Shireen Hilal: AI, Trust, and the Boutique Advantage in Professional Services Firm Growth

Full Episode Page: Shireen Hilal: AI, Trust and the Boutique Advantage in Professional Services Firm Growth

Shireen Hilal is the CEO and founder of Maior Strategic Consulting, where she advises professional services firms on how to grow.

Shireen returns for her third appearance on The Business Owner's Journey with Nick Berry. Shireen breaks down how AI is splitting expertise into commodity information and high-value judgment, why boutique and mid-market firms have a real window right now, and why chasing best practices gets you average results. She also gets into what hiring looks like for a small consulting team and why being cheap with good people has never built a great firm.

You'll Hear:
-Why almost no firm asks clients if the work was actually useful
-How AI is splitting expertise into commodity vs. judgment work
-Why boutique firms have a structural advantage right now
-What "Swiss army knife" hiring means for small teams
-Why best practices are a floor, and rarely a ceiling

Links:
-Maior Strategic Consulting
-Shireen Hilal on LinkedIn

Chapters 
00:00 Introduction and Welcome Back 
03:12 Why Firms Skip Client Feedback and What It Costs Them 
10:45 How AI Is Splitting Expertise into Commodity or Judgment Work 
18:30 Why Boutique and Mid-Market Firms Have a Real Window Right Now 
26:15 Hiring for Small Business Growth: Swiss Army Knives and the Cost of Cheap Talent 
34:00 Why Best Practices Make You Average 
40:22 Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

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Transcript

Transcript for: Shireen Hilal: AI, Trust, and the Boutique Advantage in Professional Services Firm Growth

00:00 2025 Predictions Revisited

03:20 Client Disconnect in Professional Services

05:38 Client Feedback Most Firms Skip

08:06 2026 Trends: Value and Trust

10:32 Boutique and Mid-Market Firm Growth

13:08 Social Media for Expertise-Driven Firms

15:29 Finding Your Voice on LinkedIn

20:15 Running a Consulting Firm Is Harder

22:35 Adaptability in Small Business Growth

27:22 Hiring A Players for Innovation

30:32 Why Best Practices Make You Average

Shireen Hilal (00:00)

best practices are a floor, right? They are mediocre at best. They're not best. They're average. And so are you willing to put in that energy to figure out what's going to work for this group of people in this market trying to get this accomplished?

Nick Berry (00:33)

Hillal is the CEO and the founder of Maior Consulting, where she advises professional service firms on how to grow their business. She's also now a three-time guest on the Business Owners Journey podcast. Most firms' selling expertise are working harder than they ever have, and they're still losing ground to their competition. Shireen's here to share why that might be the case. You can expect to learn why so few firms ask clients for their real feedback. While there's an advantage right now,

for boutique and for mid-market service providers. How AI is splitting expertise into commodity or judgment work. Shireen's take on why smart professionals sound robotic and awkward on LinkedIn. What you should look for when you're hiring and the true advantage of hiring A players. Why best practices actually makes you average at best. And why running your own firm is harder than fixing someone else's. Enjoy this episode with Shireen Hillal.

Shireen Hilal (01:23)

all those things really were issues and some of them continue to be issues, just in slightly different forms. the need for efficiency, think everyone's feeling that there's been a lot of push for.

just increased profitability, doing more with less. And look, think it comes, it's interesting. Like I serve the professional services market. You also serve a services-based market. And a lot of that feeling trickles down from the corporate market. And so it's when corporate budgets are tight.

and things like a volatile economy, impending war, things that are going on that are keeping things spicy. That eventually makes its way to, well, what budgets do we have for hiring outside service providers to do these things and come into our business? So that absolutely has had an effect, and I think we're still seeing it.

That kind of brings you back up, I think, to the first item, which is clients are definitely feeling a disconnect. And part of that is just we do so many things virtually. And at the same time, we're all moving so fast that I continually am brought into firms for issues like, why do we have such a big accounts receivable balance? And I thought we're delivering, but our clients aren't paying the bill.

all the way to, you know, we're just not as sticky as we thought. We think we're able to cross sell, but we can't. And so it's just, everyone's in these silos and just trying to do what's in front of them. And that sort of brings you to the second point, right? Which is remote work. And so these things I think are very interconnected. If that makes sense, it's sort of.

