Oakes Consulting
How it works
What actually happens if you hire me.
No stage of this is a surprise, and none of it depends on me still being there afterwards.
These are stages, not services
Every engagement runs through the four stages below, whichever of the four areas of work it covers. The stages are how an engagement runs; the areas are what it is about. You buy an area, and it runs through these stages.
Stage one
A conversation, at no cost
You describe what is going wrong. I ask questions, and at the end of it I tell you honestly whether this is something I can help with. Some of these conversations end with me saying no, or saying that what you need is smaller than you thought and you can do it yourselves.
Stage two
A scope, in writing, with a fixed price
Before any work starts you get a written scope: what is being done, what is explicitly not being done, what I need from your team, and what it costs. One number, agreed up front.
The reason it is written down is that scope is where these engagements usually go wrong. Work grows quietly, nobody says anything, and the relationship sours over an invoice.
Stage three
The work, where the work happens
I sit in your meetings, go through your systems with the people who use them, and build in the open. You see progress as it happens rather than at a reveal, and you can redirect it while redirecting is still cheap.
What this looks like depends on which of the four areas you have bought, and they are not all bought together.
Stage four
Handover, and then I leave
Your team is trained on the real system. The documentation is written for whoever holds the job next, not as a record of what I did. And before the engagement closes, someone on your team runs the thing with me out of the room, so we both find out what is actually missing while there is still time to fix it.
Then the engagement ends. If you want me afterwards, I would like that, and it should be because you chose it.
How this is priced
Engagements are quoted as a fixed fee for a defined scope, not billed by the hour. You know the cost before the work starts, and it does not grow while you watch.
Churches, ministries and nonprofits are quoted below the commercial rate. That is a deliberate position rather than a discount to be negotiated for, and you do not have to ask for it.
There is no retainer that outlives its usefulness. When the work is handed over, the engagement ends. A firm that grows by renewing engagements cannot really promise its own removal, which is why this is structural here rather than a promise.
Why there is no price list on this page
Because every scope is different, and a number published without knowing yours would be a guess dressed up as transparency. Ask, and you will get a real figure for your actual situation, in writing, before anything begins.
Start with the conversation that costs nothing
No pitch, and no obligation on the other side of it.