crisis. We think it is better to get 60% of a contract we signed, versus nothing. We become defensive and fight off scams. I follow a strategy of deterrence. This is different. When bad things happen I quickly and calmly signal to those involved that there will be significant immediate reactionary consequences in trying to take advantage of us, my family, my team, and my colleagues. I calmly spell out the consequences in clear terms and explain the first steps I will take. Being in the middle of a crisis is bad enough. Dealing with opportunistic and strategic scam artists is overwhelming. See them off before they begin.

I have a friend who has a home in the hurricane capital of the world. He complains about the need to evacuate at least two times a year due to hurricanes. It's hard to sympathize with someone who knowingly and willingly built a home in the hurricane capital of the world and is sad that Mother Nature does not support his retirement plans. Mother Nature can be a caregiver but she can also be a hell-raiser. She can be a force of creative destruction. She breaks things to make it better. This is the
seventh lesson. If you live in a place with a history of snow storms, expect to wear Canada Goose. If you choose to live in a place with a history of hurricanes, do not be surprised by them. If your spouse was unfaithful to all their previous partners, well...

Don't follow the wisdom of the crowds.
This is lesson eight. Crowds are not wise. They may agree. They may agree vigorously. They may be large and loud. Yet, they are not wise. Doing what the majority is doing often will not lead to the best outcome. Every single great investor was a contrarian. Business strategy is about being a contrarian. Corporate strategy is about being a contrarian. It's about pursuing a contrarian idea that is true OVER time. The nasty bit is sticking to your contrarian plan over what may be a long time. The money you invest in your 401(k) and Roth IRA is an investment. So is the money you invest in yourself, your family, and your home. When you follow the crowd in a crisis you will get the returns of the crowd, which are often losses. As humans, we want, in a crisis, to do anything to show we are doing something and we want comfort in what we do. And we gain comfort from following a crowd, even if the crowd is uninformed and wasting their money. I have never done what the crowd did. It usually works out far better than I expected.

Lesson nine is that people gamble. And they do it in astonishing ways. Not willing to fully insure your home for its full value is a remarkable gamble. So many people did this. That is bold confidence, recklessness, or uninformed optimism. Are they not all the same thing? Mother Nature is not going to give you any special treatment. She is a great mother who treats all her children with the same level of destruction. If you read about most great business successes, and if you look into it carefully, there is a gamble that someone took. We then laud these people and try to replicate their strategy. How do I replicate a gamble? By its mere definition, it means I am doing something where I could lose everything. In life, you should be trying to reduce the number of gambles you take, unless you have such a high-risk tolerance that sleeping on a friend's couch and eating ramen noodles for years looks mighty appealing.

In military strategy, we want to see our opponents fight someone a few times
before they fight us. We often secretly lead them into a conflict against someone else. We do this because we want to see how they fight others, how they could fight us, their relative strengths, and their relative weaknesses. And if we are lucky, their armies are destroyed before they fight us. This is the tenth lesson. Watch what happens in a crisis. Any crisis. It is a rare and important opporunity. Study everything. It provides a blueprint for what you can expect/do later in your life. If not a single friend/colleague/family helped, then you know what to expect/do in the next crisis. How did the emergency services respond? How long did it take you to run out of cash? Who helped you and who helped you first? Who made your life harder? What opportunities exist for you to advance? If you are not advancing, you are retreating.

This is the United States of America. Like the Mandalorians, we are a creed. A belief system. I chose that picture above because when America burns, our belief system stands through it all as our shining beacon. You cannot destroy a belief system.

The British burned Washington in 1814. We stormed back to become a superpower in a few decades.

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor hoping to send us a decisive message to stay out of the way. Being the poor listeners that we are, we stormed back to lead the Allied victory in WWII.

San Francisco was hit with a dual earthquake and fire in 1906. It gave birth to Silicon Valley.

LA was hit by one of the worst firestorms ever. It gave birth to... 

Creative destruction may be unpleasant. Yet, it happens.

