Question 1

How much does business consulting cost in the US?

Accepted Answer

Most US engagements run from $250 to $850 per hour, with project work between $25,000 and $250,000 depending on scope. Monthly retainers start around $8,000 for SMB advisory and reach $60,000+ for enterprise transformation programs. We scope every engagement against a named outcome, so you can see the payback before signing. Final pricing depends on scope and is confirmed during discovery.

Question 2

What is the difference between a consultant and a fractional executive?

Accepted Answer

A consultant ships a defined deliverable, like a roadmap or an ops audit, and rolls off. A fractional executive holds a seat in your org for 1 to 3 days a week, usually for 6 months or longer, and owns outcomes alongside your team. We offer both. Most $5M-$30M ARR clients start with a 6-week diagnostic, then add a fractional COO or CTO if the gap is leadership rather than capacity.

Question 3

How long does a typical consulting engagement take?

Accepted Answer

Diagnostic engagements run 4 to 6 weeks. Roadmap work, including build-vs-buy decisions and vendor selection, takes 6 to 10 weeks. Implementation phases run 3 to 9 months depending on the size of the change. We deliberately timebox the first deliverable inside 30 days so you see signal fast and can decide whether to keep going.

Question 4

Do you do strategy consulting or implementation consulting?

Accepted Answer

Both, in that order. Strategy without implementation is a deck. Implementation without strategy is busywork. Most engagements start with a 4-week diagnostic, hand you a ranked roadmap with USD impact, and continue with us embedded for the first three plays. You keep the deliverables and the institutional knowledge whether or not we stay for execution.

Question 5

What size company is your sweet spot?

Accepted Answer

B2B SaaS founders with $1M-$30M ARR, ops-heavy mid-market companies between 100 and 500 employees, and Series A through C startups raising the next round. We do work with larger enterprises on focused transformations, but the team is built for clients where senior leadership can move quickly without a 9-stakeholder steering committee.

Question 6

Can you help us decide build vs buy on a software platform?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this is one of our most common engagements. We run a structured evaluation across 24-month TCO, time to value, hiring drag, and exit risk, then deliver a weighted scorecard, three RFP-ready vendor shortlists, and a recommended path. Most clients save $200K-$2M over the lifetime of the decision compared to the default bias toward custom builds.

Question 7

How is your consulting different from a Big Four firm?

Accepted Answer

Three differences. First, every consultant has run the function before, not analyzed it from a deck. Second, we do not sell software, audit you, or take kickbacks from vendors, so the recommendation is honest. Third, our blended rate is roughly 40% lower than Deloitte or McKinsey for comparable work because we do not run a pyramid. Fewer juniors, less overhead, more signal per dollar.

Question 8

What does an ops diagnostic actually deliver?

Accepted Answer

A 4-week diagnostic produces three things. A ranked backlog of 15 to 30 fixes with effort estimates and dollar impact. A short executive summary your CEO can read on a flight. A 90-day plan for the top three plays with named owners. Mid-market clients usually surface $200K-$1.2M in annual savings inside the first quarter of the diagnostic landing.

Question 9

Do you sign NDAs and BAAs before discovery?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We sign mutual NDAs before any commercial conversation that touches confidential data. For healthtech and digital health clients, we sign HIPAA Business Associate Agreements before any PHI conversation. We can work under your paper or ours. Turnaround is usually 24 to 48 hours, and our security team reviews any custom redlines before signature.

Question 10

How do you charge: hourly, fixed fee, or retainer?

Accepted Answer

Most clients pick fixed-fee project pricing for the first engagement so the scope and outcome are unambiguous. Once we have shipped together, retainer-based advisory often makes more sense, billed monthly with a 30-day exit clause. Hourly billing is available for short, ad-hoc requests but is not our default. The model that works depends on whether you need a deliverable or a seat at the table.

Question 11

Can you help us prepare for a fundraise or M&A?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We support founders raising Series A through C with unit economics review, ops scrub, customer interview synthesis, and data room prep. For sellside or buyside M&A, we run quality of earnings adjacent diagnostics, tech due diligence, and integration planning. The goal is to surface the questions a sophisticated investor or acquirer will ask before they ask them.

