The Instruments Install
Goal: in 90 days, your operating system becomes visible — true margin by line without manual assembly, the processes that live in someone's head written down, and a defined sequence for what to fix next. You keep the documented system permanently, whether or not we ever work together again.
DURATION
90 days · three phases
FORMAT
With you · never for you
YOUR HOURS
~12 · or ~22 without a 2IC
EXIT
Week 3 · full refund, no argument
PLACES
15 · founders cohort
INVESTMENT
$6,500 · founders rate
Being straight with you before anything else.
Yes — this page is the paid end of a funnel. The diagnostic and the session that brought you here were free; this isn't.
Business Maximizer® is new. I don't have three years of customer outcome data because it doesn't exist yet. The founders rate is lower than the next cohort's for exactly that reason: your before-and-after scores become the evidence base. If anyone in this category shows you dramatic outcome numbers this early, ask for the sample size and the time period.
We turn people down. The fit call is a real qualification call — most commonly we decline because the score is already 17+, because there's no viable second-in-command and no willingness to be one, or because the data lives on paper. We'll publish the count and the reasons after every cohort, starting with this one.
Most programmes assume the owner does everything and quietly hope somebody else picks it up. Let's be explicit instead, because getting this wrong is the single most common way an engagement like this dies in week four.
Weeks 1, 4, 8 and 12. These are where the decisions only you can make get made — which system is authoritative, what "finished" means, what we stop doing.
Ops manager, GM, senior 2IC — whoever would actually run this day to day. They do the building; you do the deciding.
You get source-system visibility, never only your delegate’s summary. Framed correctly, that isn’t surveillance — every number is her alibi, not her exposure. She stops being the person blamed for a figure she only relayed.
A short call without you present, to establish whether she can genuinely change a process without asking permission. If she can’t, that’s not a problem with her — it’s the first thing we’d fix. This call is a condition of starting.
Then you are the delegate. That’s a legitimate way to run this — it just costs you roughly twice the hours, and we’d rather you knew that before you paid than discovered it in week three.
Forward this to your 2IC. There’s a page written for her, not for you: the hours by week, what the authority assessment is, and what she keeps at the end.
Read the 2IC pagePublished because you'll find out anyway, and finding out in week three is worse for both of us. The total work is roughly the same either way — what changes is whose calendar it lands on.
With a viable second-in-command
The better case
Roughly one hour a week. Your 2IC: ~30 hours total, about 2.3 hours a week.
Without one — you are the 2IC
The honest case
Roughly two hours a week. Real, and manageable — but it's a different decision from the one on the left, so we quote it separately.
Every component removes a specific barrier. If a line on the left doesn't map to something on the right, it shouldn't be in the package.
A documented system that lives in a folder nobody opens. Your numbers, gates and artefacts live in the app from week one, and the day-90 re-score happens on screen
Time and accountability — week three is where solo attempts stop
Decisions specific to your business, with your numbers on screen
The failure mode nobody surfaces until it’s too late
The tool that can’t see your business — every automation failure starts here
Two systems disagreeing and nobody knowing which is right
Finding out what last month earned on the 15th of this month
Joining the ~30% of companies that have one
The system that exists only in someone’s head
Nothing in your business ever being "finished"
Telling progress from activity
The vendor question almost nobody answers: if I stop paying, what do I own?
No invented "value" figures attached — a document is worth what it changes, not what a sales page claims it's worth.
Artefact /01
The Close Checklist
The written month-end sequence, adapted to your systems in phase two. Boring, procedural, and the single fastest score movement available to most businesses.
Artefact /02
The Source-of-Truth Map
One page: every number that matters, and which system is authoritative for it. Most disputes between your tools are unresolved ownership, not bad data.
Artefact /03
The Thirty-Day Continuity File
The document that answers the question this started with: if you disappeared tomorrow, what does someone need to know? It’s also the artefact a buyer, a bank or a successor asks for — and most owners have never produced one.
Connect three critical systems. Resolve which is authoritative for each number. Margin by line becomes visible. Most of the work here is business judgement, not plumbing — which is why the gate session is yours.
Document what currently lives in someone’s head, starting with whatever breaks when they’re away. Close checklist, follow-up sequence, decision rules. This phase moves the dependency score — the one that shows up in valuation.
Define the gates: what "finished" means for Position, Promote and Maximize in your business. Weekly review installed. Diagnostic re-scored. Nothing gets automated in these 90 days — you automate a system you can see, not before.
Attendance — the same rules for both of us
Your gate attendance is contractual, not aspirational
The four gate sessions are yours to attend — same consequence ladder as your delegate's. We've watched owners delegate a project and vanish; this clause exists so your team can see in writing that this one can't work that way.
We publish owner-gate attendance for every cohort. If it's below 100%, we say so and say why.
Missed sessions — applies identically to owner and delegate
- Miss one: you get the recording and a 15-minute catch-up before the next session.
- Miss two: we pause and talk about whether the timing is right — a deferral is usually the better answer.