We're all in our own little bubbles just getting things done and who's thinking of client and customer experience and what value clients are getting out of the work and how we're framing that value to them. And is that speaking past the cost center to what that corporate, for example, is actually trying to achieve at a higher level?

Nick Berry (03:20)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Shireen Hilal (03:29)

So I

think these are all still relevant. What do you think?

Nick Berry (03:32)

Absolutely. well, I remember when in your first interview, the thread that I connected the three things with was you want to be seen and heard by your clients. You need to make sure that you are making your clients feel seen and heard. Like you have to do more to make a connection with them than just a like a passing greeting.

Shireen Hilal (03:55)

Yeah, and it's funny, I am continually surprised at how many firms do not sort of look to their clients when it comes to where should we grow next? I know we've talked about this or what's our next stage and maybe we should offer this service or should we price it like this? Why don't you go and get that feedback directly, right? From the market and from your clients, but

It's surprising how seldom it happens. To me, the best example I've seen, I write a column for a publication called Today's Managing Partner. Thank you. Thank you. I think it was 10 years as a litigator, I guess, where it was like brief writing and persuasion writing, but…

Nick Berry (04:35)

You're a great writer, by the way. I know I've told you that before. Yes, but you are.

Shireen Hilal (04:47)

I definitely did not start as a strong writer. It was, I had to have it like beaten into me, I think. But now I actually really like writing and I find it to be sort of a nice creative outlet. It's also a really nice forcing function. So what I mean by that is if I think I know about a topic, let's say it's, how do you move away from the billable hour and price differently? I think in a conversation with my clients, I'm,

I'm just off the cuff talking about it and we're spitballing a new strategy. But when I have to sit down to write an article, I'm like, wait a minute, what are the other ways that I didn't think of? And do I need to do a little research? And is there something else that I haven't been thinking just off the fly, you know, off the top of my head. So I really like the writing. But back to your question. So I write a column for Today's Managing Partner.

where I interview in-house counsel to ask them, what are the things you wish law firms knew given you hire them? And it's also an opportunity for me to ask my law firm clients, what questions do you have for your market that you don't wanna ask directly? And I was speaking with the head of procurement,

for a Fortune 50 company. And she said, Shireen I think I've worked with almost every firm in the American Lawyer 100, which is sort of like that ranking system, the top 100 firms. I don't think a single one has ever come back to us and said, was what we gave you useful and were you able to operationalize it in your business? And I was like, wow, that's…

Very telling.

Nick Berry (06:28)

It is. Yeah. And like, I don't want to look down my nose too much at him because it happens to all of us, right? And I'm wondering why, but why? Like what's, what's the obstacle? Is it because they don't think of it? They think that they are too busy or that they don't want to ask questions that they don't want to hear the answers or that they don't want to feel pressured to act on the answers? Like what, which of the reasons are we drawing from here?

Shireen Hilal (06:34)

my gosh, all of us. Yeah.

Nick Berry (06:53)

because there are probably not legitimate reasons to pass up opportunities to hear from your market like that.

Shireen Hilal (06:58)

It's a good question. think it's a combination of, again, we're all just all moving fast. So we don't take the time to look back and get that feedback. And to your point, I could be better at it. We probably all could be better. And I do think a piece of it too is it's just, I want to know the answer? You paid the bill, right?

Nick Berry (07:13)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you know, you know how that it can be in coaching to it where it's like you, you kind of resistant something because you don't want to hear know what they're going to tell you. And you know, they're probably right. And you right now you just want to want what you want and just stay the course. And that's like, that's a trap. ⁓ It's the same thing that could happen if you're not there, you don't want to listen to

Shireen Hilal (07:29)

Hmm.

Yeah, it is.

Nick Berry (07:43)

what your clients are telling you. If it's because you don't want hear the answer, like that's a problem.

Shireen Hilal (07:48)

Well, we're all a bit fragile, aren't we?

Nick Berry (07:50)

guess. I didn't realize it until he got into this.

Shireen Hilal (07:52)

I know.

