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In this special '12 Days of Business' edition of The Business Owner’s Journey, Nick Berry welcomes back Shireen Hilal, founder and CEO of Maior, for the 12 Days of Business mini-series. Shireen shares her top three trends in business for 2025 and strategies for businesses to take advantage of them. She shares how disconnected clients and stretched teams impact business, the shifting expectations for efficiency, and what clients truly care about when making buying decisions.
It's a great episode for business owners who are looking toward the future and want to anticipate and leverage emerging trends.
Shireen identifies three key trends shaping the business landscape in 2025:
Disconnected clients perceive less value, leading to price sensitivity. To combat this:
Shireen highlights how remote work has created both challenges and new solutions:
Shireen emphasizes simplicity in pitches: clients care about three things:
Efficiency is now a baseline expectation for businesses. Shireen suggests:
This episode is part of the 12 Days of Business mini-series.
Shireen’s previous appearance on The Business Owner’s Journey: Growth Strategies for Professional Services Firms
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The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG
Nick Berry (00:00)
The Business Owner's Journey. I'm Nick Berry and I've got real business owners telling their real stories, sharing their real lessons and strategies so you don't have to figure it all out on your
Nick Berry (00:13)
I'm wrapping up season one of the business owners journey with this special series, the 12 days of business. 12 days, 12 episodes, 12 of my previous guests. And today's episode is Shireen Hilal, who is the founder and CEO of Maior Consultancy. Shireen was previously a practicing attorney. And then she left that to start Maior, the consultancy, when it became apparent to her that she had a very valuable ability to solve problems in scale.
professional service firms and that she was in demand. Her work involves a lot of research and keeping her finger on the pulse of what's going on in the market. So I thought it would be perfect for her to come back on, share some trends that she's seeing for 2025 and then how we can use them to our advantage.
If you would like to support the show, the best thing I could get you to do right now is to subscribe and to leave me a review. if you want to get the additional 12 days of business content, that's the episode pages, the guest profiles, and all the resources that I'm only sending out through email, go to nickberry.info slash 12 days. That's the number 12 days.
Okay, now let's get to the show.
Shireen (01:23)
So, know, every company and firm basically wants the same things, more revenue, higher margins, low turnover, better client service. So the goals are nothing new, but how you meet them needs to be. And I pulled for you three trends that I'm seeing in the market.
and hearing across all of my clients that I hope will be helpful.
So the first one I'm seeing is, you know, we are in a very digital world and clients are feeling price sensitive and disconnected. And when that happens, services and products alike get commoditized and clients don't want to pay as much. So if you think about it, communications on email with both employees and clients, which means
generic pitches, cookie cutter work, reactive updates. And so the way to get ahead of it is good service can't be left to chance. Make sure it is crystal clear what good looks like. Build real process for consistent client experiences. So for example, that might mean structured kickoff calls that put your clients at ease. Checking in before they get the first bill.
And asking, what do you think about the communication cadence? How is it going so far? Training your people on what to do if there's pushback, scope creep, et cetera. Also thinking through what are flexible pricing models that you can put in place that meet your clients where they are, whether it's tiered options or sharing the work or other ways that you build trust and don't try to give them sort of large packages that
don't meet the need.
Nick Berry (03:17)
this, this is like the recipe for being taken for granted. It is like the perfect, all the ingredients are right there and we know what happens, right? Whenever we start getting taken for granted. And what I hear you saying is like the solution to that is.
Shireen (03:21)
Yes.
Nick Berry (03:32)
You're going to have to budge, like be adaptable to the situation and, probably really focus on the clarity and the expectations to make sure that it's evident when you're meeting them. Is that fair?
Shireen (03:46)
That's right.
be clear with the teams, be clear with the clients. Because again, it's that digital disconnect. I think we often make assumptions that my employee understands what that task is and they're doing a great job for the client. Or the client knows we're delivering value and we're just sitting here plugging away and then they get the bill. Check in, have real conversation. Make sure everyone's really on the same page.
Nick Berry (04:13)
Yeah, I feel like anytime you are telling yourself The client is getting what they need. We're doing the work. The whole like get the, they're going to get the bill and then they're going to pay it. I feel like that's such a red flag. At least in my head it is like you cannot be that comfortable with the situation.
