The old way
The spreadsheet, the manual step, the tool you picked when the company was half this size. It still works. It just takes more of you every month.
Operating Engagement
Every phase leaves you something you can use.
This is for a business that has outgrown its systems. It starts with a diagnosis, so the problem is written down before anything is designed or built.
You buy one phase at a time. Each gets its own scope, its own price, and its own decision.
No contract covers the whole engagement. Stop after any phase and you keep what it produced.
6phases, each priced and decided on its own
If you're fixing how you run
You've outgrown the systems you built to get here.
The internal attempt
You put someone on it. Between their real job and the parts nobody owned, it stalled and nobody can say exactly when.
The search outside
Then you went looking outside. The question you couldn’t get answered was whether any of it is sized for a business like yours.
The split
By now you can describe what you need: the diagnosis and the build held by one capable expert. That’s the requirement you keep having to explain.
What each one is for
What each phase gets you, and where you can stop.
- 00
Assess it
The examination covers how the business runs today: where the time and money go, and which problem to fix first.
It takes about a week and two to three hours of your time, in a few conversations. It ends in a written report with a recommendation, and every finding links to its evidence. The $2,500 is credited in full if you go on to the next phase.
- What you get
- A written diagnosis of the real problem, what to address first, and what addressing it takes. It may say you shouldn't build.
- Closes with
- Your decision: go, change course, or stop.
- Scoped and priced
- Before you start, at a fixed price.
- 01
Shape it
You get one recommendation. It says what to do, why it fits your business, what got rejected, and which tradeoffs you're taking.
You also come out with cost ranges for building it and for running it afterward, and the things that move those numbers.
- What you get
- An architecture: the systems the business should run on, and the order to get there in.
- Closes with
- Your decision to commit to a specification, or to stop with the architecture in hand.
- Scoped and priced
- After the first phase closes.
- 02
Specify it
The build stops being an unknown. What it takes gets decided item by item, and that's what the build gets priced from.
This is where deployment, data, access, integrations, and testing get decided, before anyone starts building.
- What you get
- A technical specification: the build, described closely enough to hand to whoever builds it.
- Closes with
- Your decision to build and who builds it, or to stop with the specification in hand.
- Scoped and priced
- After the architecture.
- 03
Build it
The manual step goes away. What replaces it runs in your environment, with your data moved over and the connections in place.
This is the phase that varies most. What's in it comes from the specification you already approved.
- What you get
- The system itself: built, configured, tested, migrated, delivered.
- Closes with
- Your decision to take it live, or to stop with the working system.
- Scoped and priced
- After the specification.
- 04
Deliver it
Your team runs it while I'm still on the engagement, so the questions get answered while I'm still the one answering them.
What they learn is the operating part: reading its health, approving changes, adding workflows, and knowing when something needs escalating.
- What you get
- A handoff package. Your team being able to run it is the deliverable, not a bonus.
- Closes with
- Your decision to run it yourselves, or to keep me on.
- Scoped and priced
- After the build is planned.
- 05
Stay available
The five phases above are meant to end with your team running what was built without me. This one is built to be declined.
If you want me available after that, it's monthly, and it covers what you actually want me for: review, coaching, or capacity held open.
It carries a three-month minimum. You get a quarter where I don't leave for a bigger opportunity, and I get a quarter of steady work.
If you'd rather not commit to that, the other route stays open: another bounded piece of work, scoped and priced when it comes up.
- What you get
- Defined availability, on terms we agree in advance.
- Closes with
- Nothing further. You can stop here, and there is no obligation to continue.
- Scoped and priced
- After delivery, if you want it.
If you replace me
You can hand this to another provider at any seam.
No contract covers the whole engagement. Each phase is scoped and agreed on its own, so you are never committed to the next one by the one before it.
The architecture is written so someone else can follow the rationale, the constraints, the boundaries, and the assumptions that still need checking.
The specification is written so someone else can build from it.
That's what the written work is for. Every one of those documents is meant to be read by someone who isn't me.
The tools I use to produce them stay mine. That split is written into the roadmap you get at the end of the first phase. What do I keep when it's over?
The reason to keep me should be that the work is still worth what it costs, not that leaving is hard.
How it's priced
Three ways this gets priced, and only one of them is published.
Set in advance
The first phase is paid, and it is the only part with a price I can publish: $2,500. It’s the same number for everyone, and it concludes before anything is designed or built.
If you go on, the $2,500 is credited in full against the next phase. If the report misses anything on the written list we agree before I start, I fix it or refund the $2,500. The credit and the guarantee · See a sample of the report
Quoted per phase
Every later phase is quoted on its own, once the one before it has closed, at a fixed price for that phase. You’re buying an outcome, not hours.
Monthly, if you want it
The last one is a subscription. What it buys is defined availability, response expectations, and where my responsibility stops.
A quote can’t be issued before the phase has a stated outcome and a written definition of done.
Payments are milestone-based, three parts by default, each one tied to a point in the phase.
The price moves when the work changes: a new objective, a system nobody mentioned, a decision reversed, feedback after the window closed.
I absorb my own errors, my own learning curve, and ordinary variation inside what I quoted.
A late payment pauses the work. It never accrues interest, a finance charge, or a late fee.
Questions
Questions
Every phase here is meant to be a place you can stop.
The first one is the only one you're deciding on now.
Book your strategy callFree. 20 minutes. No commitment. I’ll listen first, then send you a summary of how, and whether, I can help.