Episode 98

July 31, 2025

Why "Client Love" Isn’t Enough to Scale Your PS Firm w/ Alex Klein and Tom Rodenhauser (Part 3)

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In this third episode of our series with Kennedy Intelligence, host Brent reunites with Alex Klein and Tom Rodenhauser to break down why “Client Love” alone won’t scale your consulting firm past $30M. They share hard-won insights and practical strategies for shifting from founder-driven relationships to scalable, value-based client engagement.


Key topics covered include:

  • The limitations of client satisfaction as a growth metric
  • Why firms get stuck in the ‘friends and family’ trap
  • Frameworks for pushing back on unprofitable client demands
  • Tackling client concentration risk
  • How to measure what really matters


Our listeners receive exclusive preferred rates on Kennedy's market research, strategic advisory, performance improvement benchmarking and M&A services that are tailored to leaders of professional services firms. Just reference Kantata and you will receive preferred pricing on any of their assets or services. Go to www.kennedyintel.com to learn more.


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Host

Banoo Behboodi

Vice President, Success Engineering

Banoo Behboodi is a 20+ year software and services leader with extensive experience executing change initiatives with oversight of Customer Success, Professional Services and Delivery and Consulting functions. Banoo’s earlier experiences with AT&T Mobility, Coca-Cola Company and Ernst & Young leading key transformational and compliance projects, provided the foundation needed to be an effective leader and a change agent with a customer first mindset. Banoo is passionate about driving continuous improvement through sharing best practices and empowering resources through technology and analytics to optimize performance and job satisfaction while driving business outcomes.

Host

Brent Trimble

Vice President, Value Engineering

Brent brings more than 15+ year’s of leadership experience in Management Consulting, Strategic Delivery, Marketing services and product development firms to his technology role at Kantata. As the VP of Value Engineering and the Managing Director of Marketing Service & Agency Vertical, he specializes in identifying process improvement potential, business optimization and key health metrics for alignment and orientation.

With deep business understanding through an operator lens - Brent works with Kantata partner firms to refine intrinsic and extrinsic value drivers - giving firm principals the focus required for adoption, mobilization, value realization and ultimately - success.

Prior to joining Kantata, Brent was a client of the platform and held positions at Interpublic Group, Accenture, WPP, and independent marketing consulting firms.