Advisory
What should we do about it? This is the engagement that settles the decision and builds the case for it.
Four ways in Diagnostic Advisory Build Coaching
What it is
An engagement scoped to a decision. The options get costed, the trade-offs get stated, and the recommendation comes with its reasoning attached, so the people approving it have something to interrogate.
This is the work that decides what gets built. The output is a decision and a design: what the revenue motion should be, what it costs to get there, and in what order. It is produced for the people who own the number.
Advisory frequently follows a diagnostic and does not require one. Where you can already state the question precisely, this is a reasonable place to start.
What actually happens
The people who will approve it need to be in the work at least once while it is running. Where the readout is the first time they see the recommendation, they receive it as a proposal and start negotiating with it.
A system built on an undecided motion works exactly as specified and changes nothing. I have built these systems as well as designed them, and that is why the design comes first.
Who it suits
A design question with a real deadline on it, usually a board, a planning cycle or an integration.
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Comp design
A comp model that stopped paying for the behaviour the strategy needs. Plans layered on across three eras, or one plan carried into a market it was never designed for.
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CS motion design
Retention and expansion depending on who owns the account, where nobody else could pick it up. The design decision comes before the tooling.
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Revenue reporting
A forecast nobody believes, and no agreement on what it is for or which altitude gets which answer.
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GTM integration
Two companies that have to become one revenue organisation, where the expensive mistakes get made in the first quarter and are hard to reverse in the fourth.
When it is not the right route
Three situations where buying advice buys the wrong thing.
- You cannot yet state the question precisely
- A recommendation built on the wrong problem statement is worse than none, because it gets funded. Start with a diagnostic.
- The decision is made and the constraint is hands
- Buying advice at that point pays for a question you have already answered. The other three routes are on the home page.
- You need someone in the seat every week, indefinitely
- That is a fractional executive or a hire. Advisory answers a question and ends, so buying presence here means paying advisory rates for attendance.
How the first call works
Forty-five minutes, no charge. No pitch. No deck. You describe the decision and what is riding on it. You leave with my read on it and a straight answer on whether advisory is the right route or another one is.
If it is, you get a written scope and a number before anything starts. Two open decisions is two pieces of work, and putting them on one budget line is how both get answered badly.