Insights
The team at This Friday has lived and breathed professional services for many years.
Our insights are snapshots of what we’ve learned from the challenges and opportunities we’ve faced and how our experience can help build your business.
Right to Disconnect
The Right to Disconnect takes effect for small businesses on August 26, 2025. While the legislation sets clear boundaries, the real challenge lies in culture, leadership, and the realities of workplace expectations. In this insight, Julie Scardamaglia explores why policies alone aren’t enough and how aligning them with culture and communication is critical to protect firms.
The three biggest BD mistakes
It's not your personality or packed schedule—it's three avoidable mistakes. Skipping the research (showing up unprepared), weak positioning (can't articulate value beyond credentials), and missing the human connection (talking at clients, not with them). The game changer? Stop thinking of business development as "selling" and start seeing it as an extension of great client service.
Senior promotions, but now what?
'Tis the season for promotions. Firms celebrate new partners and directors, but excitement often turns to frustration when leaders realise they're unprepared for demands that differ vastly from technical expertise. The result? Dysfunctional teams, misaligned priorities, and previously high performers left floundering.
Golden ticket to great client relationships
Client reviews are often conducted by the same people who delivered the work (or in the same team). You'll never get honest feedback that way. Client reviews done well can reveal: early warning signs before clients’ defect, unspoken expectations you're missing and cross-selling opportunities hiding in plain sight. The only way to know is to ask properly.
When performance reviews underperform
Annual performance reviews can be frustrating rituals where managers and employees repeat the same conversations year after year. Familiar problem? Assuming everyone wants promotion. Many senior professionals are genuinely content in their roles, seeking stability over advancement.
AI - Your communications partner
When you get AI to write your marketing articles, it saves you time and effort. But what’s it costing you? It’s actually costing you all the reasons you want to write the article in the first place.
This isn’t what I signed up for
Organisations must ensure brand consistency across all candidate touchpoints, recognising that authentic experiences build trust while broken promises erode it. The brand lives in these moments of truth, not just in marketing materials.
Maybe it's not the work but the why
More than ever, employees need a sense of purpose in the work they do. Without it, they walk. So, what can firms do to satisfy that need and maintain an effective workplace? Julie Scardamaglia explains.
Hearing crickets...
Clever professionals deal with a lot of client problems, so when they meet a prospective client, they think they know what the problem is. But that’s a problem in itself.