Operations Offering
Implementation Retainer
Senior operational leadership, without the COO salary.
$3,500–$5,000 | 3-6 month minimum
You've built something substantial, and the complexity is showing. Multiple functions, a growing team, systems that worked at half the size and now strain. You should be leading, but the operational gaps keep pulling you back into the work. The Implementation Retainer gives you ongoing operational leadership: I design and own the operating system, my team builds it, and we hand it to your team to run, so the business scales without breaking and without running through you.
Build a company that runs without you in the room. Growth shouldn't feel like a threat.
Who It’s For
The Scaling CEO in the Expansion phase, typically $250K+ in revenue with a team of five to fifteen. You're an experienced buyer who thinks in ROI and risk, and the need is continuous rather than a one-time fix. This is the only stage where an ongoing retainer is a clean, sane purchase from day one.
The Distinction That Defines This Offer
You design the strategy; my team builds and maintains it. I'm present at the strategic checkpoints and absent from daily execution. I am not your ongoing operations manager, and that's deliberate: the point is to build the operating system and hand it to your team, so the business stops depending on any one person, including me.
The Arc of the Engagement
A retainer isn't a flat subscription that looks the same every month. It has a shape, and the price reflects a changing workload over time.
Build
Months 1-4
The heavy lifting. My team works through your roadmap, documenting SOPs, standing up tools, and constructing workflows. My time goes to designing the system and reviewing what gets built.
Handoff
Months 3-5
Built systems transfer to your team to run, with training and a deliberate step-down of my team's involvement. The deliverable was never the SOP; it's your team running it without escalating to you.
Steady State
Month 5+
Your team runs day to day. My team maintains and optimizes. You get a monthly strategy session and a quarterly business review that catches the next problem before it becomes chaos.
What's Included Every Month
Element
What it is
Monthly strategy session
60-90 minutes with me. The part your team can't provide, and the reason this is senior operational leadership, not implementation labor.
Ongoing build & optimization
My team works against the roadmap during the build, and against maintenance and improvement needs after.
Monthly summary report
What was built or improved, what's next, and what needs your input. Clear progress, every month.
Quarterly business review
We re-prioritize the roadmap, surface expansion work, and confirm the path forward.
Investment
Priced by team size and build complexity. Billed flat monthly, on a three-to-six-month minimum, because system-building shows results over quarters, not weeks.
$3,500 / mo
Smaller team (4-5 people), one core workflow to systematize, lighter build.
$4,500 / mo
Mid-sized team, multiple workflows, full build-handoff-steady-state with strategy sessions and QBRs.
$5,000 / mo
Larger team (up to ~15), several delivery lines, heavier build and more oversight.
The Transformation
Before
After
Founder pulled into operations
A leadership layer beneath the CEO
Departments without clear owners
Departmental accountability
No early-warning KPI systems
Systems that flag issues early
Growth feels like a threat
A company built to scale
Why Not Just Hire a COO?
Eventually, maybe. A retainer gives you senior operational leadership now, at a fraction of a COO salary, and builds the very structure a future COO would inherit. Lower risk, faster, reversible. And it starts with a paid diagnostic that scopes the work and proves the value before the larger commitment.
Ready to lead a company that scales without you?
Start with a diagnostic →
Get clarity first, so we build the right systems in the right order.