ADVISORY

Revenue Consulting Retainer

For businesses that have the people to do the work and want the capability to stay in-house. I hold the sequence, challenge the decisions, and make sure the plan does not quietly become a list of things nobody worked on.

DIAGNOSIS FIRST · COMMISSIONED AFTER ROADMAP

FIT

This works when you have people who can execute.

The retainer buys direction, not hands. Everything in your roadmap gets done by your team, with me steering. That makes it the cheaper of the two engagements and the one that leave more capability behind, yet it makes it entirely dependent on whether your people actually have the capacity.

IT WORKS WHEN

You have a team, and they have room for this on top of their jobs.

You want the capability to live inside the business afterwards.

Recommended initiatives are things your people could do with direction.

Someone on your side will own the plan day to day.

Budget matters more to you than speed.

IT DOESN'T WHEN

Your team is already at capacity; direction will not create hours.

The roadmap needs systems built that nobody in-house can build.

You need it done faster than a team learning as they go can move.

Nobody on your side can own it between sessions.

You want it built and documented rather than learned.

If the second column describes you, read the implementation page instead. It is a different engagement for a different situation, and buying the wrong one of the two is the most expensive mistake available here.

WHAT HAPPENS

Twenty-six working sessions, three horizon reviews, two re-scans.

A working session every week for the length of the plan. The retainer runs against your roadmap, not against a generic agenda. Every session works on where the plan actually is, not on what happened last week.

The cadence timeline, desktop Twenty-six weekly sessions, three horizon reviews at weeks 4, 13 and 26, and TWO re-scans in gold -- at 90 days (week 13) and 180 days (week 26). Weeks 13 and 26 are therefore both a horizon review and a re-scan, and carry the gold marker; week 4 is a horizon review only. Horizontal because it shows rhythm, not sequence. Pitch is a derived measure -- content divided by 25 -- and node diameter is capped at pitch minus 8, so nodes are separated by fill and colour rather than by scale. TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND -- the canvas is unpainted, so the figure takes the surface it is placed on. Retainer section 03 is a white section; the surface variant is for reuse. MONTH 1 MONTH 2 MONTH 3 MONTH 4 MONTH 5 MONTH 6 TICK · WEEKLY WORKING SESSION NODE · HORIZON REVIEW AT 30, 90, 180 DAYS GOLD NODE · RE-SCAN, AT 90 AND 180 DAYS
The cadence timeline, tablet Twenty-six weekly sessions, three horizon reviews at weeks 4, 13 and 26, and TWO re-scans in gold -- at 90 days (week 13) and 180 days (week 26). Weeks 13 and 26 are therefore both a horizon review and a re-scan, and carry the gold marker; week 4 is a horizon review only. Horizontal because it shows rhythm, not sequence. Pitch is a derived measure -- content divided by 25 -- and node diameter is capped at pitch minus 8, so nodes are separated by fill and colour rather than by scale. TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND -- the canvas is unpainted, so the figure takes the surface it is placed on. Retainer section 03 is a white section; the surface variant is for reuse. MONTH 1 MONTH 2 MONTH 3 MONTH 4 MONTH 5 MONTH 6 TICK · WEEKLY WORKING SESSION NODE · HORIZON REVIEW AT 30, 90, 180 DAYS GOLD NODE · RE-SCAN, AT 90 AND 180 DAYS
The cadence timeline, mobile Twenty-six weekly sessions, three horizon reviews at weeks 4, 13 and 26, and TWO re-scans in gold -- at 90 days (week 13) and 180 days (week 26). Weeks 13 and 26 are therefore both a horizon review and a re-scan, and carry the gold marker; week 4 is a horizon review only. Horizontal because it shows rhythm, not sequence. Pitch is a derived measure -- content divided by 25 -- and node diameter is capped at pitch minus 8, so nodes are separated by fill and colour rather than by scale. TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND -- the canvas is unpainted, so the figure takes the surface it is placed on. Retainer section 03 is a white section; the surface variant is for reuse. MONTH 1 MONTH 2 MONTH 3 MONTH 4 MONTH 5 MONTH 6 TICK · WEEKLY WORKING SESSION NODE · HORIZON REVIEW AT 30, 90, 180 DAYS GOLD NODE · RE-SCAN, AT 90 AND 180 DAYS

Working session

WEEKLY

Progress against the roadmap's initiatives, decisions that need making, and what is blocked.

Horizon review

AT 30, 90 AND 180 DAYS

The close of each roadmap phase, against it milestones.

