Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

When businesses talk about “productizing,” they often picture cookie-cutter scopes and rigid templates. But according to Brian Kessman, that’s missing the point. Brian is the founder of Lodestar Consulting, and he’s spent 25 years helping agencies and consultancies scale without burning out teams or eroding margins. His approach isn’t about productizing services – it’s about productizing value. In this episode of The Handbook: The Operations Podcast, Brian and Harv dig into what that really means, and how it can transform both your client relationships and your bottom line.

From the outside, M&A can seem like a clean transaction – a new parent company, a logo change, a cheerful announcement. But inside? The reality is messier. Integration. Culture clashes. Reporting headaches. And a long list of decisions that determine whether the deal actually works. Dom Hawes has lived both sides. After his own agency was acquired (badly), he went on to build Selbey Anderson – a marketing services group backed by private equity, designed from day one to scale through M&A.