What happens
Week by week.
Nothing is recommended in the first two weeks. The most expensive thing an operator can do is arrive with a theory, and the second most expensive is to arrive without a method.
Week one
Read everything
Four board packs. The model and the closed quarters behind it. The CRM export with stage history. Cohort retention. The vendor list. The org chart with spans counted. The last consultant’s deck, because it tells you what the company already knows and did not do.
Week two
Talk to everyone
Up to forty conversations, scheduled in week one. The chief executive and the sponsor first, then every functional lead, then the people who touch the customer. The reps, the support team and the person who closes the books know where it breaks.
Week three
Try to kill the theory
By day fifteen there is a hypothesis about the binding constraint. Week three is spent trying to disprove it against the data. What survives is the finding. What does not survive goes in the appendix, because a board should see what was ruled out.
Week four
One page to the board
The constraint, what it costs per quarter, what removing it would take, in what order, and what Liquid Lock would do first. Then a working session where you argue with it. A read out nobody pushes back on has not said anything.
Scope
Priced to what needs reading.
There is no rate card. The price follows the scope, and the scope follows the situation. Four shapes cover most of them, and the thirty minute scoping call decides which one you are in.
Scope 01
One department
A single lane read end to end. Sales, or customer success, or operations. For when you already know where it hurts and want it read properly by someone outside it.
Two to three weeks
Scope 02
A few departments
Two or three lanes that touch the same problem. Sales and marketing together. Success and product together. Most engagements start here, because most constraints sit between functions rather than inside one.
Four weeks
Scope 03
The whole engine
All seven lanes read against one board pack, with the constraint ranked across the company rather than within a function. The full operating read.
Four to six weeks
Scope 04
Read, then build
The whole engine, followed by the Embedded Build on whatever the read out ranks first. Priced in two parts, the second agreed only after the first is delivered, so nobody is paying for a fix before the problem has a name.
Scoped after day thirty
Every scope is priced as one number, agreed in writing before day one, and it does not change during the engagement. What changes is which number, and that is decided by what the company needs read, not by how many hours it takes.
What you receive on day thirty
A sample read out.
Illustrative, with the figures invented for the purpose of showing the shape. The real one is one page, in this format, with your company’s numbers in it.
Company
Vertical software, Series B, 14 million recurring revenue, 38 people. Sponsor asked for a demand generation review.
The binding constraint
Pricing. Not pipeline.
The lowest tier is sold on 61 percent of new deals and loses money at the current cost to serve. Every marketing dollar is buying a losing unit economic faster. Pipeline is not the problem. Pipeline is the symptom.
What it costs
Roughly 340 thousand per quarter in contribution margin, before the retention effect. Bottom tier customers churn at 2.4 times the rate of the tier above.
Ranked, by what moves the multiple soonest
- Retire the bottom tier for new business. Grandfather the base for twelve months.
- Rebuild sales comp against gross margin rather than bookings. Two quarters to land.
- Redirect a third of demand generation spend to the mid tier segment that closes in 41 days.
- Then, and only then, revisit pipeline volume.
What was ruled out
Marketing attribution, sales headcount, the product roadmap. Each was tested in week three and each is in the appendix with the data.
Why one page
A board reads one page. A board delegates forty. The appendix exists so the one page can be defended line by line, but the decision has to fit on a single sheet or it will not be made.
Why ranked by cost
Plans that attack five things move none of them. The read out names the one constraint and sequences everything else behind it, so the company can start on Monday.
Why the ruled out list matters
The sponsor asked about marketing. The read out has to say, with evidence, why marketing is not the answer. Otherwise the same question gets asked again in six months.
What happens after
Most companies take the page and run it themselves, which is the point. Some ask Liquid Lock to stay for the first install. Either is a good outcome. The diagnostic is complete on its own.
Fit
Who this is for, and who it is not.
The fastest way to a good engagement is to say no to a bad one early.
Good fit
- Five to eighty million in revenue, institutionally backed.
- A board that wants decisions, not optionality.
- An exit horizon inside thirty six months.
- Willingness to change comp and pricing if that is where the constraint sits.
- A chief executive who will give forty people permission to speak plainly.
Poor fit
- Pre revenue, still searching for the product.
- Looking for execution hands rather than a decision maker.
- A founder unwilling to be challenged in front of the board.
- Wants a deck by Friday and nothing after it.
- A sponsor who has already decided what the answer is.
Questions
Asked before almost every engagement.
Short answers. The longer ones are on the first call.
How long does the Diagnostic take?
Two to six weeks depending on scope. One department reads in two to three weeks. The whole operating engine, all seven departments against one board pack, takes four to six. Dates are agreed before day one and do not move.
What does the Diagnostic cost?
There is no rate card. The price follows the scope, one department, a few, or the whole company, and it is agreed as one number in writing before day one. It does not change during the engagement. A thirty minute scoping call decides which scope you are in.
What do we receive at the end?
One page to the board that names the binding constraint, what it costs per quarter, what removing it would take and in what order, plus an appendix with the evidence and the list of what was ruled out. Then a working session where you argue with it.
Who is the Diagnostic for?
Venture and private equity backed companies between roughly five and eighty million in revenue, with a board that wants decisions and an exit horizon inside thirty six months. It is for sponsors and chief executives who are about to spend money against a problem nobody has named yet.
Does Liquid Lock stay on to fix what it finds?
Sometimes. Most companies take the page and run it themselves, which is the point. Where the team wants help, the Operating Seat or the Embedded Build follows, scoped and priced separately after the read out is delivered.
Is this a marketing engagement?
No. Marketing is one of seven departments read, and it is often where the problem shows rather than where it lives. The Diagnostic reads sales, marketing, customer success, operations, finance, product and people against the same board pack.
Four weeks. Then you know.
Scope, dates and price agreed before day one. The first conversation is thirty minutes and it is free.