Your Nine Keys result

Your firm is growing.
Its value is not.

Loading Growth is your weakest Key. Revenue is up, the team is bigger, and a buyer, a bank or a new partner would still see one thing: a firm that stops when the founder does.

Book a strategy call See the three levers

150+ IT services founders coached. 6 exits worth a combined $230M.

Weakest Key

Loading Growth

Growing shareholder value: the plan, the senior team and the founder dependency that decide what your firm is worth

  1. Loading Growth
  2. Loading Sales
  3. Loading Clients
  4. Loading Rates
  5. Loading Services
  6. Growing IP
  7. Growing A Team
  8. Growing Leaders
  9. Growing Market
Get the playbook by email

What is likely going on

You are the President, the CEO, the CFO, the sales manager, the lead consultant and the person who books the Christmas party. You wear every hat. The firm grows anyway, because you work harder each year.

That works until it does not. Shareholder value in an IT services firm is not revenue. It is the ability to generate earnings and free cash flow without the founder in every decision. Every hat you still wear is a discount on the price someone would pay for the business.

When Loading Growth scores lowest, it usually means three things are missing at once: a long term plan the team can actually run, a senior group who make real decisions, and a reason for your best people to think like owners.

None of those is fixed by winning more work. The three levers below are where to start, and each one makes the next one easier.

The three levers to pull first

These come from the Loading Growth Key of the Loading Growth Wheel. Each one has an action you can complete this week.

Lever 2

Plan for the long term

Without a practical, actionable long term plan you are swinging for the fences every quarter and leaving the firm vulnerable to the demands of its own growth. The plan is what lets the team outperform the competition one engagement at a time without you calling every shot.

This week: write the three year picture on one page: revenue, EBIT, headcount, the services you will be known for and the role you will hold. Share it with your two most senior people and ask what they would change.

Lever 4

Build the senior team that runs it without you

A one person operation was the right set up in the early days. Time marches on, the firm grows, and eventually it outgrows you. A senior management team of capable operators lets you step back and watch the firm grow as if independently of you.

This week: list every decision that reached your desk in the last fortnight. Mark the ones a senior person could have made. Hand two of those decision types over this week, in writing, with the limits spelled out.

Lever 6

Release equity to your key players

Founders protect ownership by keeping all of the equity. The more experienced ones have worked out that if key people are to take real ownership of their work, they need to be owners. Done with the right recapture mechanisms, this is how you keep the people who make the firm worth something.

This week: name the two people whose departure would hurt most. Ask your accountant and lawyer for the simplest equity or phantom equity structure with a buy back clause. Book that meeting now, not next quarter.

Levers 1 (the hats you are still wearing), 7 (preparing the firm for sale, whether or not you sell) and 8 (bringing non executive directors on board) come next.

Five signs this Key is costing you

Tick the ones that are true of your firm this quarter. The count tells you how much of your firm's value is currently sitting in your diary rather than in the business.

Signature tool for this Key: The 90 Day Sprint.

Nothing you tick here is stored or sent anywhere. It stays in your browser.

  • Signs you recognise0 of 5

Guides for this Key

Read every guide on Loading Growth

Your Everest fit

Loading Growth is the centre of the Loading Growth Wheel. Every other Key feeds it, which is why the 90 Day Sprint starts here.

Up to 10 staff

Everest Basecamp

Set up the one page plan, the Nine Keys basics and the lead generation system so the firm's growth stops depending on your personal network.

$150 per month, capped at 100 firms

Talk to Ian about Basecamp

10 to 40 staff

Everest Ascent

Regular group sessions and one to one time with Ian on the Role Reset Framework, the senior team and the equity conversation, with the 90 Day Sprint keeping it moving.

Pricing on the call

Talk to Ian about Ascent
Ian Markram, founder of Loading Growth

Who is telling you this

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.

  • 150+ IT services founders coached
  • 28 years in IT professional services
  • 6 founder exits guided
  • $230M combined exit value
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.
Athol HillDirector and Cofounder, Chrome Consulting
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.
James BeresfordCEO, Talos

Get the Loading Growth playbook by email

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.

Questions founders ask at this point

I am not planning to sell. Does shareholder value matter?
Yes, because the things that make a firm sellable are the same things that make it pleasant to own: it runs without you, it earns without you, and it can borrow or take on a partner on good terms. Build it as if you will sell it, then decide.
My senior people are great consultants. Why will they not make decisions?
Because the system still routes decisions to you, and they have learned that. The Role Reset Framework changes the routing, not the people. Most senior consultants step up within one 90 Day Sprint once the limits are written down.
Equity feels like giving away the firm I built.
Releasing five or ten percent to the two people who make the firm valuable is not giving it away. It is buying their next decade. The structure matters more than the percentage, and the buy back clause is what makes it safe.
We are a systems integrator, not an MSP. Does this apply?
Yes. This is built for IT professional services and SI firms that sell project and advisory work against the global consultancies. We do not coach MSPs. If your revenue is mostly managed services contracts, this is not the right program for you.
What happens on the strategy call?
Forty five minutes with Ian. You bring your result and your rough numbers. You leave with the one lever to pull first and a view on whether Basecamp or Ascent fits. No pitch deck.

Find out which lever to pull first

Bring your Loading Growth result to a 45 minute strategy call with Ian.

Loading the booking calendar.

Book a strategy call