Meet the AI Trifecta of Firm Badassery

Using AI to Power Boost Leadership, Advisory and Practice Management

Ready to build a firm that actually runs like the modern business you say you are? Then it’s time to talk about AI because the real magic happens when you stop thinking of it as a shiny toy and start using it as a firm-wide power tool.

You have to start with yourself before you can apply AI effectively to the whole firm. From there, you can apply AI across your entire firm. I’m talking about firm-wide transformation in three key zones: leadership, advisory, and practice management. Or, as I like to call it, the trifecta of firm badassery.

This isn’t about adding one new tool or streamlining a task here and there. This is about shifting how your entire firm operates from how you lead your people to how you deliver value to how you make money (without burning out).

Let’s break it down.

Powerboosting Leadership (Yes, leveling up is ongoing)

So, you’ve started using AI to reflect on your leadership style. Great! Now it’s time to take that insight and use it to actually lead better. Real leadership isn’t just about running meetings or signing off on budgets. It’s about leading with influence and effectiveness, which comes when you tap into your well-honed intuition.

Here’s how AI helps:

• Leading with intuition. AI can surface insights from team interactions, meeting transcripts or feedback loops to highlight where your gut instincts are spot-on, and where they need some fine-tuning. Think of it as a leadership intuition booster pack.

• Mastering strategic thinking and decision influence. AI doesn’t make decisions for you, but it does make you a better decision-maker. Feed it data and it can synthesize trends, risks and opportunities so you can lead with clarity and foresight.

• Driving radical change. True change leadership isn’t about tossing in a new app or scheduling an extra Zoom. It’s about aligning your people and your mission for long-term transformation. AI helps you identify where friction lives, how to smooth it and how to get your people fully engaged and feeling “sticky.”

In short, AI transforms you from a tactical manager into a visionary force. And that’s where your firm will start to feel the shift.

Powerboosting Advisory (Because compliance-only is so last season)

Let’s be honest. Advisory is where the money and the meaning are. But it’s also where a lot of firms flounder because it requires deeper client understanding, next-level conversations and consistent value delivery. AI steps in as your advisory BFF to help you advance in the area of advisory and cash in on this profit multiplier.

Here’s what that looks like:

• AI-generated advisory roadmaps. You don’t have to white-knuckle your way into advisory services. AI can analyze client data to build a clear roadmap for what services are most needed and when.

• Better client conversations. Not everyone's born with a TED Talk-level gift of gab. AI can help you prep for meetings, suggest key discussion points and even identify emotional cues in client communication. It also helps you frame your advice within a well-structured story, not a spreadsheet.

• Practice growth on autopilot. Want to know where to cross-sell? Let AI find the patterns. Want sharper financial insights for your clients? AI’s already calculated them. Want your team to hold better advisory conversations? AI can train them, too.

This isn’t just “extra revenue.” AI helps you advance to highly evolved client service. It’s how firms become indispensable to those they serve.

Powerboosting Practice Management (AKA profit, please)

Running a firm efficiently and profitably takes more than hustle and headcount. It takes smarts. AI gives you that edge by enabling you to automate workflow and support a streamlined operation end-to-end that staff love.

Here’s how:

• Automation tools adoption. Automation of workflow helps bolster team productivity. Once comfortable with new automated processes, they’ll be far more accepting of automated bookkeeping and tax tools that elevate ROI in all the important areas: time, money, team.

• Pricing and packaging that works. Still billing by the hour? AI says, “hard pass!” With AI, you can assess client data and service outcomes to develop smarter value pricing models. And wrap them into packages that clients actually understand (and pay for).

• Streamlining adoption. New tools shouldn’t mean new headaches. AI helps onboard and train teams faster, predicts bottlenecks and even nudges users to adopt new tech with less drama.

• Ideal client profiles (for real). Ever wish you had a crystal ball to tell which clients are worth your time and which are just draining your soul? AI analyzes your current client base and builds profiles based on profitability, fit and service mix. So long, guesswork!

• ROI that actually means something: AI tracks performance in ways you never could manually. That includes everything from team efficiency to service profitability to tech utilization. So you’re not just growing...you’re growing (and scaling) smarter.

Level Up Everything

Look, AI isn’t just some shiny gadget. It’s a firm-wide accelerator. If you used it to “know yourself,” now it’s time to use it to know and grow your firm.

Leadership gets sharper. Advisory gets deeper. Practice management gets smarter. And you become the kind of firm people don’t just work with, they rave about.

AI isn’t replacing accountants. It’s replacing the old way of working. So let’s stop dragging our feet and start building firms of the future. Those are the firms with Xcellence (yeah, I said it).