But you realize

even though it's like you're running a business or you have a book of business if you're in a firm or what, it's just we're all just trying to get through sometimes.

Nick Berry (08:03)

Yeah. So did you have any predictions for 2026?

Shireen Hilal (08:06)

I did put out trend reports. So I put out one for law firms, one for wealth management. I did one for accounting. And so the themes that came up were, they're not gonna be wildly different from 2025. But I do think there's some nuance there. It's, you know, what you're seeing a lot of right now is there's still

push back on rates and clients wanting to be sure they're getting value. You've also seen a lot more movement to boutique and mid-market. And I think that that's cool. Like there's a real opportunity if you're a smaller firm to have an outsized presence, whether that is taking advantage of, you know, social media and other ways that

kind of level the playing field when it comes to having a voice and being out there. And it's also, listen, we're in a time of very high corporate and political mistrust. So being the biggest name in the room is not necessarily the advantage anymore. People want to work with a person they trust, not with a faceless entity that they aren't sure that they trust. So…

I think that that's been a massive opportunity. I think at the same time, you're seeing a ton of, as we all know, it's AI and technology adoption. And so that's disrupting our workforce, but that's also a huge opportunity. What I'm seeing there is instead of thinking, uh-oh, AI is going to like take our work, you got to move up here. And so…

I'll give you another quote. I was speaking with the general counsel of a mid-size software, like B2C company, and he put it to me great. He was talking about buying legal services and he said, you know, if you're going to staff my matter with a junior associate who's going to do a bunch of research on the state of the law, I've got news for you. I was in big law for 10 years and I have chat GPT too.

And the state of the law is not the state of what's actually happening out there. The law is notoriously behind reality, right? And so what I really need is the one person who is obsessed with my issue and thinks about it all the time and is willing to talk about how to actually move forward in the gray. What I don't need is a state of.

Nick Berry (10:33)

Yeah, because it's the state of last week, right? They want somebody whose ear is on the ground.

Shireen Hilal (10:33)

Right? the way correct. he's like,

right. And his point was I would pay $4,000 an hour for that person. And so that I think is the difference is I think you're just seeing it. Expertise is getting stretched to can I commoditize this and how quick and how fast or

Is this something that really requires judgment, not information? Information's cheap and abundant now. We're in the knowledge and like judgment game.

Nick Berry (11:06)

Yeah, insights. I don't need you to read a report to me or read the data to me. Like I can read, but if you can infer from that what's a value to me and distill it down, that's what I will pay for.

Shireen Hilal (11:20)

How do we

operate our business today and move forward in a fast moving market? what they want to know.

Nick Berry (11:27)

That's where we're at. can you talk a little bit more about the boutique you tell me a little bit more about that? What's happening? What's working?

Shireen Hilal (11:33)

You know, I think what's interesting is it's never been easier to have a platform and have a voice, right? I don't know that we're all always the best at it. I know for me, I personally struggle with social media and having to do the thing, but it's a huge opportunity, right? I don't need to get a slot on CNN. I can put up my own channel.

Don't know if anyone's gonna watch it, but that's kind of the point, right? Is you have that ability to put things out there, have your own publishing, if you will, and you're not beholden to somebody else deciding whether the content is good enough to either be published or written, right? Like can start a sub stack tomorrow. Who's stopping me? So.

As long as I'm writing what people want to read and they keep reading it, kind of like the market will speak for itself, I guess. And that's where the opportunity is because again, it's corporate versus human. Like Richard Branson has more followers than Virgin. People want to know what he thinks, not what Virgin thinks. And so that's where you can put yourself out there and

Show people, don't just tell them what you do and how you do it.

Nick Berry (12:47)

Yeah. the opportunities there to do that. And then for someone, if you have a particular skillset, like I mentioned you and your writing, you said doing the thing, getting going on social is a challenge for you. And I get that, but you have this skill of, of writing, like getting your message out there, putting it together in a really clear, understandable, meaningful.

persuasive way. to be able to leverage that is important. now you like in this world that can level the playing field like you were talking about.

Shireen Hilal (13:17)

Yeah, and for me, the real transition was, look, I had come from very risk averse, no comment places, right? Law firms and large accounting firms where it's better not to say anything publicly.

