I've kept my own receipts.

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I've Kept My Own Receipts: Benchmarking Against My 2024 Post

In December 2024, I made a post on LinkedIn that read:

The ‘non-negotiable’ attributes of a modern professional services firm:

- Advisory first—traditional services support advisory work

- Citizen-led—there’s no “bide one’s time” and “get the grade” to move up

- Speed—less hierarchy, more focus on being nimble

- Technology-led—tech drives efficiency in all aspects of business

- Productized services—embrace subscription models

- Remote team—the office is a place, not the solution

- No chargeable hours—bill based on value delivered

- Merit-based positions—Worry about people’s impact, not hours

What are your ‘non-negotiables’ when you think of the firm of the future?

At the time, I was an advisor, and I'd suggest it's easier to publish a manifesto like that when you don't have to live inside it. Now I'm 100+ days into the CEO seat at Nichols Cauley, and that post has become a measuring stick of sorts.

A company picture from our NC Connect event last week. Bonus points if you find me.

So I figured it was time to bring up my own receipts. Here’s how we stack up compared to my post:

What I said: Advisory first. Traditional services support advisory work.

This is the core of how we execute our strategy and we’re very aligned with it. The work we do is centered around a simple question: how do we help our clients manage, protect, and grow their wealth? We're not leading with tax prep, audits, or insurance, because those are simply services. They describe the HOW, but not the WHY behind how we truly add value to our clients. The real value shows up in the thinking, the strategy, and the foresight that comes alongside the compliance work.

We evaluate solutions through the lens of client outcomes rather than service line P&Ls, and that filter is showing up in the language people use across the company. I'd grade us exceptionally well on this one.

What I said: Citizen-led. There's no “bide one's time” and “get the grade” to move up.

We're still early on this one, but the choice to partner with a strategic sponsor was a deliberate move to break the bide-your-time, get-the-grade, climb-the-ladder dynamic that defines so many legacy professional services companies.

We're not a startup by any means, AND I firmly believe we can be a company where anyone can come in and make an immediate impact. There are many ways to lead without a traditional leadership title, and the mindset shift I keep coming back to is to have people own areas and outcomes in the company, not tasks.

What I said: Speed. Less hierarchy, more focus on being nimble.

Those of you that know me know I'm built for speed. That's how I'm wired, and it’s becoming how we approach things inside Nichols Cauley. Speed inside a company with a long history is not the same as speed inside a startup, so it requires being intentional about which decisions need to move fast and which earn the right amount of patience. Sometimes you have to slow down in order to speed up.

The fundamentals of strategy and execution have not changed. The pace has, and our version of speed shows up as fewer layers, faster pacing on M&A and strategy, and a willingness to follow through even when not everyone is in the same place. We’re an established organization, yet we’re moving fast in key areas, and that’s encouraging.

What I said: Technology-led. Tech drives efficiency in all aspects of business.

This is the one I'm most encouraged by. Once our strategy leader was in place, the very next leadership hire I made was someone to lead our AI and process automation efforts. I wanted an outsider who could look at our work from the outside in and ask "why" until they got to the root of how things actually function.

The mandate isn't to implement more AI. The mandate is to eliminate friction and reduce unnecessary human touches, because capacity is the point. We want our people spending less time on manual work and more on the work that actually creates value for clients.

What I said: Productized services. Embrace subscription models.

This one is a genuine work in progress. We have pockets of productized and subscription-based delivery inside our CAS practice, so the concept has certainly been embraced. We're also in active conversations with acquisition candidates who have built entirely subscription-based models. That ties directly to our efforts to be a more technology-led organization.

Technology creates the conditions, productization is what we build on top of them, and value-based pricing is how we capture it. We're very much in motion on this, and there’s still plenty of work to be done.

What I said: Remote team. The office is a place, not the solution.

This one is interesting, and I'll be candid, I’ve come around a bit on it. Nichols Cauley has a very office-based culture, and as a regional company with deep community ties, I’m seeing that there are real bonuses to that. Frankly, it’s working well, and we're not going to torch what's working in the name of a principle.

AND, the office shouldn't be the upper limit of our talent net. As we grow and add new capabilities, I expect we'll bring on remote talent to expand our reach, and we'll think horizontally about how we deploy our people. The office is a place, and it's not the solution by itself.

So, if I stuck to my previous claim, I would have to grade us poorly. That said, I now see value in how we’re operating and believe it’s a core part of what will make us successful moving forward.

What I said: No chargeable hours. Bill based on value delivered.

This is the one I'd actually amend. When I posted "no chargeable hours" in 2024, it was directionally right, but too absolute. The framing shouldn’t be "no hours" at all. The right framing is that we bill based on the value we deliver, not on the time it took to deliver it. Hours don't disappear, they just stop being the unit of price.

Internally, we still need hours for resource planning, capacity planning, and understanding whether our people are at their highest and best use. The destination is value-based pricing, the internal tool is hours, and that's the more honest version of the position.

We price a number of engagements based on project-based and subscription-style fees, but have plenty of opportunity to grow in this area.

What I said: Merit-based positions. Worry about people's impact, not hours.

This is the one I feel most strongly about, and it's already showing up. We have fractional leaders in seats today delivering enormous value, and we're stretching team members into roles before they may feel "ready." We're rewarding impact rather than seniority, tenure, or hours logged.

My job is to help every individual shift their mindset from traditional leadership (waiting to have a certain title or own a P&L) to where they make the highest and best use of themselves for the client, the company, and themselves. Impact is the keyword.

We’re excelling here and earn a passing grade.

Final thought.

Fifteen months ago, that list was an opinion on where the future of professional services was headed. Today, it's more of a scorecard I'm grading us against in real time. Some of these I'd grade us well on, some are unmistakably in motion, some are a genuine work in progress.

Call them receipts or whatever you want to call them, that’s the value of stating things clearly and writing them down. You reflect on them, you live with them, and over time, you sharpen them based on what you learn from experience. The act of measuring keeps me honest about whether we’re building the company in alignment with how it should be built.

We're in the early innings of building something different here at Nichols Cauley, and I’m incredibly bullish on where we’re headed.

With intention,

Alan Whitman
CEO at Nichols Cauley

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