Your Nine Keys result
Growing IP is your weakest Key. Your best work lives in people's heads and project folders, every proposal starts from a blank page, and the firm is worth what its consultants are worth this week. Without owned IP, an IT services firm is a collection of people, not an asset.
150+ IT services founders coached. 6 exits worth a combined $230M.
Weakest Key
Growing IP
Productising delivery, packaging your IP and the case studies that sell it
You have probably said this: "Every client is different. We cannot productise what we do." Then you look at the last five years of engagements and find the same four problems solved thirty times, each one scoped, priced and delivered as if it were the first.
Properly developed IP cuts delivery cost, simplifies training and lifts fee rates, because the client is buying a proven outcome rather than hours. It is also the single biggest driver of equity value: a buyer pays for method they can run without you.
When Growing IP scores lowest, it usually means the repeated work has never been categorised, there is no named fixed scope offer, the flagship engagement still needs the founder in the room, and the IP that does exist is scattered across laptops.
The three levers below are how a firm stops selling time.
These come from the Growing IP Key of the Loading Growth Wheel. Each one has an action you can complete this week.
You cannot productise what you have not named. A simple categorisation of every engagement since 2021 shows the three or four problems you solve repeatedly, who buys them and what they paid. That list is your product catalogue in waiting.
This week: export every engagement from the last four to five years into a sheet: client, problem, approach, value. Tag each with a problem type. Count the tags. The top three are your first products.
A productised offering is a named, repeatable engagement with a fixed scope, a fixed price and a playbook behind it. One is enough to change how clients buy and how you quote. It also becomes the case study that sells the next one.
This week: take your most repeated problem type. Write a one page offer: name, who it is for, what they get in what timeframe, the price, and the three deliverables. Put it in front of two existing clients this week.
IP that lives in heads and project folders walks out the door with people and cannot be sold. One library, owned by the firm, versioned, with a named curator, is the difference between a methodology and a rumour.
This week: create the library this week, even if it is a single structured folder. Move the flagship playbook, templates and the trust pack (QA, security, architecture, references) into it. Name the curator.
The diligence trust pack, the case study process and retiring stale IP come next.
Tick the ones that are true of your firm this quarter. The count tells you how much of your firm's value is sitting in people's heads.
Nothing you tick here is stored or sent anywhere. It stays in your browser.
Growing IP
The difference between a service and a productised offeringPackage the buying decision, not the delivery process.
Growing IP
Protecting and organising valuable IP for IT services firmsOne library, one owner, one version.
Growing IP
A repeatable process for compelling case studiesThe case study is the product's proof.
Growing IP is where Ascent earns its keep, because productising is a leadership and pricing decision as much as a delivery one.
Up to 10 staff
Categorise the engagements, name the first offer and set up the library, with the Nine Keys basics alongside.
$150 per month, capped at 100 firms
Talk to Ian about Basecamp10 to 40 staff
Regular group sessions and one to one time with Ian on productised offers, pricing them, the case study process and the trust pack, inside the 90 Day Sprint.
Pricing on the call
Talk to Ian about Ascent
I am Ian Markram. I built and sold an IT services firm, and for the last decade I have coached founders of IT services and systems integrator firms who compete with the global consultancies every week.
Ian has coached our executive team for the past 18 months and has helped us transition from our roles as technical leads within the business to acting as business owners to focus on growth. This has helped us to exceed our growth and profitability targets.
He and his team help drive continuous improvements in my business in practical steps of a manageable size. His advice has been invaluable in helping me mature as a business leader.
Five short emails over two weeks: the three levers with a seven day action each, what they looked like for one founder, and a 45 minute call with Ian if you want to work through them together. Then take the six minute scorecard for your scores across all nine Keys.
Bring your Growing IP result to a 45 minute strategy call with Ian.
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