Worth the read

What it is

Gerber’s classic on why most small businesses stall, and what to do about it. He tells it through his conversations with Sarah, who runs a pie shop and is working herself into the ground. Along the way he covers the three jobs every owner holds, the stages a business grows through, and how to build a business that works without you, the way a well-run franchise does.

What to take into your firm

1. Make the firm the product. Clients get the result of the whole firm, not just your skill, so the way the firm runs deserves as much design as any case.
2. Build it to be handed over. Write down how each phase of a case runs and who owns it, so the result does not depend on who happens to do the work.
3. Grow on purpose. Decide what you want the firm to look like, then plan the people, the numbers and the systems it takes to get there.

Read it if your days are full of case work and the firm still depends on you for most answers.