Live long and prosper,

Michael


P.S. 2025 is shaping up to be a game-changing year. We’re rolling out a wave of new programs and resources across SCRA, Insider, Legacy, Coaching, AI, and more. If there’s something you’d love to see us cover or release, or Michael & Kris to cover in their weekly emails, let us know at team@firmsconsulting.com. We told you that big things are coming, and this is just the beginning.

Posted

Jan 29 at 06:03 PM

Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management (Executive Update 2, Part 1 & 2)

We have just released Part 1 & 2 of Executive Update 2 of the Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management Study in the Strategy Control Room, Advanced Level.

***

Every so often, we release a study that is so powerful, so fundamental, that if you take the time to read it multiple times and really understand what it was teaching and how it was teaching it, it will teach you a primary/core skill that will change your ability to operate as a seasoned professional with a deeply analytical mind.

This is one of those studies.

The study focuses on asset management within financial services, an area that is becoming increasingly important worldwide as income levels rise. In this study, we are going to analyze an asset manager that is growing at a slower rate than competitors in one of the most dynamic markets in the world. And because it is growing at a slower rate, it's ultimately losing market share.

In this study, we will present a way to analyze the distribution of a financial services product, which, with a few tweaks and changes, could be applied to the distribution of any financial services product, even though our primary focus here is on investment products for wealth management.

This is a study that we encourage everyone to read. Take the time to work through it. Think about how you could apply this thinking to your own sector, which may not be in financial services. It teaches a fundamental skill: how to analyze a market across all key elements, all the way from asset management to distribution and administration. Whether or not you are in financial services or asset management, you are in an industry that produces something that you distribute.

The study is particularly interesting because it takes a very complicated subject and analyzes it in a sophisticated yet simple way to draw out very important analyses. It uses highly sophisticated frameworks developed for the client, and it pulls it apart in a way we have not yet applied in other studies.

This is one of those anchor studies like our study on Competition, the LAB Study, the Power Sector study, and the Tech M&A study. These are anchor studies because they teach foundational skills that we want our clients to master.

In this study, we tackle something incredibly sophisticated in an area where many people tend to be a little bit afraid. While most people are afraid of math and finance, when you analyze finances within the financial services sector, people tend to get even more intimidated. However, this is a topic that has become more important globally as the middle class has risen in most countries and the number of millionaires has increased.

So, this is a foundational study that we will be referring to for years to come. It teaches something so fundamental that every member should work through it. It teaches a skill of how to analyze a complex sector in a way that is easy to follow, even if you do not have a background in the sector.


Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management consists of 3 executive updates. 

HOW TO FIND THE CORPORATE STRATEGY FOR ASSET/WEALTH MANAGEMENT:

1. Log in to The Strategy Control Room, Advanced Level, membership area.
2. See the "FULL ENGAGEMENTS" dropdown. 
3. Select "Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management."
4. The Corporate Strategy for Asset/Wealth Management consists of 197 slides for Executive Update 1 and 107 slides for Executive Update 2.

If you are The Strategy Control Room, Advanced Level, member, here is the direct link to these particular update.

If you joined an Advanced Level of the Strategy Control Room today, you would find the most powerful strategy, problem-solving, consulting, and results-oriented leadership reading library in the world. The resources include:

  • Michael's explanation slides for selected programs on StrategyTraining.com

  • 12 full engagements

  • Change Management Influence & Persuasion Center of Excellence 

  • Detailed Business Case Methodology Center of Excellence 

  • Encyclopedia of Strategy Analyses Center of Excellence 

  • Corporate Training Center of Excellence

  • One-Week Immersion: Consulting Onboarding / Consulting Mastery Center of Excellence

  • 31 proposals

  • Flipcharts

  • Layout guides

  • 17 strategy and problem-solving books which we do not make available anywhere else

  • 2 brand new strategy and problem-solving books just released and not available anywhere else

