Approach

You should be able to stop after any step and still be better off.

No retainer to get started, no discovery phase that bills for six weeks and produces a slide deck. Each step ends in something you own and could hand to someone else.

Principles

How I work, stated plainly enough to hold me to

Your systems, not mine

I build on what you already pay for. If a new tool is genuinely the answer I'll say so, but the default is to make the existing stack behave.

Named owners, written down

Every automated handoff gets a person's name against it for when it fails. A system nobody owns is a system that quietly stops working.

Documented so you can leave

Credentials stay in your accounts. Documentation is written for the person who replaces me, not to make me hard to replace.

Exceptions go to people

Automation should shrink the manual queue, not hide it. If a record can't be handled by a rule, a human sees it — with enough context to act.

Scope is capped in writing

Fixed price against a named list. If we discover something outside it, I price it separately rather than absorbing it and slowing down.

Claims carry a number

If I can't tell you what a change is worth in hours or dollars, I'll tell you that I can't rather than estimating something flattering.

The steps

Four steps, and where each one ends

01 Week 0 · free

A 20-minute call

You describe where it hurts. I ask what happens when someone joins, renews and lapses, and roughly what systems are involved. I tell you whether it's the kind of problem I fix.

Ends with A straight answer about fit, and a rough range if there is one.
02 Weeks 1–3 · $3,500

Member Systems Review

The paid diagnostic. I interview the two or three people who actually do the work, trace the join, renew, register and lapse paths through every system they touch, and find where records stop agreeing.

Ends with A written findings document ranking what's broken by cost in staff time and in dues and event revenue — plus a fix list with a price against each item. Yours to keep, use, or take elsewhere.
03 Weeks 4–10 · from $8,000

Build the first fix

We pick items off the fix list, cap the scope in writing, and I build. Highest-cost handoff first. Your staff use it before we discuss anything else.

Ends with Working handoffs, documentation, a named owner per workflow, and thirty days of support after launch.
04 Ongoing · from $500/mo

Hand over or hold

Either your team runs it — the documentation is written for exactly that — or I keep watch: monitoring the connections, catching failed records before anyone complains, and running a readiness pass before renewal season and your annual meeting.

Ends with Your choice, reversible, cancellable with thirty days' notice.

What you actually receive

Artifacts, not impressions

A map of every handoff in your member lifecycle and what each one costs
A fix list with a price against each item, ordered by payback
Written contracts for each connection between systems
A named owner for every automated workflow
Runbooks for the failures that are likely rather than theoretical
Admin access and credentials in accounts you own

Terms

The commercial part, without the dance

How I price: Fixed fee against named scope. Not hourly, not a monthly retainer to start.
Payment: Review is paid up front. Builds are split — half to start, half on launch.
Who does the work: I do. For larger builds I bring in contractors I've worked with before, and I tell you who and for what.
Where I work: Remote. I don't need to be on site to trace how your systems behave.
Contracts and procurement: I'll sign your agreement, complete your vendor forms, and carry insurance certificates. The review sits under most board approval thresholds, which is deliberate.
If it goes wrong: Thirty days after launch, anything I built that doesn't do what we agreed gets fixed at no charge.

Reasonable objections

Things people ask before saying yes

Is the paid review just a sales pitch?

It's a deliverable with a price on it. You get the findings document and the costed fix list whether or not you hire me for the fix, and if you take it to another vendor that's a legitimate outcome. I'd rather sell a $3,500 diagnostic to ten associations than a free assessment to none.

We already have an AMS vendor and a web person. Where do you fit?

Between them. Your AMS vendor supports the AMS, your web person supports the website, and neither owns what happens when a record has to move from one to the other. That gap is the whole job.

Do we have to replace our AMS?

Usually no, and I'd be suspicious of anyone who says yes on a first call. Replacement is expensive, slow, and it doesn't fix a handoff problem — it moves it. If your AMS genuinely is the constraint I'll tell you, and then recommend someone who does selection work.

You're one person. What happens if you disappear?

Fair question and the honest answer is that it's a real risk you're taking. What I do about it: everything is documented for a successor, credentials live in your accounts, and I build on platforms with a large hiring pool rather than anything exotic. You can replace me without starting over.

How long until we see something?

Findings in two to three weeks. First working fix live somewhere between week four and week ten depending on scope and how fast your vendors return approvals — and that second part is usually the longer half.

We're a three-person staff. Are we too small?

Three is fine. Below that the review usually still pays for itself but the build often doesn't, and I'll tell you that rather than sell you one.

Start with the 20 minutes.

It costs nothing and it's the fastest way to find out whether any of this applies to you.