I'd never done it before. I'd never had to have a social presence. And every piece of writing I had done had been like a business purpose writing. For me, where it got really hard, and I still struggle with this and I go back and I rewrite, for example, like a post on LinkedIn before I post it, I might rewrite it three times because I still wanna write it from like a, as if I'm writing for Law 360 or today's,

managing partner, which are like the two publications I currently have columns with. And it's like, wait a minute, people don't, people don't want to be spoken to that way on social media. But if you're not somebody who was on social media and used it frequently, and by the way, like I'm not just, I didn't do it in my business life. I never had a Facebook account. I've never had.

Nick Berry (14:22)

You're the

one.

Shireen Hilal (14:23)

I'm the one, I've never had Instagram. never wanted any of it. And everybody was, Shireen you know, gotta get on. And then everyone's like, wow, you gotta get off, you were already off. But I never, it just wasn't my, it wasn't my way of communicating with people. So if you don't know what you're doing and you start kind of putting out this businessy writing,

on LinkedIn, all of a sudden you're like, why don't I sound human? Like why, like why is it so hard to just sound, sound like how if we're having a conversation, why can't you just write like that?

Nick Berry (14:51)

Thank

Yeah, it's like you walked into the wrong room and start and began your presentation to the wrong audience.

Shireen Hilal (15:06)

Totally, it's like you get up there and a lot, this is not just me. I mean, I see this with a lot of lawyers, know, the way the post is written, you're kind of like, my goodness, like, this is like, I don't know, some Benjamin Franklin stuff. It's very, you know, it's a little old timey and like, see attached and, you know, I'm proud to announce and you're like, who, no one would ever, people don't talk like that.

Nick Berry (15:30)

Yeah. But

I mean, if you, I think you will, if you're not careful, the same thing can happen if you decide to like, I'm going to leave my voice behind. I'm going to go there and I'm going to try to like create my voice for that environment. And then you, you know, you read enough of the whatever we want to call it. That's already there. And you can kind of take on this new voice that you've acquired by reading everybody else's, all the other shit that's on there. Like,

I call it the mode. It's, um, or it's like when you're interviewing people for podcasts, it doesn't happen much anymore. I don't think, I don't know what, what's different, but it used to be like, we could be having the best conversation. And as soon as I hit record it, like everything changed about them. Yeah. And I probably did some of it too. Uh, but you know, the same thing would happen. Like, you know, I could send you an email message and we, can handle whatever.

Shireen Hilal (15:57)

It's bad. It's bad.

Yeah.

Really?

Nick Berry (16:24)

It's clear, simple, start to write a social media post. And it is, it's some different voice with some other plan for how they're going to communicate this message. It's like you get contaminated by that environment. ⁓ it's, yeah, that's what it feels like to, you know, when you try to unlearn it, it's like, holy shit, how do I, how do I get back to being me? So social media did that to me.

Shireen Hilal (16:37)

I like the word contaminated.

Right.

Nick Berry (16:47)

I'm not sure that it was entirely social media's fault, but that's what brought it to the surface. that's kind of the thing that happens. Social media gets a lot of the blame for it. The digital world. so the way that I've learned to address that is looking at it like groups of stakeholders, right? So I've talked to,

Shireen Hilal (17:03)

Mm.

Nick Berry (17:04)

you a certain way and you and I have gotten to be friends and we have conversations. And so like, I'm just really comfortable talking to you. And I think I would do probably be this way wherever we run into each other. I, if I was talking to my mother, it would be a little bit different, right? Because I have a different relationship with her. And then if I was talking to a lady across the street who I know lives there, but we wave, never had a conversation, we would have a different, it would be a different dynamic.

Shireen Hilal (17:10)

Fame.

Agreed.

Yes.

Right.

Nick Berry (17:30)

So they're all stakeholders and like you have to have a sense of awareness for who are you speaking to in what context? And that's what will help you bring the appropriate voice to the table. And if you don't, it would be, if I started talking to you, like I'd never met you, like I would my mother, it would just be awkward. That's what we're doing on social media.

Shireen Hilal (17:38)

Mm.

Yes.

Yeah, and it's awkward.

