Every case study here includes the part I got wrong.

The situation — A forty-person manufacturer whose sales team had four working definitions of a qualified lead and a system that recorded none of them. The quarterly forecast had been guesswork for about two years and everybody involved knew it
What was asked for — A new CRM. That was the brief, and it was the wrong brief — which is how a good half of these start and is nobody's fault
What I actually did — Six days over five weeks. Two of them sitting on the sales floor watching people work, one writing a single shared definition, and three getting four people to argue about that definition until they agreed on it
What changed — One definition, still in use six months later. The CRM was never replaced. The forecast stopped being guesswork because its input stopped being four different things
What I'd do differently — I spent the first two days interviewing managers and most of it was wasted — the useful information was on the sales floor and I should have started there. That mistake cost the client about two days of my fee to teach me
What it cost — A fixed project fee, quoted on day two once the scope was obvious, plus travel at cost. The original CRM budget was roughly four times it and was not spent

A charity, board reporting — Twelve pages of monthly board pack cut to two, over three days. What I'd do differently: I redesigned it before asking which parts trustees actually read, and about half that work went in the bin
A software team, delivery dates — Six weeks part-time. Estimates were the stated problem and estimates were not fixable; what got fixed was what happened when one turned out wrong. What I'd do differently: I should have said they were unfixable in week one rather than week three
The ones that aren't listed — Roughly half the work is under an agreement and cannot be described at all. That is ordinary in this trade, and it means every case-study page is a partial view — including this one
Two clients who'll take a call — Both agreed to be nameable and both have been asked to answer honestly rather than kindly. Ask, and you'll get their details — fifteen minutes on the phone is worth more than this whole page
Why the mistakes are in — A case study with no wrong turn in it is marketing. Every project has one, and the ones that hide it are usually hiding the same one repeatedly
What isn't claimed — Revenue figures I did not measure and cannot verify. Where a client has published a number themselves it is linked to them rather than repeated here as mine

When you already know the answer — And want somebody external to say it out loud for you. That does work, and it is an expensive way to do it — a decision made internally costs nothing and lands considerably better
When the problem is one person — No amount of process design fixes somebody nobody is willing to manage. That is a conversation between you and them, and paying an outsider to watch it happen helps neither of you
When there's no capacity to change anything — A diagnostic delivered into a quarter with nothing spare becomes a document nobody opens. Waiting a quarter is better value than buying a report on time
When you want the work done — I advise; I don't run your project. Where you need somebody to actually do it you want a contractor, and you'll be told that plainly and usually given a name
When it's under about three days — Below that, the cost of me understanding your business is larger than the value of the advice. Send the question by email instead — that costs nothing and often settles it
What saying this costs — Several pieces of work a year. It is also the reason anything else on this page is worth believing

The day rate is the honest default — It is published, you can multiply it, and neither of us has to guess what the other is thinking
Fixed price once scope is clear — Usually by day two. After that the number stops moving even when the work turns out harder than it looked — that risk is what a fixed price buys you
About "value-based pricing" — It is often a way of not naming a number until you have named your budget. Where a fee genuinely tracks value it should be explainable in one sentence rather than in a framework
Retainers get reviewed — At month three, honestly, including the version where the answer is that you no longer need one. A retainer nobody reviews is a subscription
Expenses — At cost, itemised, agreed in advance, and never as a percentage of anything

Implementation — The advice is mine; the doing is yours or a contractor's. Consultants who advise and then implement their own advice have an obvious problem and mostly don't mention it
Subcontracting — You get me. If somebody else would genuinely be better at it you get their name, not their invoice routed through mine with a margin on it
Exclusivity — I work with other people in your sector and will say so if there is any conflict at all. Anybody claiming a clean sheet in a small industry is not being straight with you
Anything with your data leaving — Work happens on your systems where possible. Where something has to come to me it is agreed in writing, minimised, and deleted at the end
Quiet extensions — If a project is drifting you hear it that week, with the reason and a recommendation, which is sometimes to stop. Drift is how three-day jobs become three-month ones
Endless engagements — Every arrangement here has an end date in it from the start. If it is still going a year later, one of us has stopped noticing