Practical guides and deep-dives for running a better organization - from client intake to project delivery.
Your break-even hourly cost is annual cost divided by hours actually available, and the denominator is where everyone goes wrong. The four-step calculation, a worked example, and how to sanity-check it.
WIP is work delivered but not invoiced, and unbilled work reliably becomes unbillable work. How to measure and age it, what healthy looks like, and the practices that keep it small.
Most proposals are written for the person you spoke to, not the person who approves the spend. The eight sections that work, how long it should be, three-option pricing, and the follow-up process that converts.
Raise new-client rates first, give existing clients 60 days and a reason, and expect to lose your lowest-margin accounts. The sequencing, the exact wording, handling pushback, and why delay costs more than the increase.
Offboarding is a 90-day arc, not a handover day. The five stages, what belongs in a handover pack, when to ask for the testimonial and case study, and how to end badly-going engagements well.
Most agency friction is not a communication failure, it is the absence of an agreement about communication. The five components, setting cadence, channel discipline, and what changes when a project is in trouble.
The five conversations agencies avoid - delays, scope creep, unpaid invoices, poor results, and ending a relationship - with the structure that works for all of them and what to actually say.
Pricing is a risk transfer, not a rate card. Hourly, fixed-fee, retainer and value-based compared - what each does to your incentives, how to calculate a real rate, and the mistakes that break a good model.
Capacity retainers versus outcome retainers, the four clauses that prevent almost every dispute, how to price and staff one, and how to fix a retainer that has already gone bad.