Nick Berry (17:50)

But I mean,

yeah, it is. And it's not just restricted to individuals, it's audiences. So I use the example of walking into the wrong room, got up on the wrong stage and started doing your presentation in front of an audience who is expecting a different speaker. And you were expecting a different audience. Like that is a mismatch. It would be awkward in real life. Well, I mean, that's what we do if we bring our corporate voice into a more social conversation.

Shireen Hilal (18:18)

Yeah, and it kind of what we were talking about before with it's hard maybe to be vulnerable, like asking your clients for real feedback. I think similarly, we're kidding ourselves if we don't say we care what people think when we post, right? Of course we do. ⁓ And of course it's sort of like, ooh, is that a good one?

Nick Berry (18:27)

Mm-hmm.

you

Shireen Hilal (18:42)

Do I sound a certain way? Do I sound stupid? I, you know, whatever. Oh, it didn't get that many likes. Now I feel, I don't know, like was it a bad post or? Right, where, yeah, and it's kind of perspective too, right? Because, okay, let's say you're like, oh, like this only got 27 whatevers. Wow, if 27 people were to tell me, Shireen, I love the article you wrote or.

Nick Berry (18:51)

Yet does that make it bad? must be bad. It didn't get as many likes.

Shireen Hilal (19:09)

I really, love the jacket you're wearing today. I would be on cloud nine, right? Like I would be elated. Like, wow, that's a lot of positive energy, but somehow we get out there and it feels very inadequate, right?

Nick Berry (19:12)

Yeah.

It is.

It does. Yeah. Yeah. And we

draw so many of those conclusions from it that are, it's just the stuff that goes on up here.

Shireen Hilal (19:29)

Again.

Yeah, just makes you realize there's all these people just anxiously posting maybe, right?

Nick Berry (19:39)

Yeah, yeah, I miss being stressed out and I've been through that. I handle it a lot better now than I used to, but there was a time where I was just like,

Shireen Hilal (19:45)

You're great.

You post a lot. You're good.

Nick Berry (19:47)

Well, I've kind of learned to take a, know, I just can't give like, I'm going to make, make the post and then whatever comes of it comes of it. it's not going to, it's reception is not really going to define how I feel about what was put together. and that piece is not going to define, much more about me. I focus on what I can control,

Shireen Hilal (20:07)

Definitely.

Nick Berry (20:07)

You said you thought starting Maior would be easy since you do this for other firms. And I'd like to hear what you think about that now.

Shireen Hilal (20:15)

Yeah,

wow, it's so not. And it is so much easier to tell other people what they're doing wrong in their business, right? I mean, come on. You're telling me. So much easier said than done. think, especially at the smaller stage, I only have three people working for me. So this is not some like big.

Nick Berry (20:23)

It's the beauty of being a coach.

Shireen Hilal (20:39)

enterprise business by any stretch of the imagination, right? Yeah, I think it is a lot harder when it's your business. For me, I think the staffing and hiring in particular has been one of the most difficult. And you and I know each other and I think have a friendship outside of this. So you know this, but…

I've just had different fits and starts with hiring people, trying out different skill sets, part-time, full-time, onshore, offshore. And the truth is, I think if you're in a really small business right now, the conclusion I've come to, let's see in six months if I change my mind, but you have to be moving really fast and evolving.

if you're doing this right, because the world around us is moving really fast. And if you're a small business, you're moving fast and you're iterating and growing quickly. And so if you're not recalibrating, how are you gonna stay nimble and profitable? And so for me, one of the hardest things has been figuring out, then how do you ever keep like,

a steady stable of people who are helping me on this business, whether it is full-time or part-time or on a consulting basis or any combination of those things, how do you keep the right mix? And one of the conclusions that it probably took me way too long to come to is I think at this size,

finding people who are a little more of a Swiss army knife is I think really important because I can fill for a need today and within two, three months, Nick, like my business is changing. The kind of work we're doing for our clients is different. What I need the support on is different because that is how fast it moves when you're in a small business, right? I mean,

changing over three clients can be the difference of a complete shift in the type of work you're doing and the kind of output you need. So I don't know, think it's more, my outlook going forward is gonna be a little more that Swiss army knife, right? Like who is able to more quickly adapt a little fearless around

trying things, you know, it's more about, I think, like, the willingness to learn and dig in. Because I can teach you the subject matter, right? I can't teach you to have the tenacity to be like, well, I'll watch a YouTube video and like learn about that.