  • 11 book drafts never before available and not available anywhere else

  • Case interview materials for Felix, Rafik, Samantha, and Sanjeev, case interview exhibits, case interview solutions

  • The evolution of corporate strategy

  • The business case toolkit

  • Implementation and operation toolkit

  • Corporate strategy toolkit

  • Strategy maps

  • And more 

Enroll as a Strategy Control Room Advanced (SCRA) Member

Posted

Jan 02 at 09:59 PM

The One Thing That Will Change Your Life Completely

As someone who immigrated 3 times in my life, I am part of a group that I call professional immigrants. Meaning, I am really good at navigating the steps needed to pick up my life and move to another country where I don't know anyone, and build a professional career and life there.

I can also call myself a professional immigrant because I am considered to be highly skilled and highly educated. I worked at top consulting companies in the world, where I received accelerated promotions. I was a corporate finance director at a top-3 Canadian bank where I managed a portfolio of over 1 billion dollars and received an accelerated promotion and an award. Myself, Michael, and our incredible team run a very influential business that moves forward strategy thinking and management consulting profession around the world. Very few people can say that when they speak to competitors, they can see their books on the competitor's bookshelf and where a competitor is telling you how much your books or book helped them in their business. This happened to me multiple times.

What makes professional immigrants exceptional leaders

We are often highly trained and highly motivated, and highly educated professionals who leave behind everything, to take huge risks to have a better life, bigger opportunities, and earn more for ourselves and our families. We make the journey alone. We are not kids following our parents who protect us. We have no protection. We were not born in the countries we end up calling our homes. We often are from poorer countries. We leave behind our families, often not seeing them for a decade or more. At the time of writing, I have seen my parents and brothers only twice in over 20 years and my sister 3 times in over 20 years.

We leave our friends. We leave all the comforts of home: our language, our reputations, our friends, sometimes our credentials, our food, our culture, and our safety net. We have dependents, our extended families, before we have children. Some of us decide not to have children or have only one while we would love to have more, because the level of responsibility we already have for our extended family makes it very hard for us to add another dependent.

We are often the most hardworking members of our family. Millions of us are stuck in limbo around immigration rules.

My immigration journey

I moved for a better life four times. I first moved to Moscow, which is hard to do without the right residency permit even though I am Russian. That was not a successful trip at all but I kept at it. In fact, it was harder than any of my 3 moves to another country. I then moved to Africa and then to North America. And within North America from Canada to the USA. And I also moved between cities within some of those countries. For example, in the US I lived in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

I had no relatives in any of those countries, no mentorship or guidance and no support. I had no friends to meet me at the airport and no community on which to rely. When I first immigrated, my pianist diploma was not even recognized and could not even be found in the educational certification database. It was as if I did not have any education, and I had to start from scratch.

Even the paid legal help was often a nightmare, which ended up costing me time and money to fix. Yet, I had to do it because I had to take care of several family members. When I started my journey, there were times when I did not eat lunch to save money and wore older clothing with holes, including shoes. I still remember the burgundy shoes I had in Africa with holes in the sole. No one could see the holes, but I could feel them.

H1B / green card

Quitting is often not any easier. Moving back to our home countries is often a difficult option. Many immigrants study in the West, like me, and often take on expensive student loans. They need to stay and work in the West to pay down these student loans since their employment prospects in their home countries do not pay enough.

In the US, the H1B visa is a lottery. It's a competitive process where most will not get a visa. Those who do get it often need to stay with their employer. Their employer may or may not file a green card application. The green card approval may take up to twenty years. I read that 200,000 Indians will die of natural causes before their green cards are approved.

Think about that. 200,000 talented and generous professionals who are very hardworking and making tremendous sacrifices to care for their immediate and extended family will not live their full lives.

Many cannot buy homes for fear of having a firesale so that they can leave the country within the time limit, should they lose their jobs, to avoid being banned. For this reason, I rented for a long time. By renting and not buying, we give up the primary method to build wealth: equity growth in a home. We have to build wealth with the best option often out of our reach for a very long time. Children may age out of the process. Spouses often cannot work. It's tragic that most H1B holders who lose their jobs did not do so due to poor performance. Technology companies, for example, simply changed their strategies and decided to cut costs in the face of rising interest rates.