Question 12

What is the right way to start an AI initiative inside our company?

Accepted Answer

Start with three to five candidate use cases, score them against data readiness, dollar value, and security risk, then pilot the top two for 60 days each. Avoid platform-first decisions, vague chatbots, and anything that requires a 6-month data project before payback. We help clients define the program, run pilots, and stand up SOC 2-friendly guardrails so legal and security do not pull the brakes mid-flight.

Question 13

Do you handle SOC 2, HIPAA, or NIST 800-53 readiness?

Accepted Answer

We do not write the audit reports, but we run the readiness work that gets you there. That includes gap analysis, control mapping, vendor selection across Vanta, Drata, and Secureframe, policy authoring, and tabletop exercises. Most clients reach SOC 2 Type II readiness inside 6 months. Engagements typically cost $35,000-$90,000 depending on scope and starting maturity.

Question 14

What does a tech roadmap engagement include?

Accepted Answer

A 12-month phased plan that sequences cloud migration, data platform work, AI pilots, security investments, and platform consolidation. Output includes target architecture diagrams, a quarterly RACI, a phased cost model in USD, and a board-ready slide that explains the why in plain English. We pressure-test the roadmap with your CTO and engineering leads before the final readout so it survives reality.

Question 15

Can you sit on our leadership team as a fractional COO or CTO?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We embed senior operators 1 to 3 days a week for 6-month minimums. Fractional COO engagements typically cover finance ops, vendor management, and process design. Fractional CTO work covers architecture decisions, hiring, and engineering operating cadence. The model fits founders who need real leadership for 12 to 18 months but cannot yet justify the $300K+ all-in cost of a full-time hire.

Question 16

How do you scope an engagement when we are not sure what we need?

Accepted Answer

We run a free 45-minute discovery call to understand the problem, then propose either a paid 2-week scoping sprint ($12,000-$18,000) or jump straight into a diagnostic if the issue is clear. Roughly 60% of clients arrive thinking they have a tech problem and leave the scoping call with a sharper picture, often an ops or org problem. Final pricing depends on scope and is confirmed during discovery.

Question 17

Do you work with healthcare and digital health companies?

Accepted Answer

Yes, with HIPAA-aware engagements only. Common work includes telehealth ops audits, RCM workflow redesign, EHR integration scoping, and AI scoping for clinical documentation. We sign BAAs before touching PHI, run all client work under access-controlled environments, and partner with specialist counsel on payer contract questions. Pricing in healthtech runs 10-20% above our standard rate due to compliance overhead.

Question 18

Can you support our team during a system migration or ERP cutover?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this is one of the highest-leverage things we do. We sit alongside your finance, IT, and operations leads through the migration, run the weekly steering committee, and own the cutover plan. For NetSuite, SAP S/4HANA, or Oracle Fusion, we have shipped 30+ cutovers without missing a finance close. Cutovers typically run 6 to 14 months depending on company size.

Question 19

What does a 90-day engagement plan typically look like?

Accepted Answer

Days 1-30 cover diagnostic, stakeholder interviews, and the ranked backlog. Days 31-60 cover roadmap, dollar model, and quick wins on the top three plays. Days 61-90 cover handoff, KPI tracking, and either a clean exit or a transition into retainer advisory. We deliberately keep the cadence aggressive so you have a defensible plan and momentum before the next quarter.

Question 20

Do you offer one-time advisory sessions for founders?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We offer 90-minute deep-dive sessions starting at $1,500, typically used for pricing reviews, GTM stress tests, hiring sequencing, or pre-board prep. Most founders use these as standalone tune-ups between full engagements or before a major decision. Sessions include a written follow-up with action items and any models we built during the conversation.

Question 21

How do you protect our data during a consulting engagement?

Accepted Answer

We work inside your environment whenever possible, using your SSO, your shared drives, and your access controls. When we must hold data on our side, it lives in encrypted, access-logged systems and is deleted on engagement close. We carry $5M cyber liability insurance, sign DPAs covering CCPA and GDPR, and our team completes annual security and privacy training. Custom security questionnaires turn around in 5 business days.

