Discovery call · twenty minutes · four things have to be true

This page exists to say no on my behalf, and for most people reading it that is the right answer.

I take four of these a quarter. That's a capacity limit rather than a scarcity tactic, and it's why this page is shaped like a filter instead of a pitch. Everything I would otherwise find out on a call is written below, so you can rule yourself out in four minutes and keep your afternoon.

The four gates What it costs

Four things have to be true

Check these yourself. Nothing here needs a call to establish, and a call spent establishing them is twenty minutes neither of us gets back.

There's a decision waiting on it — Not a curiosity, and not something a board would find interesting. Something currently stuck that will move once the answer exists. Without that, the work is a good document nobody reads
Somebody in the conversation can say yes — To the money and to the change. Where the person who can do both is two levels up and hasn't heard of any of this, the honest sequence is to go and talk to them first
The timing is inside three months — Beyond that, whatever gets found goes stale before anybody acts on it, and you'd be paying now for a decision made later on old information
You can live with an answer you didn't want — Nobody screens for this and it's the commonest reason the work goes badly. If there's one conclusion that would be politically impossible to accept, say so — it isn't a disqualifier, but it changes what's worth doing

Why I say no

Why I say no, roughly in order of how often

Replace this list with your own and keep the order honest — the frequency is the useful part, not the categories.

It's a resourcing problem wearing a strategy hat — Commonest by a distance. Everybody already knows what to do and there's nobody free to do it. An outside opinion does not add a person
The decision is already made — And what's wanted is a document that agrees with it. Usually well meant, and always visible to everybody in the room
Too small for the fee to make sense — Where the decision is worth less than the work costs, the arithmetic doesn't care how interesting the problem is
It's a specialism I don't have — Said plainly rather than learned on your budget over the first fortnight
Wrong moment — A reorganisation, a funding round, a founder leaving. Anything landing in the next six weeks will eat the work and the work will lose
I've said yes to too much — The least interesting reason and the most honest one. Four a quarter is what can be done properly; a fifth would be taking your money to do it worse

Where to go instead

A gate that only says no is gatekeeping. Each reason above has somewhere better attached to it, and none of these send you anywhere I get paid.

If it's a resourcing problem — A contractor, a temporary hire, or simply reducing the number of things in flight. All three beat a report and two of them cost less than one
If the decision is already made — Spend the money on communicating it well instead. A good internal communications person is worth more than a consultant here, and is usually cheaper
If it's too small — Take the question to a peer group, or buy two hours of somebody's time rather than a project. Both exist, and neither needs a proposal written about it
If it needs a specialism — Ask anyway and you'll get two or three names where I have them — with no arrangement between us and no fee moving in either direction
If it's the wrong moment — Note the date and come back. Nobody ever follows up on this one; the page will still be here and so, probably, will I

If all four are true

If all four are true, here's exactly what happens

Twenty minutes, free, on a call — Not forty-five. Twenty is long enough to establish whether this is real, and short enough that neither of us walks away feeling owed anything
No deck and no capability overview — You already know what a consultant does. The twenty minutes goes entirely on your question and none of it on my background
A written answer within two days — Either a scope and a number, or a plain no with which of the reasons above it was. Nobody is left to chase
The no is a real no — It doesn't quietly become a smaller package, a paid discovery workshop or a follow-up in a month. A maybe is just a slower no with more of your time inside it
Nothing goes on a list — No newsletter, no sequence, no "just checking in" six weeks later. If we don't work together then that is the end of it, and that's a perfectly good outcome

What it costs

The question

$9,600 · three weeks

One decision, properly answered
Written, with the evidence
One session to argue about it
Fixed before it starts

Answer the four

The bigger question

$24,000 · eight weeks

Where the answer needs new evidence
Interviews and analysis, not opinion
Same written deliverable
Same fixed fee

Answer the four

Two hours

$600 · no project attached

For questions too small for a project
One call, notes afterwards
Deliberately hard to upsell from
Book it and never hear from me again

Answer the four

The number is on the page on purpose — It is the fastest gate of all, and hiding it only moves the disappointment to the end of a call that both of us paid for in time
Two hours is a genuine option — It is bought most months and it is not a trap. Some questions need somebody to think about them once, out loud, and then leave
Fixed, including when it turns out to be worse — The number does not move once it is agreed. Pricing that risk is part of the job rather than something to renegotiate in week two
Charities and very small teams — Ask. There is a lower number, and the conversation about it is straightforward rather than an application process

Answer the four

This form is the gate. Answer honestly rather than well — a form filled in to pass just moves the no to a later, more expensive conversation.

Answer the four

The diary

Deliberately behind the form rather than in front of it. An open calendar looks generous and mostly produces calls that both people already knew would go nowhere.

Paste your own booking link into this block to switch it on. Until then it shows nothing at all, which is the right failure — use the form above and you'll get times back by email.

Use the form instead

in 🌐✉