Consulting, priced for the outcome.
Most consulting is priced for the consultant's comfort: hourly billing that rewards slow work, or bloated retainers that reward showing up. We structure consulting around partnership economics instead: a startup onboarding fee, a profit share on the growth we help create, and equity or royalty structures in deeper partnerships. Here is how each engagement shape works and what shapes the fee.
Three engagement shapes
Consulting is not one thing. Pick the shape that matches the problem:
- Advisory. A second brain on demand. Strategy calls, campaign reviews, offer teardowns, second opinions before big spends. You bring the questions, we bring the operator's read. Best when you run the business and need sharp outside judgment at decision points.
- Project consulting. A defined engagement with a defined deliverable: a full marketing audit, a growth plan, a channel strategy, an offer rebuild. Scoped up front, delivered on a schedule, with findings you own whether or not we work together afterward.
- Embedded partnership. We operate inside the business on an ongoing basis: owning strategy, directing execution, building systems, and being accountable for outcomes. Not advice from the sidelines, an operator in the building. Best when you need senior leadership without a full-time executive hire, and the business is ready for a real partnership.
Every shape starts with a startup onboarding fee, shaped by your industry, your niche, and where the company stands today. For projects and operators we believe in, the onboarding fee can be waived. Ongoing work carries a profit share on the growth we help create, and deeper partnerships can carry equity or royalty structures. The shapes can stack: plenty of relationships start with a project, an audit or a plan, and evolve into embedded work once the trust is earned. We do not pitch the bigger shape on day one. The work earns it or it does not happen.
What shapes the fee
When we quote consulting, these are the real variables:
- Depth of involvement. A monthly advisory call and an embedded partnership are different commitments with different economics. The quote follows the involvement, not a rate card.
- Scope of the business. Advising a single-location service business and advising a multi-brand portfolio are different jobs. Complexity scales with the number of moving parts.
- Deliverable versus ongoing. A defined project with an end date is quoted as a fixed scope. Ongoing work is quoted as an ongoing arrangement. You always know which one you are buying.
- Speed. Standard scheduling versus urgent timelines. We will tell you honestly when a deadline compresses the work enough to change the quote.
- Access and data. The better the access, to accounts, to numbers, to the team, the sharper the work. Engagements where we are kept at arm's length cost the same and deliver less, so we insist on real access.
What you will never see: hourly billing that rewards dragging things out, or a retainer that bills the same whether anything happens or not. If the engagement is not producing, we say so before you have to ask.
Advice from operators, not observers
The consulting industry has a credibility problem, and it is deserved. Here is our position on it:
- We run businesses with our own capital at risk. Instant Money Junk Cars scaled to 3,000 plus cars in a year with operations and profit up 4x, and every lesson in our consulting comes from work like that, not from frameworks.
- We will tell you when you do not need us. Sometimes the answer is a single fix, sometimes it is a different service, sometimes the business is fine. The honest read is the product.
- We do not sell 40-page reports nobody reads. Deliverables are built to be used: punch lists, plans, and decisions, not documentation theater.
- When we do not know something, we say so. A consultant who has an answer for everything is performing, not advising.
If what you need is execution rather than advice, look at the service it belongs to: PPC audits, conversion audits, deliverability fixes. Consulting is for the questions that sit above any single channel: where the business should go and how the machine should be built. The same rule applies here as everywhere: we aren't a marketing company. The marketing services we offer are just for our partner clients.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on the engagement shape and the economics: a startup onboarding fee shaped by your industry, your niche, and where the company stands today, plus a profit share on the growth we help create in ongoing work. For projects and operators we believe in, the onboarding fee can be waived. We quote from a conversation about what you actually need, not from a rate card.
Advisory is a sharp answer on demand: calls and reviews when you need a second brain. Project consulting is a defined engagement with a deliverable, like an audit or a growth plan. Embedded consulting is a partnership: we operate inside your business on an ongoing basis, owning outcomes rather than delivering documents, with profit share or equity structures on the table.
Yes. Sometimes one sharp conversation is all a business needs: a read on what is working, what is broken, and what to do next. If the answer turns out to be bigger than one session, we scope it from there.
We operate businesses, we do not just advise them. Our consulting comes from running our own portfolio: buying the leads, spending the ad dollars, managing the operations. Advice from someone with their own capital at risk reads differently than advice from a slide deck.
Yes, and it happens regularly. Sometimes the answer is a single fix, sometimes it is a different service entirely, sometimes the business is fine and the owner needs to hear that. We would rather give you the honest read than sell you an engagement.
Embedded engagements are ongoing by nature, but they are not traps. Either side can end the arrangement with reasonable notice. The work has to keep earning its place, same as any other part of your business.
No. We aren't a marketing company. The marketing services we offer are just for our partner clients.
Get the operator's read
on your business.
Apply and tell us what you are deciding. We will tell you which model fits, or whether you need us at all.