# Ongoing counsel, strategic projects and selection support

> For leadership teams that already know the problem and want it solved: ongoing counsel, strategic projects and selection support from an operator who has run retail and ecommerce P&Ls since 1999. Fixed fee, stated in writing before the work starts.

Source: https://barkingcat.ai/counsel-and-projects/

## Barking Cat Advisory

Some work does not fit a fixed diagnostic. The leadership team already knows what the problem is and wants it solved, or wants an experienced operator alongside while it does the solving.

For that work the answer is short. Yes, Steve can help. He will be on site for an agreed number of weeks, for a fixed fee stated in writing before he starts.

If the problem is not yet named, start with [the thirty-minute conversation](https://calendar.app.google/8udhezX71BHZaB5NA) or [the Review](https://barkingcat.ai/review/).

## Ongoing counsel

A standing arrangement, minimum ninety days, with an exit.

Steve works with the chief executive and the leadership team while the plan is carried out. He holds the agreed sequence and its named owners to account, reads the trading numbers as they arrive, and says the unwelcome thing before it becomes expensive.

In practice, Steve joins the trading or leadership meeting on an agreed rhythm, holds an hour with the chief executive each month, and is on the phone or email between times. The rhythm is agreed in writing before the engagement starts.

Ongoing counsel is the usual answer to the two questions a chief executive asks at the end of a Review: who makes sure this gets done, and who sits on my side of the table while it does.

## Strategic projects

One defined problem, scoped and priced before it starts. Typical briefs:

- **Retention and CRM**: Keeping the customers the business has already paid to acquire.

- **Operating model and organisation**: The structure, roles and capability the ambition requires. Most teams were built for a smaller business than the one they now run.

- **Trading and commercial performance**: Where the margin goes between the order and the bank, including returns, fulfilment and [cost to serve](https://barkingcat.ai/terms-of-trade/cost-to-serve/).

- **Marketplaces**: Whether to be on them, and on what terms.

- **Cost**: What to stop spending on, starting with the list [the Review](https://barkingcat.ai/review/) produces.

- **Competing business cases**: Tested on one basis before the board chooses between them.

Where a project needs a specialist that Steve is not, he will say so and point to one.

## Selection support

On request, Steve runs the selection process for an agency, a technology or a platform. That means the brief, an RFP template, a scoring matrix, and counsel through the selection and the delivery that follows. He has led eight replatforms from the client’s chair.

The client makes the choice. Barking Cat earns nothing from the supplier chosen, takes no referral fee and does no implementation. [How Barking Cat Advisory is paid](https://barkingcat.ai/independent/).

Whether a replatform is warranted at all is a separate question, answered first by [the Replatform Assessment](https://barkingcat.ai/ecommerce-replatform-assessment/).

## What this is not

It is not interim cover. Steve guides the work, shapes it and will contribute to it. He does not manage the team or own its number. If the business needs a permanent operator in the seat, that is the advice it will get, and there will be no invoice for a stand-in.

## What happens next

Thirty minutes, no pitch. If there is work worth doing, a fixed-fee proposal in writing within two working days. Then the engagement, or a plain no.

[BOOK THE CONVERSATION](https://calendar.app.google/8udhezX71BHZaB5NA)

## Contact

steve@barkingcat.ai

Barking Cat Advisory Limited. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17338003.