Ring In 2017 with a New “Word of the Year”

What is your company’s 2017 Word of the Year?

AJC announces “Growth” as the 2017 word of the year; following 2016 “Strategy” and 2015 “Peace.”  Learn more about how AJC chose these words, and what they mean for us and you going forward in 2017!  We encourage you to select your own word, and would love to hear what it is as a comment to this post at the end of this blog post! 

Two years ago, a colleague suggested that each member of our professional advisory group announce a “word of the year” to help focus and embody their primary goal for the new year.  That was 2015, and AJC’s word was “Peace.”  At the time, AJC was at an inflection point from being an independent consultancy to offering scaled services which would staff additional Associate consultants.  The decision had many facets, and as the owner of AJC, my main goal for that year was to feel at peace about this new business model.

After a year of both successes and learnings, I honestly did feel at peace with the decision to move AJC toward a multi-person group, and in feeling so, decided that the word for 2016 would be “Strategy.”  Transitioning from an independent service provider to a staffed model required a different approach to business development, and I had to develop methods to promote our services to a wider audience.  Hence the inception of this newsletter, as well as beginning to publish content articles in LinkedIn and a new website blog.

In 2017, the natural progression for AJC after “Peace” and “Strategy,” is “Growth:” the New Word of the Year.  It is somewhat intimidating to publicly announce “Growth” as AJC’s word.   There is risk involved as AJC has limited control over the amount of work coming to in, and we plan to pace our growth in order to maintain AJC’s high standards of service over a larger client base with more consultants working.

Still, there are many reasons to be optimistic.  AJC has several high-quality projects under our belt, collectively over the past two years (ten for me).  We have developed terrific client relationships and are pleased to unveil the “Clients” tab of our updated website which provides testimonials from many of our recent engagements.  We have at least three more experienced consultants lined up to join our team in 2017.  But above all, everyone at AJC wants what is truly right for our clients; independent of what this means for us. 

To this end, we have recommended or encouraged clients to work with other consultants on areas that are not in our wheelhouse.  We try to “right-size” projects to fit client budgets and needs.  We coach clients to enable them to take ownership of project work and tools that we have helped to create, and we love to help clients with growth ideas or to make personal connections in any way that we can. 

We believe that “Growth” will come as a natural consequence to our work ethic and beliefs, as well as our strategic marketing efforts and availability of experienced consultants.  When you engage with AJC, we partner with you for the long term; “Growth” happens best with deep and sturdy roots.