Shireen (04:31)
That's right. And I think it even starts Nick in like the pitching process or your, your go-to-market process. And so for example, one thing I've noticed, everyone's exhausted and doing a lot. And so you'd kind of tend to turn out these churn out these like cookie cutter pitches, for example, and clients are expecting to see
real solutions that meet their needs. And instead they end up with boilerplate corporate platitudes, 30 pages, the fees are buried in the back. Like, can it? Anything that your competitors are saying that anybody could say, take it out. Make sure you're addressing what clients really care about. And it's, it's usually three things, right? How much is this going to cost me?
Am I going to get the A team and have you done this successfully before? So you put those in and then put in real differentiators. Again, forget things like we have great service. Everybody says that instead go ask your current clients. What do you love about working with me? Take those nuggets and put those in your pitch. And now you have something that here's why you want to work with me, right? Maybe it is.
You're a small boutique and you're agile and you always have that flexibility and adaptability. Great. Use that as your key point of differentiation and move away from the corporate platitudes that everybody's saying. So right from the beginning, think of how you stand out and really speak in a more direct way. It's kind of thinking about you're not on a podium.
with a megaphone speaking to a million people, this pitch is for one person or one company. How are you speaking to them?
Nick Berry (06:28)
That theme, every one of these conversations that I'm having with guests, that it's coming up, it's about like making the conversations individualized. when you lay it out like that, I think everybody probably would shake their head and say, yeah, I can see that. I can totally see that. So then we need to be proactive about addressing it. Right.
Shireen (06:37)
because people don't feel that way anymore, right?
I think that's right. And then that I think is a perfect segue to the second trend I'm seeing, which is, you know, again, with this, we're in a digital world, remote work has stretched teams thin from a connection standpoint, right? I mean, we are seeing more fractured communication, more disengaged employees, weaker culture, and you feel it in the firms or in your own company, clients are feeling it too.
A disengaged workforce shows in the results. And so the good news here is there's also an opportunity. You don't have to have traditional staffing models and you have more levers than ever. And so you can blend full-time work, fractional work, where you kind of tap into senior level expertise for key projects without committing full-time. You can get offshore or even nearshore.
lower cost employees for routine work to free up resources and also make your full-time staff happier. And then at the same time, focus on how to co-create your culture. And when I say that, mean, I think I've told you this before and we've had this conversation, like culture is cult in it. Build buy-in and believers. Have real town halls with honest presentations or even maybe you're not big enough to have a town hall.
Maybe it's just all all hands calls where you really talk about here's our results. Here's where we're getting to. So everybody at your company knows where you're going and how to get there and why they're a part of it. Let people outside of leadership actually plan events and guide the culture as opposed to it being something that's set from on high that is supposed to be just like complied with. That's not culture.
Nick Berry (08:46)
Yeah, we're doing things the way that we've always done them at that point. So this feels like kind of the theme of adaptability and being individualized feels like kind of a shift from boilerplate to bespoke, right? So are the people that you work with, are firms embracing that or are they being resistant to it? Like once they're aware this is the movement to be made, how well are they taking to that?
I know how I would expect people to respond to that. Kind of the legacy mentality, not necessarily embracing it.
Shireen (09:21)
Yeah,
it's hard. I think the hardest part is they see what big corporates do and it's just easy to want to copy. So for example, how easy would it be? I have a consulting firm myself. It's easier to do a 15 page proposal that just has a ton of fluff in it and talks about how great we are.
and has a bunch of filler language. That's easier than one page, crisp, to the point, here's the value, here's why we're the right choice. We've thought about you and how we are creating value that exceeds the fees that you will be paying. We understand the mission and vision for your company or firm. That's more difficult.
to like pare it down and get down to like really what matters. But once you start doing it, there's no turning back. I just think it's sometimes very easy to want to do what you see everybody else doing because you assume it must work. But unless you're trying to be mediocre.
Nick Berry (10:40)
You're trying to blend
right in if that's what, you do what everybody else is doing, like by definition, that is what's going to happen.
Shireen (10:43)
That's right.
Yeah, but what I have found is once you show a firm the before and after, they do have the aha moment usually.
