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The Growth Diagnostic · Starts at $5,000

Find the constraint before you spend another dollar against it.

A paid, fixed-scope engagement that works your business against all six places growth gets constrained and returns a written, ranked set of recommendations. Priced before it starts. Yours to act on, with us or without us.

Every Diagnostic starts with a free 30-minute First Read. If the Diagnostic isn't the right next step, we'll say so there.
Why this exists

Most growth spending is aimed at the wrong thing, confidently.

Growth is rarely missing. It is constrained — and the constraint is usually invisible, because nobody sees the whole company. The website vendor sees the website. The recruiter sees headcount. The software reseller sees software. Each one is competent, each one is looking through the only lens they own, and each one will find a problem in it, because that is what they can see.

The result is familiar to most established operators: five vendors, real invoices, visible activity, and a revenue number that has not moved. Not because anyone did poor work, but because nobody was accountable for the whole picture, and the thing actually holding the business back was never in anyone's scope.

The Growth Diagnostic exists to end that guessing. It is one engagement, with one accountable partner, that looks at all six lenses before recommending anything — including the lenses nobody is currently selling you.

What gets examined

All six lenses. Not the one we happen to sell.

Growth is constrained in one of six places. All six are assessed before anything is recommended, because a constraint you did not look for is a constraint you will not find.

MARKET

Who you sell to, how you are positioned, whether you are differentiated, and whether there is enough demand in reach.

REVENUE

Where leads come from, what happens to a quote after it leaves, who owns follow-up, how pricing is set, and where the pipeline actually breaks.

OPERATIONS

Manual work, fragmented handoffs, rework, and the places where taking on more volume would add chaos instead of profit.

TECHNOLOGY

What software you own, what it is actually used for, what is not connected, and what is being paid for and ignored.

INTELLIGENCE

What you can measure, what you are guessing at, and whether the numbers you manage by describe the business as it is.

LEADERSHIP

Whether priorities are clear, decisions are getting made, and the organization agrees on what matters most right now.

In practice the constraint commonly sits in a lens nobody owns — most often market, intelligence, or leadership — which is precisely why it survives years of competent vendor work. See the Constraint Hierarchy in full →

The deliverable

A ranked set of recommendations you can judge on the reasoning.

Every recommendation carries the same seven parts, so you can argue with the evidence rather than trust the brand. Here is the shape of one.

Recommendation · Illustrative
Publish a first-response standard before buying any additional demand.
OBSERVATION

Inbound quote requests arrive across three channels with no named owner and no measured time to first reply.

WHY IT MATTERS

Demand that is already being paid for is being decided by whoever happens to notice it.

EVIDENCE

Channel-by-channel volume for the trailing quarter set against quotes actually issued, plus the absence of any routing rule.

RECOMMENDED ACTION

Name an owner per channel, set an acknowledgment window, and add one automated safety net on existing tools.

EXPECTED IMPACT

More of the current request volume converting, with no additional demand spend.

PRIORITY

Ahead of the website and ahead of any lead generation work.

CONFIDENCE

High on the diagnosis. Unquantified on the gain. Ownership is directly observable; the size of the recovery cannot be known until response time is measured.

Note the last part. A recommendation that claims certainty it has not earned is worth less than one that tells you where the evidence runs out. Confidence is stated on every item, including the ones we are not sure about. The Recommendation Standard in full →

What it costs

Starts at $5,000, fixed in writing before we begin.

Published because you should be able to work out whether this is worth a conversation without having to sit through a call to find out. Where an engagement lands above the starting number depends on three things: the size of the business, how many systems have to be examined, and how many people need to be interviewed. All three are known before the work starts, which is why the number can be fixed before the work starts.

What that buys is a finished document, not a stage in a sales process. The Diagnostic is deliberately scoped so that it stands on its own and so that hiring us for the execution remains a real decision rather than a foregone one. Execution, if it follows, is scoped separately and tied to a defined outcome — never a retainer for motion.

What it is not: a free audit produced by someone who already knows what they intend to sell you, a template report with your logo on it, or a workshop. It is several weeks of work against your actual systems and your actual numbers.

Questions

Common questions

What does the Growth Diagnostic cost?
It starts at $5,000. Where an engagement lands above that depends on the size of the business, the number of systems that have to be examined, and how many people need to be interviewed. The number is fixed in writing before the work begins, so the scope cannot drift and the invoice cannot surprise you.
What do I actually receive?
A written, ranked set of recommendations. Each one carries all seven parts of the Recommendation Standard — observation, why it matters, evidence, recommended action, expected impact, priority, and confidence — including an honest statement of where the evidence is thin. The document is yours to act on, with us or without us.
How long does it take?
Typically two to four weeks from kickoff, depending on how quickly people and system access become available. It is not a workshop and it is not a two-hour audit.
Do I have to hire you for the execution?
No, and the Diagnostic is deliberately built so you don't have to. It is priced and scoped as a finished deliverable, not as a sales document for a larger engagement. If the highest-priority fix is something a specialist you already use should do, the recommendation will say so.
How is this different from a free marketing audit?
A free audit is produced by someone who already knows what they want to sell you, and it examines the one lens they sell into. The Diagnostic works all six lenses — market, revenue, operations, technology, intelligence, and leadership — and frequently concludes that the constraint sits somewhere nobody is selling.
What if the constraint turns out to be something you don't do?
Then that is what the document says. A recommendation you cannot act on through us is still worth more to you than a recommendation shaped around what we happen to sell.
Growth is the product. Everything else is the mechanism.

Start with thirty minutes, not a proposal.

Every Diagnostic begins with a free First Read — where revenue comes from, where it is constrained, and the highest-return moves. No pitch, no service menu.

Thirty minutes. Zero obligation. If we're not the right partner, we'll say so.