PARTNERSHIP PLANS
WE DON’T SEE OURSELVES AS SIMPLY CONSULTANTS
WE WANT TO BE YOUR PARTNER
Too many consulting arrangements, in our opinion, are too narrowly focused. Companies tend to hire a consultant to improve sales, or to upgrade bookkeeping, for example, and never spend enough time on the larger picture.
Although we do offer hourly consulting and by engagement consulting, we believe that for small business a successful consulting/partnership arrangement is a long term engagement. With a longer term partnership, we can help to more comprehensively address the issues bigger than the nuts and bolts of the business, such as the Lone Ranger problem, long term leadership development, business transfers and continuity and our passion, life balance.
Because we believe in long term, periodic engagements, we price most of our services on a monthly, renewable basis.
Please contact us to discuss your needs.
WE OFFER FOUR LEVELS OF ENGAGEMENT:
Free Business Advice – In conjunction with Freebusinessadvice.biz
Our basic level of service offers email based advice on business issues through both public and private questions. The use of public questions is meant to use your situation, presented broadly so it will be of interest to others, to facilitate understanding and discussion in our community. Private questions are for issues that are too specific or too sensitive to discuss publicly. The only limitation on our service is that each member is only allowed one private question per month. Unlimited public questions and comments are allowed as long as they stick to our policies. Both public and private questions will be answered as they are received and as time permits.
At the basic level, questions must be relatively broad. Basic level services do not include deep discussions of your particular business issues. We allow other participants in our forums to answer or comment on all public questions. However, our rules prohibiting all subjects except business are strictly enforced. This site is for business discussions, not politics, not religion, and not anything else. Any comments that do not fit into a friendly, collegial, positive, and generalized business discussion will be immediately deleted, and the commenter will be considered for exclusion from membership.
Hourly Consulting and Mentoring
For limited or sporadic engagements, we offer our services by the hour. If you need a quick answer to specific questions, a second pair of eyes to look at a business plan, or another point of view for a difficult problem, this is our most flexible option.
We offer a complimentary first meeting to decide whether we are a match and to decide whether or not to go forward. If, after the first meeting we dicide to move forward, we ask for at least a 2 hour meeting so we can get to know more about your business before tackling specific problems.
After we have gotten to know each other, in person meetings will be billed at a minimum of 2 hours and emails and phone calls will be billed at a minimum of one hour.
Our pricing is available on request.
Consulting and Mentoring by Engagement
Engagement plans are priced as a single unit and include a maximum amount of time.
Ground rules are similar to hourly plans. We offer a complimentary first meeting and after that in person meetings are credited to our contract at a miminum of 2 hours and phone and email meetings are credited to our contract at a minimum of one hour.
Pricing for engagement plans is determined by the scope of work and the amount of hours the engagement will require.
True Partnership Plans
These are the plans we really like. They plans give you, the busines owner, access to an experienced business advisor on an ongoing basis. Partnership plans give us a chance to really get to know your business and, we believe, deliver the most benefit.
A partnership plan can be designed any way you wish to best meet your needs but here are some standard plans:
Colleague Level:
Our Colleague Level Plan includes approximately 8 hours per month of combined email, phone and in-person interaction. Our time can also be used for study, writing, analysis, policy development, strategic planning or any other business services desired by our partner. Additional services over and above 8 hours are available at our preferred partner pricing level. When you sign on to a one-year contract at the Colleague Level or higher, we start with a no cost, in depth meeting/business analysis session that is outside of the monthly 8 hours. If after this initial meeting you do not wish to continue, we will cancel your one-year commitment at no charge.
Executive Level:
The Executive Level Plan includes 20 hours of service each month. It includes all of the same services as our Colleague Level Program but with more time allotted to your company.
Director Level:
Director Level Engagement requires either more time or more specialized services than our first three levels. At the Director Level, we believe that each engagement must be negotiated to determine the needs of the client, the capabilities of TEBCG, and how the two can best be joined.
Director level involvement in a business is a large commitment and we are open to creative ways of working together and creative compensation plans.
Pricing is available on request.