“No fee paid upfront.”

“If you can bring equity capital of $45 million, then we can talk about success fees.”

Wonderful.

You bring the project.

I bring the investors.

The contacts.

The credibility.

The hours.

And the working capital to finance my own involvement in your adventure.

Then, if everything works, we can talk about paying me.

Not pay me.

Talk about it.

Beautiful little detail.

Look.

I have nothing against success fees.

I do work on success.

But think about it.

Working entirely at risk means I am investing in your project.

Before I do that, I need to understand what you have.

A project?

Authority to make decisions?

A credible financing pathway?

Or a PDF, a Gmail address and an uncle who once met the minister?

Small differences.

And there is something else.

Time.

Yours.

You think paying nothing upfront saves money.

It may simply buy you a place at the bottom of someone’s calendar.

Behind the paying clients.

Behind the deadlines.

Behind the dentist.

“I’ll look at it when things calm down.”

Lovely.

Things have not calmed down since 1998… when I left home.

Good professionals have options.

If your proposal is “work now, possibly get paid later,” you are asking them to give your project priority over work that actually pays.

Some may accept.

Sure, the best ones…

Then work on it when they have nothing else to do.

You chase.

They apologise.

You arrange another call.

Six months later, everyone is still “very excited.”

Nobody has done anything.

But congratulations.

You saved the upfront fee.

Paying for a defined piece of work gives you something much more useful:

An agreed scope.

A place in the schedule.

A deadline.

Someone accountable for the next step.

It can turn years of “we should” into weeks of actual work.

Sometimes that work reveals that the project should stop.

Even better.

You have just recovered the next three years of your life.

Some people have asked me about this…

Yes, this is why I charge for access to my time.

For a small consultation, the filter is US$49.90.

First Call.

Not exactly the financial close of Heathrow.

Paying it does not prove your project is good.

It shows that you are willing to invest in getting an answer.

Before asking me to invest my time in finding it.

Since I started charging for access, my calendar has filled with more interesting projects.

And better conversations.

People arrive with a question.

A decision.

Something they need to move forward.

Both sides are invested.

The fee does not buy my agreement.

It buys a conversation where we take your problem seriously.

You may hear that your financing assumptions do not work.

That you are asking the wrong person.

Or that one missing decision is holding up everything else.

Useful things to discover this week.

Instead of in 2029.

My calendar is a terrible place to park a dream indefinitely.

But if you are ready to do something with it…

Book your First Call.

Bring the problem.

Let’s work out the next move.

Use this information at your own risk.

$49.90 1:1 The First Call A PPP decision on your desk? Let’s talk. A letter you need to send. A claim you need to respond to. A project issue... Read more Book The First Call

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