Nick Berry (10:58)
I think the 15 page proposal to the one page proposal is like a great illustration, but listening to you talk through the one page and what's on there. Like, yeah, I mean, I bet once a client sees it, they don't unsee it either. Right. Like they're not going to accept anything else.
Shireen (11:13)
It's also the confidence to say it in one page. And the truth is, know, as well as I, nobody opens a 15 page document and is excited to dig through it.
Nick Berry (11:23)
there are a handful of things even fewer that actually matter that actually shit about right now. Yeah.
Shireen (11:27)
Right. Right.
And then that brings me to the third trend, which is efficiency is no longer optional. Inefficiency, as we know, is a margin killer, but even worse, it's a threat to client satisfaction and employee morale. Your clients feel it when you're inefficient. It's a waste of their time too. And your employees hate it, of course. And so we're at a point where
There's tight client budgets as we just went over, rising costs for you as a business owner and clients have higher expectations than ever, right? As we discussed with everything's getting more commoditized, clients don't feel the love so they're not willing to pay more. And so it means everybody needs to rethink their bottom line and how they improve. And so a few tips here for 2025.
It's usually the small iterative improvements that make the biggest difference. It's not usually, I think people think of innovation and think it's some big grand change, but just regularly gather team insights. What are your bottlenecks? How do we implement a quick win? Efficiency should be a constant evolution. And so I like to think of it like a lifestyle, not a diet. If that makes sense. Consistency beats intensity here.
Nick Berry (12:48)
Mm-hmm.
Shireen (12:54)
I think it's also empower your people to make minor decisions. And so maybe it's, here's how you can delight a client if they're upset about a bill or here's a reasonable parameter to move a deadline without having to come up to leadership and ask, keep things moving and make the client feel happy in that moment and get, and make the employee feel valuable in that moment. And then to the extent you can,
Nick Berry (13:21)
Mm-hmm.
Shireen (13:23)
pull things off of your company or firm that you are not good at. And so with a remote world and more options than ever, it is easier today than it ever has been to offload non-core functions like IT, payroll, bookkeeping. If that's not what your firm does, trying to hire and manage somebody to do it,
is probably not going to be your strong suit. So just hold those folks to predefined high standards and let them meet it.
Nick Berry (14:03)
they all seem very doable, right? There's nothing, you're not having to do a complete overhaul. It's, but they're not doable if you're not aware, right? There has to be a level of awareness, but then every one of those problems, it's all figure outable. Those are relatively simple.
Shireen (14:12)
Bye.
I think so.
Nick Berry (14:19)
The hard part is being able to see it through a different lens because we have seen it a certain way for a long time and everybody else is still looking at it that way. And it's not necessarily slapping us in the face that it's broken at this moment.
Right? We're talking about the way the direction things are heading. So you're seeing signs. They not may not be evident to everyone yet. That's their opportunity. They can like get ahead of these things.
Shireen (14:46)
I think
that's right because what you're starting to see is, huh, we're kind of having flat revenue and slightly declining margins, right? And so that's where you're seeing clients are price sensitive. They have a lot of options. That's your top line. The bottom line is your costs are going up and folks are feeling less engaged and being less efficient. And so...
Think of how you get ahead of that in a way that works for your business and be creative. There is, I think the best part of what I do is realizing there is no answer for every, there is no one size fits all answer. It's create what works for you. Be willing to test, try things out. If it doesn't work, move on from it.
Don't be complacent and don't miss the signs.
Nick Berry (15:45)
Don't miss the signs. And you're one size fits none. That's what you said the last time the conversation we had that stuck with me. Yeah, this is great. This is exactly what I was looking for. I really appreciate you taking the time and doing this.
Shireen (15:51)
That's right.
you're welcome. And wishing you and all of your listeners an amazing and successful 2025.
Nick Berry (16:09)
Thank you. Same to you. We appreciate it.
Nick Berry is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO, whose track record includes founding and leading numerous companies since 2002.
He is also a mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues, staff, and clients, Nick has been referred to as both 'The Business Guy' as well as 'The Anti-Guru', due to his pragmatic approach and principled leadership.
He shares his insights and lessons learned, along with those of his expert guests,
on his podcast, 'The Business Owner's Journey'.