Nick Berry (23:07)

Yeah.

Yeah. There's something to the, the willingness to be agile or nimble in people. Like being a Swiss army knife is a good, like it can be handy utility wise, but I think it tends to tell you a little bit about their mentality or their, willing they are to adapt. And that's super important.

Shireen Hilal (23:28)

Yeah.

Cause your skill set is going to be outdated very quickly if there's change over in clients, if it's just what's happening in the market. If it's even for me, it's not necessarily, I'm grateful that my clients tend to stay with me, but what they need changes, right? I mean, you solve one problem, there's another problem and it may look completely different. so

Nick Berry (23:36)

So.

Shireen Hilal (23:57)

It's not necessarily the exact same kinds of research that we're doing all the time or the same kind of work product that we're bringing.

Nick Berry (24:06)

for you, has it been more of a challenge to come to a decision on like we need to change or we need to adapt? Or has it been more of a challenge to enact the change?

Shireen Hilal (24:16)

I guess the former, although…

I get there, I don't know if anybody ever feels that they get there fast enough, because once you've realized something, you're like, I should, how did I not see this? How did I not see this two months ago, three months ago, four months? Like, what's wrong with me? But it comes to you when it comes to you, the piece I'm very grateful is not my issue is moving fast. So I'm lucky. This is both

as I think we all probably feel like our strengths are also our weaknesses in some ways, right? It's what we're good at is also a bit of a can stand in our way sometimes. So I feel very blessed that I am both very creative and curious and highly execution oriented. Where that gets dangerous is I can like spin up on a weekend, like four new

big projects. It's funny. So I have one employee who's been with me from the beginning. And I have one that joined probably three months ago, and he's awesome. And he asked her that we just had a call today, a catch up call, me and like employee one. And she was laughing. She said, he asked, is this just a really

busy time at the firm? Or is Shireen always like, is this how Shireen is? Is she always on like this? And she was like, yeah. Like she's like, this is, this is what it is. This is not like, yeah, this is, this is buckling. Like, yeah. And so it's a good thing. I think where it can be challenging is do you have the people around you?

Nick Berry (25:44)

Yep. This is Wednesday.

Shireen Hilal (25:55)

who aren't like, my gosh, like, what do you mean? Or one of my favorites, had somebody who didn't work out, liked to say to me, but I thought we do it this way. And I'd be like, yeah, we did until like two minutes ago. Like, guess what? We're changing. And look, something I am good at is once I see it, there's…

Nick Berry (26:11)

Right, until…

Shireen Hilal (26:19)

There's nothing standing in our way. And so even if we can't do the whole thing right now, there's gotta be something we can do to start. But we're not gonna sit here and wait for some grand plan two months from now. Like, uh-uh, nope. Nobody has time for that. Let's get out there and start.

Nick Berry (26:31)

Yeah.

Yeah. So now like I can totally see how this all plays out with you and your team and why you want those people with who are the Swiss army knives. Because once you see it, like we're going and you don't need to bury a lot of energy into having to drag people. You need to be able to help them like just turn, change their line of sight toward the new.

Shireen Hilal (26:48)

Work our way.

No.

Nick Berry (27:00)

goal or whatever the new target is. And on we go. this is part of it here, right? You can't, you don't need to have like this big energy pit or burn every time you do have wanted to make a pivot where it's like, okay, now I've got to like rally the troops and then I've got to go to the ones who are going to be really hard to get them refocused and pull them and pat them on the back. And that's just not the environment.

Shireen Hilal (27:05)

Bye!

And I think it helped.

I show them, I'm like, wait, I don't know how to do this either. Right? Like we're all gonna try this and it's new. I wasn't, it came to me, but I wasn't doing it. So we're all gonna just have to learn this. ⁓ We're gonna divide and conquer. We're gonna figure out who's gonna do what and like, let's do it. And so having that curiosity,

Nick Berry (27:34)

you

Mm-hmm.

