Strategy, operations, planning
A structured review of an independent practice, delivered as a written Charter and one working session. For an experienced practitioner who has recently gone independent, or is about to.
They have a structure problem. They can do the work. What they do not have is a decided answer to what they sell, to whom, at what price, how they prove it before they have a case study, how the first conversation happens, and what they refuse. So the first year gets spent discovering those answers one expensive experiment at a time, usually while runway shortens.
What this is
You will not agree with all of it. That is the design.
Every recommendation comes with the reasoning, what it costs if I am wrong, and a plain statement of whether it is my call or yours. Where a decision is properly yours, your prices, your runway tolerance, your entity structure, it says so rather than pretending otherwise.
If what you want is your current plan reflected back to you with more confidence, you can get that anywhere, and from almost anyone. This is not that.
Fit
If any of these describe you, I will say so in the first conversation rather than after you have paid.
Deliverables
Written, so it can be reread and argued with rather than remembered from a meeting.
The nine decisions your practice runs on. What you sell, to whom, at what price, what your method is, how you prove it with no case study yet, how the first conversation happens, what you refuse, and where each part of your business belongs. Each with a recommendation, the reasoning, what it costs if I am wrong, and whose call it is.
A construction guide for your own diagnostic method: how to excavate the one you already have from the engagements you have already run, and the screen that separates a method a finance director will accept from one they will dismantle. Deliberately not a method. Yours to build.
Drafted, as worked examples you overwrite. Your positioning line with alternates, a rewritten one-pager, three outreach notes, a script for the call that converts them, and a written standard for what you decline.
Week by week, in the order that matters, with the weekly numbers to watch and what each one means when it goes wrong.
Where each business or brand you run belongs, and the rules that keep them from eroding each other. Skipped if you have one.
What has to be true before you take a client conversation, and the governance reference behind it for when procurement sends you a security questionnaire.
How it works
Whether this is right for you. If it is not, I say so and tell you what I think you need instead.
Work begins on cleared payment.
Everything you use to describe or sell your work, including the superseded versions. The contradictions between your own documents are the most useful thing in the pile.
Your questions, not a presentation. You will be asked to bring the recommendation you disagree with most.
Fees
Eight written documents, the intake, and one working session. About two weeks from cleared payment.
Paid before work begins. A limited number of engagements each quarter.
The nine decisions re-run against six months of evidence: what sold, what did not, your actual delivery days, and whether the recommendations held. A short written addendum and one session.
There is no third step. No retainer, no standing call, no ongoing advisory.
Boundaries
Financial, tax, accounting, investment or insurance advice. I read financials well and use that as a lens, because most operations advisors cannot connect an operational decision to its financial consequence. It is not what I sell.
AI strategy and governance. That is Fellowship Intelligence, a separate practice of mine, and it stays separate.
Fractional or interim executive roles. No ongoing presence, no operating seat.
Start
If it is not the right fit, I will tell you on the call, and tell you what I think you need instead. Questions first are fine: thomas@thomastornatore.com.