- Miss three: we defer you to the next cohort at no charge.
A gate session missed by the owner triggers a deferral conversation immediately, because the decisions made in it are yours to make and nobody can make them for you.
What we commit to
Sessions start and end on time. Every artefact is delivered in the phase it's promised in. If we're the reason something slips, we say so in the session and in writing — and it doesn't count against your week-3 window.
Handle confidential numbers for a living? Want our NDA first? One click. Mutual, signed before you tell us anything.
Right fit
- $1M–$10M revenue, roughly 15–50 staff
- Diagnostic score under 17, weakest in Visibility or Dependency
- Operating data in real systems — not paper, not one person’s memory
- A second-in-command who can change a process without asking you — or you’re clear-eyed about doing it yourself at ~22 hours
- You’ve read the books, tried a framework, watched it stall. That’s not a disqualifier; it’s the profile
Don't buy this if
- You scored 17+ — your constraint is capacity, not clarity. You don’t need this yet
- You want it done for you without being in the gate sessions
- Nobody in the business has 2–3 hours a week for a quarter
- You’re looking for a revenue jump inside 90 days — that’s the phase after instruments, and anyone promising it this fast is guessing
Three lines of defence, in the order they'd actually protect you. The first one is the real promise — the other two exist so the first one rarely has to be used.
The guarantees · First line — the one that matters
Week-3 Time-Refund Exit
If after week 3 you tell us in writing it's not worth continuing, we refund in full — within 7 business days, to your original payment method — provided you attended or watched sessions 1–3 and submitted the Week-1 Baseline Worksheet and the Week-2 Instrument-Selection Worksheet.
If you missed a session because of an emergency, we'll defer you to the next cohort instead — your refund eligibility carries over unchanged.
No justification required. We don't get to argue, ask you to reconsider, or offer to "make it right" first. You've spent three sessions and two worksheets; if that's told you it isn't worth your time, that's a complete answer.
Why three weeks: by then you've done the baseline, chosen your instruments, and seen how the sessions actually run. It's the earliest point at which you can judge this on evidence rather than on how the sales page reads.
Second line
Deferral, at any point
If you defer, you restart at week 1 of the next cohort at no charge. Your score and operational metric are re-baselined on your new day 1. Your deferred seat is guaranteed, not waitlisted.
Businesses have quarters where this genuinely isn't the priority — a key person leaves, a big job lands, something breaks. Deferring is a better outcome than pushing through badly, and it costs you nothing.
Third line
The 90-day score guarantee
If your diagnostic score hasn't improved by at least 6 points from your formally recorded day-one baseline, we continue at no additional cost — in 30-day extensions, capped at 90 further days. Potentially double the time you paid for.
Your side: attend at least 10 of 13 sessions, provide system access within 14 days, complete the actions agreed between sessions. The score can't move if the work doesn't happen.
Not guaranteed: revenue, profit, or a valuation multiple. This guarantees movement in the operating system score — the thing we control together. "Results that are satisfactory" is a phrase that means whatever anyone wants it to mean during a dispute; a number recorded on day one and re-measured on day 90 isn't.
Founders cohort · 15 places
$6,500
Lower because you’re part of the evidence base — your before/after scores are the proof this category doesn’t yet have
Next 15 places
$10,000
When the founders places are gone. Not a countdown — a capacity line
Thereafter
$25,000
Per 90-day engagement, with the evidence base behind it
Payment: $6,500 in full, or three monthly payments of $2,400 (total $7,200 — instalments cost more because they're financing, not because of urgency games). Payment at enrolment; sessions begin with the cohort start date, confirmed on the fit call.
Why fifteen? Because four gate sessions per business is the limit of what one person can deliver properly in a quarter. When that changes, the number changes, and we’ll say so. See the proof standard for what we have and haven’t yet demonstrated.
Is there someone else in this decision?
A business partner, a spouse, a co-signer — anyone who'd reasonably want a say in a five-figure commitment. We'll send them a one-page brief written for them, not for you: what the score means in plain language, the honest hours including what it costs your evenings, the week-3 exit clause in full, and what happens if this doesn't work. Most people forward it before they decide.
Request the Co-Decision Brief →At day 90 you own the operating system. Documented. Yours. Today's decision is only about the 90 days.
It's a real qualification call. What happens next: confirmation immediately → fit call → separate short call with your second-in-command → if it's a yes on both sides, enrolment and a formally recorded baseline diagnostic → session one.
The score is yours either way, no email required. If your score says you don't need this yet, that's the answer, and the read will tell you what to do on your own.
Book the fit call
A real qualification call — and we do turn people down.
Confirmation immediately, then the fit call, then a separate short call with your second-in-command. If either side says no, that’s the end of it and nothing is owed.
The Instruments Install · Founders Cohort · Offer v2 · August 2026 — No inflated bonus values. No countdown timers. Hours published before purchase. Attendance and rejection counts published after every cohort.