Question 22

Can you help us with vendor selection and RFPs?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We run structured RFP processes for ERP, CRM, data platform, contact center, and AI vendor selection. Output includes a weighted requirements matrix, a vetted shortlist of 3 to 5 vendors, scripted demo agendas, and a final scorecard. Engagements typically run 6 to 10 weeks and cost $45,000-$110,000 depending on the platform category and number of stakeholders involved.

Question 23

How is consulting different from your business growth strategy service?

Accepted Answer

Consulting focuses on internal operations, tech roadmaps, vendor decisions, and digital strategy. Growth strategy focuses on market entry, GTM motion design, ICP work, and channel selection. Many clients use both, often in sequence: a consulting engagement to fix the engine, then a growth strategy engagement to point it at the right market. The right starting point depends on whether your bottleneck is internal or external.

Question 24

Do you offer a free consultation?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We offer a 45-minute discovery call at no cost. Bring a specific question, a recent board update, or a thorny decision, and we will tell you whether we can help, what an engagement would cost, and roughly how long it would take. Roughly 30% of discovery calls end with us pointing you to a better-fit firm. We take that as a feature, not a bug.

Question 25

Can you work with our internal team rather than replacing them?

Accepted Answer

That is the default model. We pair our consultants with your operators so the work transfers cleanly and your team owns the outcome. On most engagements your internal lead spends 4 to 8 hours a week with us. Pure outsourced work without internal sponsorship rarely sticks, so we usually decline scopes where leadership cannot allocate that time.

Question 26

What metrics do you track during a consulting engagement?

Accepted Answer

Three to five outcome metrics defined at kickoff and reviewed weekly. Common ones: hours saved per week, points of gross margin recovered, days off the finance close, support cost per ticket, lead-to-opportunity conversion, and engineering deploy frequency. We also track input metrics so we know whether the plan is being executed before the outcomes change. The dashboard is yours, not a slide we present.

Question 27

How fast can you start an engagement?

Accepted Answer

Most engagements kick off within 2 weeks of signed SOW. For urgent diagnostics, we can begin within 5 business days if scoping is tight and security paperwork moves quickly. We staff every engagement with a named lead consultant and one supporting operator, and we publish the team and rate card in the SOW so there is no swap-out partway through.

Question 28

Do you work with companies outside the United States?

Accepted Answer

Most of our work is with US-headquartered companies, including those with operations in Canada, Mexico, the UK, and the EU. We are not the right firm for greenfield expansion into markets where we have no operating experience. If you need Brazil, India, or Southeast Asia ground game, we will introduce you to specialist partners we trust rather than pretend we have it.

Question 29

What happens at the end of an engagement?

Accepted Answer

You get a final readout with the work product, the model, and a 6-month forward plan your team can run without us. We hand off Notion or Confluence pages, dashboards, and any code or scripts we wrote. Roughly 70% of clients continue with us on a smaller retainer for 6 to 12 months, but exit is clean and the deliverables work just as well if you do not.

Question 30

How do I know if we need a consultant right now?

Accepted Answer

Three signals usually point to consulting: a decision you cannot undo cheaply (ERP, major hire, platform pick), a metric that is moving the wrong way and the team has tried two fixes already, or a board commitment with a hard date and unclear path. If none of those apply, you probably do not need consulting yet, and we will say so on the discovery call.

Tech and opsconsulting that ships

Practical business consulting built for US operators

Strategic Advisory Services for Growth

Ops Diagnostics

Tech Roadmap

Build vs Buy

AI Strategy

Founder Advisory

Process audits, bottleneck mapping, and quick wins

Consulting that ships, not consulting that decks

Strategy

Operator-led strategy

Execution

Diagnostic to delivery

Results

Outcomes priced in dollars

A four-step consulting process for US teams

Diagnostic and discovery week

Roadmap and dollar model

Hands-on implementation

Quarterly review and tune

Industries We Empower

B2B SaaS

Healthtech

E-commerce DTC

Mid-market ops

Real numbers across every engagement

Analytics tools we run diagnostics on

Designed to meet enterprise requirements

Senior US operators only

Diagnostic to delivery

Outcomes priced in dollars

Vendor-neutral by default

Satisfied with SKIMBOX consultancy and services

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