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Services — 2026 engagements

Three ways to work together, none of them a retainer.

Strategic brand and growth advisory for founders who refuse to look like everyone else. Each engagement is scoped to a specific leverage point — positioning, narrative, or fractional senior strategy — and priced accordingly. You are not buying hours. You are buying a decision sharpened by someone who has done it 180 times.

Book a Strategy Diagnostic Read the three tiers →

Currently accepting 3 new engagements for Q3 2026. 9 of 12 slots filled.

A short editorial

What an engagement here actually looks like.

An engagement is a fixed-scope, fixed-price project — not a monthly invoice, not a discovery phase that drifts into a retainer. It opens with a 30-minute diagnostic call, moves into a documented work plan with deliverables and a date, and closes with a written handoff your team can execute against without me in the room.

What it is not: a content calendar, a Slack channel, a wireframe review, a vendor recommendation list, or a junior team parachuted in under my name. If you need any of those, a different firm is the honest answer.

What it requires from you: a founder or CMO with decision authority, three to five hours of your time across the engagement, and the willingness to abandon the deck you have already fallen in love with. The work moves quickly when those three conditions are met, and slowly when any one of them is not.

— E.T., San Francisco, February 2026

The three tiers

Three engagement tiers, priced and scoped by leverage — not hours.

Each tier is a distinct mode of leverage. Read the deliverables, the timeline, and the fit signals honestly. The wrong tier wastes both of our time; the right one pays back before the invoice clears.

01 Diagnostic

For founders who suspect the positioning is the bottleneck but need proof before committing to a larger build.

Positioning Diagnostic

A 14-day, fixed-scope audit of your current positioning, narrative, and category framing — delivered as a 25-page document with concrete rewrites, not a strategy slide.

Deliverables

  • Positioning audit against 8 named competitors
  • Three written positioning alternatives, each with a defensible logic
  • Narrative spine: a 1-paragraph story your whole company can repeat
  • Investor-facing language pass (deck, one-pager, homepage above the fold)
  • 60-minute readout with the founder and one other decision-maker

Timeline & terms

Duration
14 calendar days, single pass
Investment
From $18,000 USD, fixed
Team time required
~4 hours of founder/CMO time, total
Output format
PDF + editable Google Doc

Fit signals

  • Yes Pre-Series A through Series B, $2M–$25M ARR
  • Yes You have a deck that is not landing and you know it
  • Yes You want a second opinion before hiring an in-house head of brand
  • No You need a complete brand identity system — that is a studio, not me
  • No You have not yet decided whether positioning is the actual problem
02 Repositioning

For companies ready to publicly reframe the category — usually tied to a fundraise, a launch, or a stalled pipeline.

Repositioning & Narrative

A 21-day engagement that ships a new positioning, a category narrative, and the public-facing artifacts to deploy it — written so your team can run the rollout without me.

Deliverables

  • Final positioning with three defensible alternatives, scored
  • Category narrative: long-form manifesto, short-form pitch, two tweet-length framings
  • Homepage rewrite (above the fold) and investor memo first draft
  • Press strategy: 6 named target outlets, 3 pitch angles, sample subject lines
  • 30-day launch sequence with channel-specific messaging
  • Two 90-minute working sessions with the executive team

Timeline & terms

Duration
21 calendar days, two review rounds
Investment
From $42,000 USD, fixed
Team time required
~8 hours across exec team, scheduled in advance
Optional add-on
Founder media training, $6,000

Fit signals

  • Yes Series A through Series C, raising or repositioning within 6 months
  • Yes You have a category thesis your competitors do not yet have language for
  • Yes Pipeline has plateaued and the message is the suspected cause
  • No You are also rebuilding product, pricing, and ICP — sequence those first
  • No Your board has not aligned on the move — that conversation comes first
03 Fractional

For companies that need a senior brand strategist in the room — but not full-time — across a defined runway.

Fractional Brand Director

A six-month embedded engagement, capped at 12 active client relationships at any time. Senior strategy on demand, with the accountability of a named partner and the cost structure of a contractor.

Deliverables

  • Weekly 60-minute strategy session with the founder or CMO
  • Async Slack access with a 4-hour response window, business days
  • Quarterly narrative refresh tied to fundraising, launches, or hires
  • Vendor and agency oversight: one accountable reviewer, not a committee
  • Hiring support for in-house brand and comms roles, including scorecards
  • Board-meeting prep: narrative pages, Q&A rehearsal

Timeline & terms

Duration
6 months, renewable month-to-month after the first term
Investment
$22,000 USD / month
Capacity
12 active engagements per quarter, capped by design
Off-boarding
Written transition document and 30-day overlap

Fit signals

  • Yes Series B through Series C, $20M+ ARR, hiring a Head of Brand in the next 12 months
  • Yes Your CMO is technical, operational, or first-time — and needs a senior narrative partner
  • Yes You want continuity of strategy across a fundraise, launch, and reorg
  • No You need a fractional CMO who owns the P&L — that is an operator role
  • No You want to outsource the work — I am a thinking partner, not a production team

All engagements require a 30-minute Strategy Diagnostic at no charge. The call ends with a written recommendation — including the honest recommendation to not work together if the fit is wrong.

By the numbers

What the last six years of this practice have actually produced.

21days

Average delivery time for a positioning engagement, calendar days

3.2×

Reported lift in qualified inbound pipeline within 90 days of launch

180+

Total client engagements completed across 14 industries since 2019

$740M+

Cumulative client valuation influenced through positioning and narrative work

Verified figures, January 2026. See case studies →

A note on fit

If you need a deck by Friday, I am not your strategist. If you need a strategy that survives the next eighteen months and the three competitors who will copy it by Q4, that is exactly what I do.

— Erin Toughill, in a 2025 founder offsite

The honest filter saves both of us a quarter. The diagnostic call exists to surface this in 30 minutes, not after an invoice clears.

The next step

Book a 30-minute Strategy Diagnostic. No pitch deck required.

Bring one positioning question and one decision you are trying to make. You will leave the call with a written recommendation, including the recommendation to not engage if the fit is wrong.

Book a Strategy Diagnostic [email protected] →

30 minutes · No charge · Calendar link delivered by email within 4 business hours · Currently accepting 3 new engagements for Q3 2026