Pro Serv Podcast by Collective 54 Episode 257 - You Built a Firm on the Wrong Playbook. Now What?
Apr 9, 2026
Chris Fezza, RevOps pro and founder of Operatus with ~16 years of experience, shares his shift from in-house roles to running a consulting firm. He discusses flawed SaaS-style pricing, how training offers turned into done-for-you delivery, margin compression during rapid growth, hiring to standardize delivery, and tightening services and comp plans to protect profit.
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SaaS Pricing Mistake Turned Into Done-For-You Demand
- Chris assumed consulting would be like working multiple in-house roles at once and priced services like a SaaS subscription with fixed monthly hours.
- He launched month-to-month 40–80 hour packages, then customers asked for done-for-you work instead of training, shifting demand.
Revenue Can Rise While Margins Fall During Scale
- Rapid revenue growth hid shrinking margins because hiring to meet demand raised costs and didn't improve oversight.
- Chris found expensive interim hires and recruiters created poor gross margins and revealed that higher pay didn't reduce oversight needs.
Standardize Delivery And Narrow Your Service Set
- Standardize delivery into repeatable methodologies so junior hires can execute and you preserve gross margin.
- Narrow service offerings to specific RevOps use cases rather than trying to do every possible function on every engagement.