Engagements
Three ways in. One standard of work.
Every engagement starts with the Diagnostic, because nothing else is worth buying until the constraint is named. What happens after is one of two shapes, both advisory, and the structure follows the situation rather than a rate card.
On fees. There is no rate card. Every engagement is priced to its scope, one department or the whole company, an assessment or a build, and the number is agreed in writing before day one. Where the exit is the thesis and the runway is real, Liquid Lock will take part of the fee as an allocation tied to the exit.
Engagement 01
The Diagnostic
Two to six weeks · priced to scope
Every department in scope read against the board pack, up to forty conversations, and one page that names the binding constraint, what it costs, and what removing it would take. Complete on its own. Most companies run the page themselves.
Best when you are about to spend money against a problem nobody has actually named.
Engagement 02
The Operating Seat
Quarterly · advisory retainer or allocation
A standing advisory read on the operating plan and the numbers behind it, a seat at the board or the operating committee, and a direct line for the chief executive between meetings. The team runs the company. Liquid Lock reads it. Follows a diagnostic, rarely the first thing.
Best when the team can run the fix and wants a second set of eyes on the machine while they do.
Engagement 03
The Embedded Build
Defined scope · a date on it · advisory led
A scoped build with a ship date. Sales structure and comp, the revenue operations stack, standard operating procedures, a pricing reset. Liquid Lock designs the build, sets the sequence and reviews the work every week. A named executive inside the company owns it and ships it. Then Liquid Lock hands over and leaves.
Best when the answer is known, the team is willing, and it needs an experienced hand setting the sequence.
Availability for embedded work is limited and agreed case by case. Ask in the first conversation.
Operating principles
Four rules Liquid Lock does not break.
They cost money to keep. That is how you know they are principles and not slogans.
Diagnose before you spend
No budget moves in the first thirty days. The cheapest money a company will ever save is the money it does not misallocate.
One plan, not five department plans
Functions that optimise independently cancel each other out. Sequencing is the deliverable.
Margin before growth
Scaling a broken unit economic buys a bigger problem. Fix the shape of the dollar first.
Build it to run without Liquid Lock
If the gains leave when the engagement ends, the engagement failed, whatever the quarter looked like.
What Liquid Lock does not do
Saying no is part of the positioning.
Three things the practice turns down, and what it does instead.
Execution headcount
Liquid Lock is not a resource you rent by the hour and it does not join your payroll. If the answer is three more people, the read out will say so and help scope the roles.
Agency retainers
No campaigns, no creative production, no media buying. If that is the need, Liquid Lock will say who is good at it.
Recruiting fees
Liquid Lock will write the scorecard and sit on the panel. It will not take a fee on the hire, because then its read on whether you need one is worthless.
Start with the Diagnostic.
Everything else follows from what they find.