Recruitment for professional immigrants

In Canada, I was told I needed professional Canadian work experience to break into professional ranks. Yet, very few wanted to give applicants this experience. I had to get an MBA from a top school, with distinction on the deans’ list, to break into the top bank, and then a major consulting firm. In two separate countries, I had to study again just to break into the professional ranks.

Most professional immigrants cannot afford to study again or have their previous degrees and credentials accredited. As I mentioned earlier, at one point an accreditation body could not find my Russian school in their database. I gave up that process and studied again. I know taxi drivers who were doctors, lawyers, and architects in their home countries who cannot afford the re-certification process. They drive a car to care for their spouse and children, and families in their home countries.

Credit scores are not transferable between countries. Not even between Canada and the US. Even Canadian checks are often not cashable in the USA. I found that out the hard way. Buying a car and home is difficult, especially if you do not know when you will be asked to leave. Travel is very hard. There is always the lingering fear that some administrative error will lock you out or the laws may change while you are traveling. Some professional immigrants, like those on the H1B, are stuck to one employer and often for the same role. They cannot try new things nor can they accept promotions to better, but different, roles. The mind frays when it is not challenged. Often, in our peak years, most immigrants are stuck in the same careers.

A mountain of paperwork

We become knowledge management experts as we have to keep a mountain of paperwork and original documents to support our movement. Our entire lives are archived and indexed in color-coded folders. We keep meticulous notes on all our travels. We keep all passports and even hundreds of pages of utility bills to prove we were where we said we were.

In just about every professional immigrant’s home there is a cupboard filled with legal documentation. This is often more valuable than their retirement accounts. It’s hard to open and keep retirement accounts knowing you could be forced to leave at any time, often selling at the wrong time. Planning is hard. It is based on the renewal of documents and visas.

Supporting extended family

It is not uncommon for children of immigrants to never meet their grandparents in person. I have seen my nephew only once in my life.

Most Western countries have rules, benefits, and perks that are not designed for cultures with extended families. I have seen many colleagues with kids allowed to leave early, while those without kids have to carry the weight. Yet, I also have many dependents, even if I do not have kids. Even bonuses and retrenchments take into consideration if employees have a partner and children. It almost never takes into consideration if you support numerous family members in your home country. Payments into your 401K are tax-deferred or tax-free for a Roth IRA account. Yet, the money I send home monthly often has the highest fees, going up to 30% in some cases. A professional immigrant’s definition of a family is usually much larger than the Western definition.

Anxiety & sacrifices

Lack of certainty causes anxiety. Knowing we have so little control over our ability to care for ourselves and our families has negative health effects. Fear of losing our jobs and having to leave forces us to not rock the boat at work. I would come to work early and leave very late to constantly prove my worth. I would have done it anyway, but the pressure of being an immigrant creates this constant sense of instability in your life. Professional immigrants often see their talented spouses staying at home and missing their peak earnings years. Simple things like getting and keeping a driver's license are difficult.

There is little financial freedom.
There is little future stability.
There is little flexibility.

The professional immigrant experience is a special experience. It is painful, and sometimes tragic, and it's often our families who gain the most from our efforts. We sacrifice parts of ourselves to give them something better. We rent, so our parents can buy a house. We delay children, so our nieces and nephews can afford the experiences we want for our children. I do not think many people in the West can understand this. We are expected to fight so hard on so many tiring fronts.

Taking care of so many people is hard and expensive. In both banking and consulting, I would have had to have been a senior person at the top end of the pay scale to care for my family. And it would have taken years to achieve with little guarantee of it happening. Did I really want to work so hard for so many years hoping to make enough to support my family? And that is not even having a good life. It would have meant working flat out just to stay afloat and maybe get a Sunday off. 