The re-scans

AT 90 AND 180 DAYS

The same hundred statements, so the score is directly comparable to your baseline.

Between sessions

ASYNCHRONOUS

For decisions that cannot wait until the next session.

Why weekly?

Your team is doing this work alongside their existing jobs. A fortnight is long enough for a blocked initiative to sit unnoticed until it has cost a phase, and the most common way a good plan fails is not disagreement, it is drift. Weekly is what makes the difference between a roadmap being executed and a roadmap being referred to.

THE BOUNDARY

What you are buying and what you are not.

The line between this and implementation has to be absolute, or neither engagement means anything. Here it is.

IN SCOPE

Direction - what to do next, and what to stop doing.

Sequencing decisions - when the plan meets reality and the order needs to change.

Review - every initiative against its milestone, defined as an orbservable state rather than an acitivity.

Unblocking - the decisions your team cannot make alone.

Challenge - including on the things that appear to be going well.

The re-scans - the interpretation of what moved.

AI sequencing advice - readiness for incorporating AI.

OUT OF SCOPE

Building anything - no systems, no automations, no CRM configuration. no copy, no funnels.

Doing the work when your team runs out of time - the retainer does not absorb overflow.

Managing your team - I direct the plan; you manage the people.

Vendor management - if the roadmap needs contractors, that is yours to run.

"Out of scope" is not a limitation I am apologising for.

It is the entire distinction between the two engagements. A retainer that quietly starts building is an implementation engagement being delivered at an advisory price, and it ends badly for both sides.

THE TERM

Six months, because that is how long the plan is.

The Revenue Growth Roadmap is a 180-day plan. Its three horizons stabilise the foundation, close the priority gaps, then build the layer that makes the gains permanent. Advisory that stops at ninety days walks away in the middle of the second horizon; after the disruption, before the compounding.

That is why the minimum matches the plan rather than a billing convenience. It is not here to protect the engagement; it is there because a shorter one would not finish the thing it was bought to finish.

The first re-scan falls inside the term, while the second is at the end of the term.

The same hundred statements, run against the same instrument, at halfway and end points. You find out whether the work is landing while there is still time to change it, and while you are still paying for the advice that would change it.

After six months it continues monthly, or it ends. There is no automatic renewal into a longer term and no notice period beyond the month you are in.

WHERE AI FITS

Advice on what to build with it, and what to decline.

Most businesses are being sold AI tools continuously by vendors, by their own team, and by general noise. Part of what the retainer does is decide which of those belong in your sequence and which do not yet.

AI amplifies whatever it is given. On a retainer that means a specific, recurring question: has the capability underneath this actually been built yet? Where it has, AI is worth layering on and I will say so. Where it has not, the honest advice is to decline the tool and finish the process first. This is the advice most people are not paying anyone to give them.

THE CHOICE

Which of the two you actually want.

These are different engagements for different situations, not a good option and a better one. Most of the difference comes down to one question: who is going to do the work?

Revenue Consulting Retainer

Your team executes; I direct.

Monthly, six-month minimum.

Capability stays in-house.

Slower, and dependent on your team's capacity.

Lower cost.

Revenue Systems Implementation

The systems are built with you and handed over.

Fixed project price for a defined scope.

Faster, and does not depend on your team having spare hours.

Documented and handed over so it runs without whoever built it.

Higher cost.

Some clients take both.

Where a roadmap contains initiatives their team can run and other it cannot, implementation covers the systems that need building while the retainer keeps direction on the rest. It is not the default, and I will not propose it unless the roadmap genuinely splits that way.

BOUNDARIES

What the retainer is not.

Not a fractional CMO seat.

I am not filling a role inside your business or managing your marketing function. The engagement is direction against a specific plan with a defined end, not an ongoing position.

Not available without a roadmap.

There is nothing to direct without a plan, and no plan without a diagnosis. The route runs scan, report, session, roadmap, and only then this.

Not a support contract.

It is not an hours bank, a helpdesk, or an on-call arrangement. It is a cadence, and the cadence is published above.

Not required after a roadmap.

Many clients take the roadmap and run it themselves.

Direction is only useful when there is a plan to direct.

The route runs through a diagnosis: a 15-minute scan, a written report, a 45-minute session, then a roadmap. The retainer starts after that, if it is the right one of the two.

FREE · ABOUT 15 MINUTES · NO CALL REQUIRED

SYED JAWAD UL HAQ

COPYRIGHT 2026