Local business advisor · Capital Region, Saratoga Springs, Southern Vermont, and VerYorkachusetts
More customers, and the time to take care of them.
I'm a business advisor based in Washington County. I work in person with owners from Saratoga Springs to Manchester, VT, and by video with owners anywhere. I help you get found, get chosen, and keep up with the people who call: your website, your social media, your follow-up, your calendar. Tell me about your business for twenty minutes and you'll leave knowing what to fix first.
Free, by phone, video or in person. A fixed price on a one-page proposal before anything starts. No deck, no pitch.
If bringing in the next customer is your job, this is for you.
You're the owner, a partner, the person whose name is on the door or whose job is growth. Referrals carry the business, and the phone is answered by someone who is also doing the work. I work with CPAs, law firms and insurance agencies; IT firms; inns, venues and farms; architects, builders and trades; marketing, staffing and consulting shops; and more. If people find you by asking around, this applies to you. Tell me what you do and I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.
Pick the outcome. I'll bring the plan.
Every engagement is a fixed price on a one-page proposal, agreed before anything starts. Twenty minutes is enough to know which one fits.
More customers from your website
For the business whose site says 2015, or doesn't say enough.
- A website that tells people in thirty seconds what you do, where you are and how to book
- Found on Google and Maps when someone nearby searches for what you do
- Reviews asked for and answered, so the next person sees a business that is alive
- You own everything: domain, hosting, email, all in your name
Never miss a customer
For the owner who is the bottleneck on every quote, follow-up and callback.
- Every inquiry answered within minutes, any hour, with the two or three questions you would ask
- Quotes and proposals out the same day, from a template you approved
- A simple follow-up rhythm, so no one who asked is forgotten
- Bookings straight onto your calendar
A social media presence that shines
For the business that knows it should post and never gets to it.
- The one or two places your customers actually look, chosen on purpose
- A month of posts at a time, in your voice, drawn from the work you already do
- Google Business Profile, photos and hours kept current
- Reviews turned into posts, posts turned into inquiries
An advisor on call
For the owner who wants someone to think with.
- A weekly working hour on whatever stands between you and the next customer
- Who you sell to, what you say to them and what you charge, written down and tested
- Same-day answers from me, by text or phone
How it works
Three steps, no surprises.
A twenty-minute conversation
You tell me how a customer finds you today and where the time goes. I ask questions. No deck.
One page, one price, one signature
The proposal fits on a page. A fixed price on top, agreed before any work starts. Card, check or bank transfer, e-signature, deposit invoiced the same day.
Work starts that week
A new website is live in ten business days. The other engagements run weekly, and you see the first results inside a month. If it isn't working by day 30, we stop, you keep what has been built, and the second half is never billed.
Recent work
The situation. A respected firm whose website hadn't changed in years, run by a founder who was also the sales team.
What I did. Before we ever sat down, I showed him three ways his business could present itself to the people who look it up, and walked him through them by phone. The proposal is in front of him now. The follow-up and quoting work comes after launch.
Before that. I spent twenty years helping software companies sell: from the phones, to sales engineer, to running presales and partnerships at a San Francisco company, where the partnerships I ran brought in more than $3.8 million a year from banks and lenders. The same work, sized for the businesses around here, is what I do now.
I live here, and I want this region to do well.
I have sat on both sides of the table. I know what a buyer is weighing before they say yes, and I know which call an owner puts off because it is the uncomfortable one. Twenty years in rooms where things get sold, and two companies of my own since, taught me that most businesses do not have a marketing problem. They have a follow-through problem, and it is fixable.
I sit on my town's planning board. I chaired the board of the food co-op in Cambridge. I was elected to a town council at 23. I know how a small firm in a small town actually gets its customers, because I am one.
Questions people ask
We get all our business from referrals. Why do we need any of this?
Because every referral looks you up before they call. What they find should make the call easy, and when they do call, someone should answer. I'm not trying to get you strangers. I'm making sure the people already sent to you actually arrive.
Someone already does our website.
Keep them. I hand over a finished site and they can host it and maintain it. What I bring is the plan: what the site needs to say, how people book, how you follow up.
What does it cost?
Each package has a fixed price. You see it on a one-page proposal before anything starts, and twenty minutes is usually enough for me to tell you which package fits.
Do I have to be on social media?
Only where your customers look. For most businesses around here that is one or two places, and the goal is to look alive and local, not to go viral.
What happens after I write?
I read every conversation myself and call you back the same business day. We talk for twenty minutes. If I can help, I say exactly how. If I can't, I tell you who can.
Will you name us as a client?
Only with your written permission, and only in words you approve.
Do you work outside the region?
Yes. In person across the Capital Region and Southern Vermont, by video anywhere.
Start with a conversation.
Tell my assistant what's going on and how to reach you. I read every conversation myself and call back the same business day. Twenty minutes, by phone or in person. Free. No deck, no pitch: you talk, I ask questions.
Tell me what's up:
In person across the Capital Region and Southern Vermont: Saratoga Springs, Glens Falls, Albany, Troy, Cambridge, Manchester and Dorset, Bennington, Williamstown. By video everywhere else.