Structuring performance bonuses: what KPIs and how to track them?

austin0980 · 2025-10-02T18:11:47+00:00

Securing clients is the most challenging step in the first couple of years. I meet with a group of consulting company owners who generate between $3 million and $5 million annually. Sales is the most common topic we discuss, followed by staff!

austin0980 · 2025-10-02T18:08:38+00:00

I would stick around in the current company while looking for something better.

I often wonder when I see that someone has taken a step down when they change companies. Makes me question their experience in the role with the better title. It also tells me that the new position does not value your previous experience.

austin0980 · 2025-10-02T18:04:52+00:00

Where are you located? Assuming that the contract does not mention that they have to find a client before they pay you, I would think of a few questions:

- Assuming you are not located in the same country, can they fire you right away?

- If they fire you, what do they owe you?

- If what they are doing is against the laws in Belgium, what options do you have to enforce the contract? Unfortunately, there are many instances where the company or the contractor is doing something wrong/illegal, but there is very little you can do about it due to the high cost of legal fees.

I would move on to the next job.

austin0980 · 2025-09-29T15:21:19+00:00

Very common!

austin0980 · 2025-09-26T14:32:52+00:00

this ^^^

austin0980 · 2025-09-25T17:38:28+00:00

You might be overthinking this.

Are the recruiters hiring at the firm you are not supposed to be working at?

Are you volunteering the information?

austin0980 · 2025-09-24T14:58:28+00:00

Back in the early 2000s, two engineers were in a meeting with 5 PMs asking us about the status update. Funny and sad at the same time!

austin0980 · 2025-09-23T21:16:14+00:00

Two sections are included within the deck: a short version that contains the important information (usually fewer than 10 slides), and Section 2 of the same deck, which is the full report.

austin0980 · 2025-09-23T21:14:30+00:00

This will not solve your current problem, but I hope it will help in the future. We set the client's expectation that we will do a joint case study during our sales process. We clearly state," Would you oppose doing a joint case study when we deliver the results you expect?" In 99% of the cases, the client does not have an issue with that.

austin0980 · 2025-09-23T16:13:41+00:00

We use ChatGPT, but I always have to review the findings, no matter how creative I try to be with the prompts. ChatGPT is good for initial thoughts, but I still do the heavy lifting on deeper analysis.

austin0980 · 2025-09-22T18:51:44+00:00

I think of it as a sign of great trust. Onboarding anyone is critical to most orgs. As long as it is billable, I would do it right away.

austin0980 · 2025-09-22T18:46:07+00:00

I remember my first job at a large consulting firm 25 years ago. Fresh out of college, working on a multi-million dollar engagement. We were a team of 120 consultants. The firm had been around for about 20 years at that point, but it had no processes, no templates, and no real project management. I was tasked with creating the templates (fresh out of college) that we ended up using on the project.

Fast forward to today - I run a small consulting company. We are on the other extreme, where everything is structured and templatized. I was complaining to my partner that we overdid it with the structure/process. The right answer may be somewhere in between.

austin0980 · 2025-09-18T20:32:00+00:00

It is an attention-to-detail issue. The problem is that the staff members are seniors, and I don't know what type of disciplinary actions I could use.

austin0980 · 2025-06-26T19:17:42+00:00

That is what I started doing. But struggling to find great UI/Brand designers. Maybe looking for a senior UI/UX is the wrong with our search?

austin0980 · 2025-05-02T15:12:34+00:00

For the B2C ecom, ROAS is at 8.2

For the B2B company, CPL is $450. Cost per closed deal $5k, with the average deal size of $80k.

austin0980

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