David C. Baker

08/17/2018

Thanks for your good work pushing people like me to continue to reach for more + to go further. I am grateful. -recent client

08/17/2018

Read my paper on the advantages of being a larger firm:

I’ve always advised firms to view growth (defined as an increased body count) as something largely neutral. It’s not good or bad—just different. That can relieve the inappropriate pressure to grow, grow, grow. So called “developed” cultures place a premium on growth, even to the point of s...

08/17/2018

Merging code and data into an object (in programming) is a great example of how logic cannot always be linear.

08/17/2018

See if your client is always right:

I’m not sure who penned the maxim that “the customer is always right,” but that statement really is too much of a generalization. And lately I’ve seen way too many creative firms caring too much about what their customers think.

08/17/2018

Take fees + divide by all (not just billable) employees. Higher performing firms $160-275k.

08/17/2018

An interesting strategy: listen to your customers a little bit less and listen to your employees a little bit more.

08/16/2018

Here are a few of my thoughts on work/life balance:

I have had the privilege of working with hundreds of professional service firms over the years, spending at least one full day and countless hours with each principal, and also interacting with thousands of the employees who make things happen at these firms. I say “privilege” because it’s sti...

08/16/2018

Nobody has come close to intimating that they want to read an autobiography, but I feel like I need to write one.

08/16/2018

Learn the truth about making money in a marketing firm:

You really have no business starting a business and not making good money, eventually. Money itself is just a tool, for good or bad, but when you start a business you’re declaring your intent to be profitable (after paying yourself a fair wage). Hopefully you’ll make money in an ethical manner, ...

08/16/2018

If you graduate without student debt, you are one-third MORE likely to be an entrepreneur. -Gallup

08/16/2018

Here are seven suggestions for creating a sustainable firm:

After owning a marketing firm for six years and then advising other principals since 1994, one of the unsolved mysteries that still makes me scratch my head is why the vast majority of people in this field fade away from it in their late forties and early fifties. Not only is that unique in the prof...