About one first meeting in four ends here
When not to hire us
This page exists because the alternative is finding out in month two. Five situations in which we are the wrong spend, and what we would suggest instead.
-
The business is smaller than about four people
Below that there is usually not enough structure for this to be the right spend, because almost every finding is "the owner is doing everything", which you know. The money is better spent on the first hire or on a bookkeeper, and both of those will do more for the next twelve months than a document will. We say this several times a month and mean it.
-
There is a cash emergency this month
A margin review takes four to six weeks and costs $11,000 at the short end. If payroll is in question in a fortnight, that is the wrong shape of help at the wrong speed, and spending on it makes the position worse rather than better. Talk to your accountant and your bank first, this week, and telephone us when the immediate thing is handled.
-
The decision has already been made
Work commissioned to justify something already decided is the most reliably wasted money in this trade. It is usually visible in the brief — the question has an answer built into it — and it ends with either a document nobody can use or a consultancy that agreed with the person paying it. If you want the decision pressure-tested, say that instead and it is a much shorter and cheaper piece of work.
-
What is actually wrong belongs to another profession
A dispute, a classification question, a tax position, an insurance claim, something clinical, something with a regulator in it. We will tell you in the first meeting and we will say which kind of professional it is. Buying management consulting to avoid buying the right advice is a well-travelled and expensive road.
-
Nobody inside the business has time to do any of it
Every engagement here ends with somebody in your business doing something differently. If there is genuinely nobody with a few hours a week for the next three months — not reluctantly, actually nobody — then the work will produce a document and no change, and we would rather wait until after the season than sell you one. This is the reason we most often suggest starting in eight weeks rather than on Monday.
Why a consultancy would publish this
Because every one of those five ends badly, and an engagement that ends badly costs far more than the enquiry it would have been. A six-person firm in Queens lives on being telephoned again and being mentioned to somebody else; neither survives a client who spent eleven thousand dollars on the wrong thing, however carefully the document was written.
It is also the honest version of what the free first meeting is for. A meeting that always ends in a proposal is a sales call with a nicer name, and the only thing that makes ninety free minutes different is being willing to spend them and then say no.
$2,200 a partner day · ninety minutes free · about one in four we talk out of it
If none of those is you, the assessment is four minutes
The assessment takes about four minutes and gives you a written summary of what your answers suggest and which engagement addresses each thing. It is indicative and not professional advice, and it is a better opening than a blank contact form. If you would rather skip it, the telephone works and the first meeting is ninety minutes and free.