Another path to green card

If you want to explore following an alternative, faster path to green card and would like our support to significantly increase your chances to qualify for EB1A or a similar green card, you can either:

1) Join as a Legacy or Insider member and immediately start working through USA Immigration/Citizenship Best Practices From Our Most Successful Clients program. We recommend not delaying this, given the changes in immigration laws across the world. Start implementing what you learn right away while waiting for the upcoming EB1A Insider program to come out. The insights can also be applied when applying for a similar visa in other countries.

2) If you don't want to be alone while doing the monumental mental work required to figure out a path to meet eligibility requirements, plus navigate all the obstacles along the way, you can apply to work directly with us as part of a 1-year program. In this executive coaching program, we figure out the critical path with you and work together to guide you through the critical path. In other words, we select the criteria we should work on meeting, design a critical path for you to become eligible, and then guide you as you progress through the critical path. 

If you know anything about working with Michael and me, you will know that we often find solutions/ways for you to move forward that you haven't thought about that can give you a real edge in life. Email team@firmsconsulting.com with additional details about your situation and your resume (in any format currently available) to start your application.

Please note that the objective of this executive coaching program is not to explain your achievements or merely compile documents. This is what lawyers do. If we work together, our role would be to help you create and achieve those things that would meet the conditions for the green card. Please note that we are not immigration lawyers and clients must use common sense and consult legal counsel when making decisions.

Learn more about the upcoming Insider program and executive coaching program here (please kindly note that due to some bug on the site that we just noticed and are working on fixing, the page takes longer to load): EB-1A Green Card – An Alien of Extraordinary Ability program.

P.S. Access Insider or Legacy membership materials (our in-depth video/audio training library) on StrategyTraining.com (scroll down to membership options).

P.S.S. Would you like reading materials, too? Access the Strategy Control Room Advanced.

Jan 01 at 10:30 PM

So are we. Thank you Mohamed and Happy New Year!

Reply

Posted

Jan 01 at 10:26 PM

Set a Bold Goal and Join Us...

For a Transformative Year

Happy New Year!

This year, we will do something
different for Insiders and Legacy members. Yes, we are going to be releasing powerful programs for both Insider and Legacy levels. Major updates and exciting changes are coming to both and we will share more soon. We also will be releasing very powerful materials as part of the Strategy Control Room Advanced. In addition, we will also be doing something completely new for Insiders and Legacy members: a big one-year program together called "The Annual."

The program is designed to help you achieve a goal you set at the beginning of the program. It's the one goal that can lead to a significant -
trajectory-altering - improvement in your life/career.

This will be a new format for an Insider program, which we will figure out together as the program progresses. The current plan is for the program to have key modules to be completed as you progress toward the goal you set for the year, support resources, and LIVE calls where you can submit your written questions, all designed to help you:


Build your dreams with people you trust.


The current plan is that at the end of each important module, we will get together on a LIVE call where you can submit your written questions related to the module or the step on the critical path as you pursue your goal. 

The world is changing rapidly, and we have to either change with it or get left behind. We do not want any of our Insiders, Legacy members, or clients to be left behind.

For a long time, we were about building the skill set that only a consulting partner from a major firm would have. Now, it is time to transcend to the next level. Skills development will remain important, and we will continue teaching our clients and members key skills, but we will go beyond that. We will focus on building your dream.

That dream could be:

- being the best advisor for your clients you can be
- going on your own and building your own business
- progressing to executive ranks within your organization
- becoming a respected expert in your field
- or just being a happy father/mother, husband/wife, son/daughter, employee, and friend, staying relevant and effective in a fast-changing world

What is happening with technology and AI development is both scary and exciting. Many people will be left behind if they don't adapt to the new reality. We are not going back to business as usual.

We are here to support you through this transition: helping you adapt to this new world so that you remain relevant, and helping you have a systematic and effective way of pursuing your goals, regardless of changes in technology. We will help you set a bold goal and work with you as you build your dream.

