Pricing
Your retainer is priced on the average and staffed for the peak
Recurring revenue that arrives smoothly and is consumed in bursts hides a cost most service firms never price, and a renewal risk they never see coming.
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Research, frameworks and market analysis from our consulting practice: written up for small and medium business owners and enterprise teams alike.
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Growth strategy
“Proposal sent” is not a stage
Most pipelines advance on something the seller did. That makes the forecast a record of effort, and the win rate…
Market analysis
You’re known for the work you’re trying to stop doing
Reputation lags strategy by years, and the cheapest leads you get are always for the offer you're trying to leave…
Leadership
Your absence test was shorter than your decision cycle
A fortnight away without incident is often taken as proof the business runs itself. It usually proves something much narrower…
Growth strategy
The payback calculation used a margin you don’t earn in year one
CAC payback is almost always computed with a steady-state gross margin, and new customers rarely cost what mature ones do.
Pricing
The overhead was spread by revenue. The work wasn’t.
Most cost allocations are a convenience rather than a measurement, and that convenience quietly decides which customers you chase and…
Market analysis
The competitor set was chosen by whoever wrote the shortlist
Win/loss analysis tells you a great deal about the deals you were invited into, and almost nothing about the ones…
Operations
The fifth hire changed the job of the first four
Add a fifth person to a team of four and capacity rarely rises by a quarter. The reason usually isn't…
Growth strategy
The second site is judged against a P&L that includes free labour
Most expansion cases are built by trimming the first site's numbers for caution: which quietly assumes the first site's numbers…
Operations
Your pilot proved the pilot
Proof-of-concept work is staffed, scoped and supervised in ways the full rollout never will be: which is why so many…
Take it further
This is the general pattern. Your business is the specific case.
Everything here is free to read with an account, and always will be. What it cannot do is tell you which of these applies to your numbers, your market and your constraints. That is the work we do with clients.