The new year is a good time to start new, better habits, from improving our diets to exercising more. But it is also a great time to turn over a new leaf at work, setting more ambitious sales or client management goals. And Vertical IQ can help. 

A value-added advisor is someone whose ideas and advice you respect enough to invest time and money into having them around. The business relationship is about more than just the product purchase itself. 

“Are we keeping up with the Joneses?” Owners of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are always interested in how their competition is doing…and how they compare to them financially. Yes, it may be about ego to some degree, but it also tells a business owner how their company is faring financially. Are they middling, above average,...

The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) was developed as the standard for use by the U.S. federal government’s statistical agencies, replacing the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system in 1997. Industry-specific NAICS codes are assigned to each business in the country, classifying them for the collection and...

As a busy professional, you likely find yourself burning the candle at both ends much of the time. You know that you should do more to prepare for meeting with small business owners, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. 

When studying economics—or marketing for that matter—one of the first concepts that you probably explored was that of “needs” versus “wants.” In the simplest terms, it’s the difference between a nice-to-have and a must-have.

In order to have industry expertise, one must also have solid knowledge on the cyclicality of the nation’s economy. The state of the economy starts and stops with the consumer. For example, in 2017, consumer spending represented 68 percent of GDP. When the consumer stops spending, businesses suffer, and the slowdown filters on down from...

At Vertical IQ, we often talk about how industry research can help build value-added client relationships. A recent survey conducted by Accounting Today, a leading provider of online business news for the accounting community, underscores this fact.

One of the fascinating things about working for Vertical IQ is learning about the structures of industries and why they have evolved that way. At the heart of what we analyze are the numerous facets that drive revenue—and factors that make businesses within that sector succeed or fail. Indeed, it’s every advisor’s job to understand how...