For the last set of our Results Clinics in 2025, one of our amazing executive coaching clients asked if his wife could fully enroll in the program as well. While we are basically full for all current executive coaching groups, as we keep each group very small so we can work in depth with each client on every call, we found space for our client’s wife, who is increadible, by the way. These kinds of emails particularly touch my heart because they show that what we do is highly relevant and valuable. This is a level of trust that is extremely rare in work relationships. Only when you trust someone at an incredibly high level would you bring your significant other into the executive coaching program you are a part of.

StrategyTraining.com and FIRMSconsulting.com were always about being a place where people can transform the trajectory of their lives, regardless of where they are in their careers. If someone finds us at the beginning of their career, when they cannot even afford our monthly Premium membership (which is only $167 and gives access to very powerful programs, with Insider access unlocked when 7th consecutive month begins), they can use all the free resources we have out there to get to the point where they can afford a monthly Premium membership or even immediate access to Insider through annual membership, and our other products and services.

Once someone becomes a Premium member, they will have access to tremendous resources that, if diligently applied, can allow them to increase their compensation far above the level of affording to upgrade to Legacy at which point they can start getting a tailored reply from us to their question on a regular basis. And that upgrade can then provide support, insights, and navigation to help get to a place where members can easily afford to work with us personally as part of our executive coaching programs.

At every level and every step of someone’s career or life, we are a place where members and clients can build their dreams with people they trust. This is what 2025 will be about.

If you want to be a part of this, if you want to have a trusted advisor, make 2025 a year where you stay relevant, transcend to the next level, and remain in a position to continue being relevant as the world changes at an unprecedented rate.

If you are ready to build your dream, make sure you access Insider or Legacy now so you don't miss the goal-setting part of the program and so you can be with us from the beginning of
The Annual 2025 program.

If you also want to work with us personally, seats are limited. We have now basically run out of seats for our current executive coaching groups, but we are open to adding one or two more small groups for 2025, if there is a good fit for both sides. To inquire and apply, email
team@firmsconsulting.com.

I’m looking forward to 2025 and what we will do together, what we can achieve together. I hope you will use these first few days of 2025 to get a little rest, take a break, and reset so we can hit the ground running with
The Annual together.

Happy holidays and the warmest wishes to you and your family.

Enroll in Insider or Legacy membership at
StrategyTraining.com so you don’t miss the beginning of The Annual.

Access Insider

(Enroll as an Insider or Legacy member after scrolling down to membership options).

Access Insider (Enroll for Insider or Legacy)

2

Posted

Dec 22 at 07:11 PM

It’s Not About What You Think Your Expertise Is....

It’s About Where Others See You Bring Value

We just released a full new Insider program (a 3-part program)...

Workbook: This program also comes with a downloadable workbook. You will see it as a downloadable document on the program page, the way you can access workbooks for Innovators vs. Summarizers, Overcome the Fear of Failure, and Non-Traditional Way to Build a Media Asset. The team is finalizing the workbook now and will be posting it next week. I highly recommend you download and print the workbook and use it as you work through the program. You will get even more value out of the program this way. Our workbooks also go deeper into certain areas covered in the program, so you can do deeper work if you go through an accompanying workbook.

Now let me share more details about this new 3-part Insider program (the full program was just released for Insiders):

What if you could build a book of business in record time, even if you had no prior relationships? That’s the focus of our latest program.

Let me take you inside a real challenge faced by one of our exceptional Legacy members and long-term clients. Let's call him Mark. Mark had identified a groundbreaking opportunity: a way AI could unlock massive value in private equity. But here’s the reality he faced:

No active relationships: Mark's connections in private equity were 15 years old and dormant.

High risk of idea appropriation: How do you share an insight without giving away the keys to the kingdom?

Proving relevance: Could Mark demonstrate his indispensable value to the execution?

