Services
Fixed scope. Fixed price. One workflow at a time.
Three productized engagements for owner-operated SMBs in the DMV. Every one of them ends with something you own — not a recommendation you have to go implement yourself.
Engagement one
The Workflow Audit
Two weeks. $3,500 fixed, credited in full against a build if you proceed.
The cheapest way to find out whether automation is worth it here — and the only honest way to price a build. Most firms who skip this step end up paying for discovery twice.
What we do: two working sessions with the people who actually perform the workflow, one session with you, and a walk-through of the systems it touches. Then I write it up.
What you get:
- A written verdict — automate, re-scope, or leave it alone, with the reasoning
- The redesign sketch, with the agent as the primary actor
- A recommended autonomy level for this workflow specifically
- Baseline numbers on cycle time, unit cost, quality, and capacity
- A fixed-price build quote if the answer is yes
- Data-handling flags if the workflow touches CUI, PII, PHI, or client-confidential material
Roughly one in four audits ends in "don't automate this yet." That is a successful audit.
The five audit questions
- What actually triggers this work, and how does it arrive?
- Who touches it, in what order, and where does it sit waiting?
- What decision is being made, and on what information?
- What happens when it goes wrong, and who finds out?
- What would have to be true for this to run without a person watching it?
Habits are not automate-able. Processes are. Question two usually decides which one you have.
Engagement two · the flagship
The 8-Week Build
$24,000–$38,000 fixed, priced off the audit. One workflow, taken all the way to production, in your tenancy, on your accounts, owned by you.
Audit and gauge
The five questions, the outcome sentence, the baseline numbers. If we ran the audit separately, these weeks compress and the fee is credited.
Engineer the redesign
The process is rebuilt with the agent as first actor. Data classification and boundary decisions are made here, before any tool is selected. Strategy before software.
Build and wire
Production build against your real systems. Pre-flight checks, graceful degradation paths, and a failure mode for every step that can fail. Boring, and the reason it survives.
Run it live, in parallel
The automation runs alongside the manual process on real volume. We compare outputs, tune the scoring, and set the autonomy level you are actually comfortable with.
Handover
Runbook, governance one-pager, metric sheet, and a working session with whoever owns it internally. Then 30 days of support while it beds in.
Working automation
Running in production on your accounts. Not a prototype, not a pilot.
Governance one-pager
Who approves what, at which threshold, and when it escalates to a human.
The runbook
Written for your staff. What it does, how to change it, what to do when it breaks.
Four-metric sheet
Cycle time, unit cost, quality, capacity unlocked — wired to the workflow, reviewed monthly.
Engagement three
The Governance Sprint
Six weeks. $12,000–$18,000 fixed. NIST AI RMF-aligned, sized for a company with no CIO — not an enterprise binder nobody opens.
Your staff are already using AI. In surveys of enterprise leadership, 96% believe employees use generative AI without approval, and 42% estimate more than half the workforce does. In a 40-person firm, that is not a policy question — it is an exposure you have not priced.
This is also, increasingly, a revenue question. Primes are asking subs how AI touches contract data. Insurers are asking. Clients in regulated industries are asking. The firms with a one-page answer keep the work.
Governance ranked the number one AI success factor in the 2026 CEO survey — ahead of people and ahead of tools.
Weeks 1–2 · Govern & Map
AI inventory — what is actually in use, sanctioned or not. Roles, ownership, and the legal and contractual requirements that apply to your industry.
Weeks 3–4 · Measure
Risk-rank each use by data sensitivity and decision impact. Data classification guardrails for CUI, PII, PHI, and client-confidential material.
Weeks 5–6 · Manage
Acceptable use policy, per-workflow autonomy levels, approval gates, vendor review standard, incident path, and the one-page summary you send when a prime asks.
Bolt-on option
Run the Sprint alongside an 8-Week Build and the governance for that workflow is written as it is built, not retrofitted. Most govcon clients do this.
Operational transparency
The things you were going to worry about anyway
System access
Named accounts under your control, least privilege, documented. My access is revoked at handover and you hold the credentials throughout.
Who owns it after
You do — accounts, code, configuration, runbook. Nothing is built on a platform only I can log into.
When an API changes
The runbook names every external dependency and what breaks if it moves. 30 days of post-handover support covers the first surprises.
When I say no
If the audit says the workflow is not a candidate, you get that in writing and we stop. I would rather return a fee than ship something that makes your operation more fragile.
Free — no call required
Strategy Before Software: The SMB AI Readiness Kit
Five working tools, not a whitepaper. The same instruments I use in the first two weeks of a paid engagement — scoring sheets, a policy template you can adopt as written, and the vendor questions that end bad deals early.
- Workflow Triage Scorecard — score 3 workflows on 8 weighted criteria, find the one worth automating first
- The Autonomy Ladder — the 4 levels, and how to pick one per workflow instead of company-wide
- One-Page AI Acceptable Use Policy — fill-in-the-blank, NIST AI RMF-aligned, adoptable this week
- The Four Metrics Sheet — cycle time, unit cost, quality, capacity unlocked
- 12 Vendor Due-Diligence Questions — plus the 7 workflows you should never automate first
Send me the Kit
18 pages. Delivered in under a minute.
FAQ
Questions owners actually ask
What does an engagement actually cost?
The Workflow Audit is a fixed $3,500. Build engagements run $24,000–$38,000 depending on the number of systems the workflow touches. The Governance Sprint runs $12,000–$18,000. Every engagement is fixed-scope and fixed-price, quoted before work starts. There are no hourly bills and no change orders for work that was in scope.
Why only one workflow at a time?
Because multi-workflow programs are where SMB AI budgets go to die. One workflow, taken end-to-end through audit, redesign, build, and measurement, produces a working system and a number you can defend. Three workflows, half-built, produce a status deck. Fixed scope. One workflow at a time.
We already have Copilot and ChatGPT. Isn't that the same thing?
No. Those are assistants layered on top of how the work happens today — a person still drives every step. Automation means the agent is the primary actor and the person reviews. That is a redesign, not a faster version of the old process. Not faster. Different.
What happens when you leave?
You own everything: the accounts, the automation, the runbook, and the governance one-pager. It is built in your tenancy on platforms you already pay for where possible. Week 8 is a handover session with whoever will own it internally. Real automation runs while you sleep and survives the moment you stop watching.
We hold CUI / we're pursuing CMMC. Can we do this at all?
Yes, and this is the reason to hire someone with a cyber background instead of an automation generalist. Data classification and boundary decisions come first — before any tool selection. Where a workflow touches CUI, the architecture keeps it inside your existing authorized boundary or the workflow gets re-scoped. I will tell you plainly when a workflow is not a good candidate.
How much of my team's time does this take?
Roughly 6–10 hours total across 8 weeks, concentrated in weeks 1–2. Two working sessions with whoever actually performs the workflow, one session with the owner, and short weekly checkpoints. If your team has to run the project, you bought the wrong thing.
Do you do retainers or managed services?
Not as a default. The engagement ends with a working system you own. If you want ongoing monitoring or a second workflow afterward, that is a separate fixed-scope agreement. I would rather you not need me in month four.
Are you actually local?
Yes. Based in Virginia, serving the DMV — DC, Northern Virginia, Maryland — with secondary coverage in Richmond, Baltimore, and southern Pennsylvania. On-site for the audit sessions when it helps. Remote for the rest.
Bring me the workflow everyone complains about.
Thirty minutes, no deck, no discovery fee. You will leave knowing whether it is worth automating and roughly what it would take.
30 minutes. One workflow. You leave with a plain answer on whether it is worth automating — whether or not you hire me.