How we work

It usually starts with a frustrated phone call. IT costs keep going up. The IT company closes tickets, but nobody is in charge of the plan. The internal team works hard and still falls behind. The insurance renewal asks questions nobody can answer. Leadership and IT keep having the same argument.

Here is what happens next.

A first conversation

Thirty minutes, no slide deck, by phone, by video, or over coffee anywhere in Northwest Arkansas. Tell us what’s going on. We listen first. We’ll tell you honestly whether we can help, and if we can’t, we’ll tell you who can.

Agree on the problem

Before anyone talks price, we agree with you on what the problem is and what a good result looks like. Then we send a written plan with the scope and a fixed fee. Nothing starts until you’ve read it and said yes.

Find out where you stand

The usual first step is a Technology Assessment. We talk with the owner, the people who use the systems, and the people who run them. You get one page in plain English. It tells you what to stop, keep, fix, or replace, how your IT company or team is doing, and what to do in the first 90 days.

Fix what’s broken

If the plan is the problem, we write a better one. If the IT company or the team is the problem, we do a Team and Provider Reset. We set clear expectations, coach the people worth keeping, and handle the change carefully when someone needs to be replaced. Often the biggest fix is a better conversation between leadership and IT.

Keep it on track

Fractional technology leadership keeps things from sliding back. Fractional means part time: you get a technology and security leader for part of each month, on a monthly retainer. That’s one working session a month, a one-page update for the owner, priorities for your IT company or team, and someone who owns the risk.

Alongside your IT team

Your IT company or internal team keeps the day-to-day work running. We set the direction and check the work.

Some jobs need people on call around the clock, such as security monitoring, incident response, a penetration test, or an insurance policy. For those, we help you choose a firm that does the work every day and make the introduction. Once they’re in place, they work for you. We stay involved only as much as you want us to.

What it costs

Projects are a fixed fee, and ongoing leadership is a monthly retainer. You get the plan and the price in writing after we agree on the scope. How pricing works.

What we don’t do

We don’t answer the phone at night, sell insurance, act as your auditor, or resell hardware or software. We also don’t run 24-hour security monitoring. You may hear that called a SOC (security operations center) or MDR (managed detection and response). When you need it, we help you choose a firm that does it. We say all of this up front so nobody is surprised later.

How we’re different

From your IT company. We don’t sell hardware, software, or support, so we gain nothing from what we recommend. Even a great IT company can’t objectively grade its own work. If yours is doing a good job, we’ll tell you, and we’ll tell them too.

From a large accounting or consulting firm. You get a fixed fee, a plain-English answer on one page, and a practical plan your team or IT company can actually finish. We don’t audit your books or give tax advice, so we never compete with your CPA. And we’re local. We’ll meet you for coffee or lunch anywhere in Northwest Arkansas.

From a commissioned technology broker. Some “technology advisors” charge you little or nothing up front because software, telecom, and cloud vendors pay them a commission when you sign. We take no referral fees, commissions, or resale margin from anyone. You’re the only one who pays us, and that’s written into our contract.