The Practice Behind the Publication
Every issue of The Letter ends with a question worth answering. These are the engagements that answer them — scoped, fixed-fee, calendar-bound, with a working artifact at the end of each one.
Fixed Fees
Calendar Bound
Real Artifacts
Volume I
Issues 01–06
Issue
01
A working dashboard, wired into your data, in 30 days.
Format
30-day, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$7,500 Fixed
Outcome
Working KPI dashboard
You have financials. You don't have visibility. This engagement builds a connected KPI dashboard that shows revenue, margin, cash, and capacity in a single view — updated monthly without manual effort.
Best for owners who
Have a bookkeeper producing monthly financials but no real dashboard. Want to see the business at a glance without building it yourself.
Issue
02
GATEWAY
Know exactly where your cash is going — and when it's coming back.
Format
2-week, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$5,000 Fixed
Outcome
Diagnostic memo + 13-week forecast
Revenue is growing. Cash isn't keeping up. This engagement maps your working capital cycle, identifies the drag, and delivers a 13-week cash forecast you can actually use.
Best for owners who
Are growing revenue but cash-poor. Watch the bank balance daily. Feel like the business is working against them.
Issue
03
Pick the right system without being sold the wrong one.
Format
60-day, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$15,000 Fixed
Outcome
Recommendation + 18-month roadmap
Your current system is the constraint. You've heard pitches for 6–18 months but can't decide. This engagement runs an independent selection process — requirements, scoring, demos, and a final recommendation with an implementation roadmap.
Best for owners who
Know their current system is a constraint. Have heard pitches for 6–18 months. Are afraid of a $300K implementation mistake.
Issue
04
Featured
Know your number before anyone else does.
Format
2–3 week, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$10,000–$15,000
Outcome
Scorecard + 18–36 month roadmap
You're 18–36 months from a transaction and someone told you to "clean up the books." This engagement tells you exactly what a buyer will find, what they'll discount, and what you should fix — in priority order.
Best for owners who
Are 18–36 months from a transaction. Have been told to "clean up the books" without being told what that means.
Issue
05
Financials you actually read and act on.
Format
45-day, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$10,000 Fixed
Outcome
Monthly close package + reporting suite
You get monthly financials. You don't read them. This engagement rebuilds your close package into a decision-grade reporting suite — structured for owners, not accountants.
Best for owners who
Get monthly financials but don't read them. Know the numbers aren't helping them make decisions.
Issue
06
Defend your number before a buyer or lender questions it.
Format
30-day, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$15,000 Fixed
Outcome
Defended adjusted EBITDA bridge
Within 18 months of a transaction or debt raise, your EBITDA will be scrutinized. This engagement builds a defensible adjusted EBITDA bridge — documented, sourced, and ready for a buyer or lender's quality of earnings process.
Best for owners who
Are within 18 months of a transaction or debt raise. Have never formally defended their add-backs.
Volume II
Issues 07–12
Issue
GATEWAY
Map every decision the owner doesn't need to be making.
Format
30-day, calendar-bounded
Fee
$8,500 Fixed
Outcome
Decision map + delegation framework
Best For Owners Who
Are bottlenecks to their own business — approving too many things, too often, without a system for pushing decisions down.
Issue
Find where the margin went. Quantify the recovery.
Format
45-day, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$12,500 fixed
Outcome
8–12 quantified opportunities
Cost structure analyzed across fixed/variable, direct/indirect, discretionary/committed dimensions, benchmarked against industry norms. Identification of 8–12 specific cost-reduction or cost-reallocation opportunities with quantified impact and implementation difficulty ratings. Includes a 90-minute review and 30 days of email support during initial implementation.
Best For Owners Who
Have grown revenue meaningfully in the last 24 months but watched margin compress. Don't have a clear answer for which costs grew with revenue and which grew without.
Issue
The senior team you need. In the right order. Sixty days.
Format
60-day, calendar-bounded
Fee
$20,000 fixed
Outcome
Roles, sequence, scorecards, comp
Written role definitions for the 4–6 senior positions your business needs, in priority order. Hiring sequence with timing recommendations. Scorecards for each role. Compensation architecture — base, variable, equity-equivalent. 12-month integration plan. Includes facilitation of two senior team alignment sessions during the engagement.
Best For Owners Who
Are ready to commit to building the senior team but don't know what roles to hire in what order. Have the financial capacity for $300K–$800K in senior comp over twelve months.
Issue
An outside read on whether your senior team is deciding — or just meeting.
Format
3-week, deliverable-bounded
Fee
$7,500 fixed
Outcome
Decision-rate diagnostic + procedural fixes
Two weeks of meeting observation, decision log capture with named-decider attribution, decision-rate analysis by meeting type, written diagnostic with the four procedural fixes applied to your specific meetings. Includes a 60-minute findings review with owner and senior team.
Best For Owners Who
Have a senior team in place who suspect the meetings aren't producing decisions, but couldn't diagnose internally because the team is the diagnostic instrument.
Issue
Ninety days of embedded facilitation. Measured improvement at the end.
Format
90-day, calendar-bounded
Fee
$15,000 fixed
Outcome
Charter set + internalized architecture
The 90-day plan executed: Week 1 audit, Week 2 architect, Weeks 3–4 announce, Weeks 5–8 run with embedded facilitation, Weeks 9–12 refine, Day 90 re-audit. Final deliverable is a written charter set for each meeting and a senior team that has internalized the new architecture rather than tolerated it.
Best For Owners Who
Have confirmed (via Issue 10 or independently) that meetings aren't producing decisions. Have a senior team in place to make the rebuild meaningful.
Issue
Featured
An annual session. Four quarterly reviews. The rhythm that compounds.
Format
12-month engagement, renewable
Fee
$25,000 annually
Outcome
The operating system, run for you
Pre-work, facilitated 2-day annual session, four facilitated quarterly reviews, year-end retrospective. The plan and review templates become your intellectual property at engagement end. If you choose not to renew, your senior team has the architecture to run the rhythm on their own. Most clients renew — the value of an outside facilitator compounds across years rather than running out at twelve months.
Best For Owners Who
Have a senior team and recognize that planning rhythm only compounds when it runs continuously. Want the operating system, not just the plan.
For owners who want to see the whole architecture before reading any single piece.
I.
Every engagement has a fixed fee and fixed end date. No retainers that drift.
II.
Every engagement produces a tangible deliverable your business did not have before.
III.
The best outcome is that your team can run the work without you afterward.
Sean McCormick • Founder, Drystone Finance
The letter is free. The engagements begin with a conversation.