Shireen Hilal (27:46)

is a pretty important trait for me. It's also then, you can't skimp or cheap out on people if that's the expectation, right? Like you have to, I think you have to compensate nicely for that. ⁓

Nick Berry (28:00)

Yeah.

I mean, you get what you pay for, like with people as much or more than anything, the whole A player thing, it's true. I mean, there's a level that's worth multiples.

Shireen Hilal (28:04)

That's exactly right.

It's a hundred percent true. I,

Nick, I see it all the time. I have a firm where this is one example, but you see it constantly where it's like, well, you know, could you think we can offer like a base salary of this instead of this? And I'm just like, yeah. And guess what? Just look, look outside and ask yourself, have you ever seen a great

company, firm, corporate, whatever, that was built by being cheap with good people. I've never seen it. I mean, the qualifier there, and it's an important one, is good people, right? We don't wanna overpay people that aren't able to deliver, but…

Nick Berry (28:51)

It doesn't mean nice people. It doesn't mean friendly people. It doesn't mean people that you like more. It means good, based on the, has to be produced out of this position.

Shireen Hilal (28:54)

Correct. Correct.

Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Berry (29:02)

But I mean, I think so you can look at Elon and I use Elon as an example because I think by now most people have heard about like his style and how he filters to acquire the top level talent. he only going to do it, do something if he's clear on what the problem that they're going to solve is and he can get the bring the best talent in, in the world to work on that. And the results are the result that speaks for themselves.

And you don't have to approach it the way that he approaches it. But it's an easy to see example of the difference in when you are clearly going after the top tier of talent the A players versus, other companies who are doing really well, but they're not doing what Elon's companies are. And they don't focus on only the top.

level. They take good and better. He takes the best only.

Shireen Hilal (29:48)

Right.

Well, and I think there's a reason, right? Like the amount of innovation happening there, it's on a different level. It's not, there is no run and maintain. I don't get the sense at least, right? I've never been inside these companies, inside his companies, but it's, I don't get the sense it's a run and maintain operation. I also get the sense, I mean, he's doing things that have never been done and pushing the innovation boundaries.

So

Who do you think is gonna be able to do that for you? And I feel that way about my business, obviously on a much smaller basis. It's nothing like that, right? I'm not putting people in space. I'm not, no way, but.

Nick Berry (30:21)

Bye.

But I think that you are working with professional services who do have there's a lot of standards, credentials, there's rigor in place. There's a lot of antiquated practices, maybe policies. And I think you being the way that you are and your creativity is part of what makes it such a good match for you.

Shireen Hilal (30:45)

Yes, and here's the thing.

Yes, and it's knowing.

best practices are a floor, right? They are mediocre at best. They're not best. They're average. And so are you willing to put in that energy to figure out what's going to work for this group of people in this market trying to get this accomplished?

And so that's a perfect example.

the person who didn't work out at my company would like to look at our projects and say, yeah, but what's best practice or what's normal in law firms? And I would say, I don't want you to think about what's normal in law firms because by definition, 90 % of law firms are not in the top 10%. So if we wanna look at what an average law firm does, that is not what we build at this firm.

We will make our clients the top 10%. That's the energy we have. So you have to have that more innovation mindset. Otherwise, sure, I'll just crank out another playbook. But do you want average results? I don't. My clients don't.

Nick Berry (31:59)

And there are places where they probably wouldn't say that, but like their strategy is designed to produce that.

Shireen Hilal (32:04)

use this framework

and by the way, it's like Weight Watchers, right? It's definitely better than not doing something. And for a lot of people just having a plan, if you're able to stick to it is awesome. Is that the same as getting a nutritionist and a like fitness guru helping you or a personal trainer? It's not.

Nick Berry (32:12)

Mm-hmm.

Shireen Hilal (32:27)

But it's better eating a bag of potato chips, I guess.

Nick Berry (32:31)

Before you go, watch my conversation with Dr. Benjamin Hardy next. It's the one that's on your screen right now. We get into why most founders end up being what holds their businesses back and how to set proper goals so you can scale. It's the most watched episode that I've ever done. Go check it out.