Two things. Two numbers.
The roadmap, and then the part that makes it happen. Stated here so it isn’t a conversation. Nothing is scoped by the hour and there is no billing clock.
The Next Version
$35,000 USD · four to six weeksWhere the company has to be in two years. What’s in the way across product, systems, marketing and cost. What closing that gap is worth, move by move, with a name against each one.
I look at what the business actually did before I form a view. That gives us a basis for deciding what to do first and what each move is worth. You end with a roadmap you could hand to your board.
Ninety days in the corner
$75,000 USD · ninety daysHere’s what kills these plans, and it isn’t the plan. Everyone nods in the room, and by week three the machine has quietly gone back to the old way. People go back to the old way when nobody is coming to look.
So I stay in. I hold what got done against what we decided and say straight whether each move is on track, drifting, or stalled on a decision upstream, and I keep the economics current as things change. Your people run it. I’m not managing anyone and I’m not building anything.
Optional, and worth more than the roadmap if the roadmap is going to sit in a drawer.
What people ask before the first call.
Why not price it by the day?
Because then my incentive is more days. A fixed number for a fixed outcome means the fastest route is also the best one for me, and you can tell that from the structure rather than having to take my word for it.
Do I have to buy both?
No. Plenty of companies have the bench to run a roadmap once they have one, and if that’s you, take the roadmap and go. The ninety days is for when you already know the honest answer is that it would otherwise slip.
Why is the advisory more than the investigation?
Because it’s three months of my attention against four to six weeks of it, and because it’s the part that decides whether any of the first part turns into money. The roadmap is the cheaper half and the easier half.
What happens after the ninety days?
Usually nothing, and that’s the intended outcome: your people are running it and I’m not needed. It can continue monthly if it’s genuinely useful. It is never a condition and there is nothing to cancel.
Do you take a cut when you introduce a specialist?
No, and I won’t. The moment there’s a commission attached to who I name, you have to wonder whether I named them because they’re right or because they pay me. The introduction is free, which is the only way it’s worth anything.
What do you need from us?
Finance first: what you billed by customer over time, and what you spent. That’s one export from one person who reports to you and it doesn’t need an IT ticket. After that, whatever’s least painful: reports you already run, call recordings, a support export. If something is locked down, someone with access drives their screen while I ask for specific views. Nothing leaves the building.
Do you do the implementation?
No. Your people run it, or hands I bring in do. A fix that needs me in the room forever isn’t a fix. And every engagement I’ve run has ended with the client owning the thing rather than renting it from me.
How many of these do you take?
A handful a quarter. The first weeks don’t work if they’re cut into pieces.
Start with the question, not the invoice.
One email. Tell me where you want this company to be in two years, and I’ll tell you whether this is the right thing, or that it isn’t.