The Walkthrough
Half a day inside your business,
and a plan you own.
I spend four hours with the people actually doing the work — watching the process, asking questions, presenting nothing. Then you get a written document saying what I found, what's worth doing about it, what isn't, and where I'd start. You can build it with me, build it with someone else, or do none of it.
- On site
- Four hours, during working hours
- Delivered
- Within five business days
- Debrief
- One call, included
- Ownership
- The document is yours outright
- After
- No commitment, either direction
- Travel
- Included in the Twin Cities metro
Take what I deliver and shop it around.
The document is written so that anyone competent can execute from it. Hand it to your IT provider, an agency, or a developer you already trust, and it will work for them. That's what you're paying for at this stage, and it's the whole product — an assessment that only works as a lead-in to my own build is a sales call with an invoice attached.
What arrives
The same seven sections every time. Plain language throughout — if a word would send you looking something up, it either gets defined on the spot or doesn't appear.
What is already different
At least one thing that changed because of the visit, stated before any finding, recommendation or price. It doesn't have to be code — a process change, a setting, a habit, a spreadsheet that stops overwriting itself. It counts if it's already done, or if you can do it yourself the same day without paying anyone.
What I saw
Your process as it actually runs, written in the words the people doing it used. Not the org-chart version, and not my paraphrase of it.
What turned out not to be true
Assumptions the visit corrected — yours and mine, named as such. If I walked in with a read and your floor disproved it, that goes in writing. A report that only confirms what everyone already believed isn't worth paying for.
What is worth doing
Ranked. Each one in plain language, with roughly what it costs, roughly what it returns, and what has to be true for it to work at all.
What is not worth doing
Explicit — including anything that's free, already solved, or doesn't need software. If there's a fix you can just go do yourself, it's written down with instructions, not saved for a proposal.
Where I would start, and why
One recommendation. Low-impact to the business, high-return, and narrow enough to prove both the approach and the working relationship before anything bigger gets committed to. Not a menu.
The raw material
Transcript and notes, so the document stands on its own for whoever reads it next — including someone who has never met me.
The first and fifth sections are the ones that make the rest of it trustworthy. If a visit ever produced nothing for the first one, that would be a finding about the visit.
How it goes
Six steps, and the last one is nothing.
- 01
A conversation first
Forty-five minutes, free. No scope, no deliverable, no deck. If a walkthrough wouldn't return its price, I'll tell you that here.
- 02
We schedule it
I need access to the people doing the work, not only to you. That one is a condition rather than a preference.
- 03
Four hours on site
Question-led. I don't arrive with the diagnosis and I don't present anything. Recorded with your consent — the recording becomes yours.
- 04
Five business days
The synthesis. This is the part that does not shrink when the visit does, and the reason the price is not a number of hours.
- 05
Delivery, and a call
The document, the transcript, and one conversation to walk you through all of it.
- 06
Then nothing
Unless you decide otherwise. There is no next step you have already agreed to.
How I work while I'm there
I don't arrive with the diagnosis. Repeating your own complaint back to you is validation, and validation isn't worth $2,000. I want the mechanism — how the thing actually breaks — and you're the one who knows that.
I talk to the people doing the work. You know what's supposed to happen. The floor knows what happens.
I'll ask you to explain it in simple terms. I won't borrow your trade's vocabulary as a substitute for understanding the process — not knowing the jargon is an advantage, because it forces the real explanation.
If the fix is free, I'll tell you it's free. In writing, in the document, before any conversation about scope. Value should land before the invoice does.
If I get something wrong, you'll hear it from me. It goes in the document as wrong, in my words, rather than waiting for you to find it.
What it isn't
- An implementation — building is separate, and quoted after.
- An IT audit, a security review, or a vendor evaluation.
- A technology recommendation by default. "You don’t need software for this" is a common finding.
- A proposal. If you want one afterwards, that is a different document, written because you asked.
Questions people ask before booking one
What does the walkthrough cost?
A walkthrough is $2,000, fixed. That covers four hours on site, a written document delivered within five business days, and a call to walk through it. Travel within the Minneapolis–St. Paul metro is included.
What do I actually get at the end?
A written document you own outright, in seven fixed sections: what is already different, what I saw, what turned out not to be true, what is worth doing, what is not worth doing, where I would start, and the raw transcript and notes.
Am I committed to hiring you afterwards?
No. The document is written so that anyone competent can execute from it. You can hand it to your IT provider, an agency, or a developer you already trust, and it will work for them. After delivery there is no commitment in either direction.
Do I need to know anything about AI first?
No. Most people I work with are business owners and operators, not AI experts, and it is not their job to become one. If you can explain your process in plain terms, that is the whole prerequisite.
What if the answer is that I do not need software?
Then that is what the document says, with the fix written out so you can go do it. A great deal of what gets sold as AI work is a data problem or a process problem in a costume, and saying so is part of the job.
What happens after the walkthrough, and what does that cost?
It depends on what the walkthrough finds, which is exactly why it comes first — I do not quote work I have not seen. Once the walkthrough is done, both of us know enough for the next step to be a fixed number rather than a guess.
Book a conversation before you book a walkthrough.
Forty-five minutes, free, no scope and no deck. If a walkthrough wouldn't earn back what it costs you, I'd rather say so then than take the money.
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