Sound familiar? Whether you’re a seasoned professional or starting fresh in a high-stakes industry, you’ve likely faced similar questions. How do you break through when the odds seem stacked against you? How do you establish yourself as indispensable in a world where people are becoming more and more easily replaceable?

That’s where this program comes in.

We designed it specifically to help leaders like you navigate these challenges.

And emerge stronger, sharper, and positioned for success.

This program, like all our programs, is not about generic advice or recycled ideas. It’s about the battle-tested approach that works, tools that deliver results, and strategies proven by executives who’ve been where you are now.

What You Can Expect to Learn:

- How to turn dormant relationships into powerful business allies.
- The secrets to framing your value so decision-makers can’t say no.
- The tactics to protect your insights while still gaining traction.
- The way you can build a book of business fast and get meetings with C-suite executives even if you have no pre-existing relationships in the industry.

What if you could not only re-establish credibility but position yourself as the authority that top firms seek out? In a case study from Michael's career, you’ll explore a powerful approach to unlock access to C-suite executives with whom you have no prior relationships. This was done in a way that didn't just get Michael elected to become a partner very early in his career but also built the careers of many people within Michael's team and established a very profitable new consulting practice.

This program will take you step-by-step through how to do the same. But here’s the truth:

You will only get results if you listen with a focus on "How do I apply this as soon as possible?"

You need:

Impatience with actions, patience with results.

You won’t just be handed the answers. As with all our programs, you’ll be guided to discover your path and craft your approach. But you need to apply what you will learn to your life and your career to see how powerful this approach is.

Why This Program Matters to You Now:

Opportunities don’t wait. The space you are in is probably highly competitive and it is difficult to get traction. Without a sharp strategy and the right tools, even the best ideas can fail to take off or get appropriated by people who can implement them without you.

But...

With the right approach, you can compete and, possibly, dominate.

This program is for leaders ready to:

- Build a book of business faster than they thought possible.
- Turn insights into tangible value without losing control of their ideas.
- Position themselves as indispensable in the eyes of stakeholders.

We mapped out the path to success for you.

You bring the ambition, and we’ll provide the roadmap.

Here are some time stamps as you work through the program to help you not miss important points:

  • How we use our AI system to provide input in decision-making (00:30, Ep 1)

  • Dissecting the question (01:30, Ep 1)

  • What you should keep in mind when presenting your credentials (04:00, Ep 1)

  • Questions to ask when you are evaluating your insight/business idea (04:50, Ep 1)

  • Getting clear on where the problem lies (06:00, Ep 1)

  • You can't make a decision before you clarify this (09:00, Ep 1)

  • How branding yourself works (12:00, Ep 1)

  • The biggest mistake people make when selecting a role model (15:50, Ep 1)

  • The way PE works (0:30, Ep 2)

  • A big shift in PE (02:00, Ep 2)

  • The kind of executives PE firms bring in (03:40, Ep 2)

  • What will determine if the PE executive wants to include you after you share the idea (05:30, Ep 2)

  • Battle-tested model to reach executives in power, even without pre-existing relationships (07:00, Ep 2)

  • Dealing with a lack of distribution points for your ideas (14:40, Ep 2)

  • Iconic Black Stone story told behind closed doors and a key lesson for you (02:00, Ep 3)

  • Crucial criteria when selecting a business partner (09:40, Ep 3)

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Enrollment is now open for new Insider and Legacy members. Don’t let another program pass you by. The insights we share are unique, powerful, timely, and battle-tested. As one of the long-term Insiders said in a recent conversation with me:

"The content is getting better every time... The thing with all the content here is that we kind of have to go through them. When you are put into that situation, you kind of like, okay, I picked up this concept from here. I review it because each person's situation is different. But I know where to find them, and I always get results when I apply what I’ve learned."

If you're an Insider or Legacy member, this program is now available in your account on StrategyTraining.com.

Not a member yet? Enroll here: www.strategytraining.com (scroll to membership options and select Insider or Legacy level to immediately access this program).

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out at team@firmsconsulting.com.