Engagement Guide
What you get, at every level of support
Cultivate Operations provides embedded, part-time operations leadership to mission-driven organizations of roughly 15 to 150 people — the ones who have outgrown the systems that got them here, but don't need another full-time executive. Three tiers, one shared standard of delivery. This guide shows exactly what each one includes.
What the work covers
Four pillars, in every engagement
Operational Clarity
Documented workflows, clear decision rights, and bottlenecks named and removed.
Embedded Leadership
A steady operational voice inside your leadership rhythm, not a report from outside it.
People Systems
Hiring, onboarding, role clarity, and accountability that hold without you in the room.
Growth Readiness
Systems that survive the next hire, the next season, the next expansion.
The three tiers
Choose by depth, not by menu
Every tier draws on the same four pillars. What changes is how many hours a week are inside your business, how fast systems get built, and how much of the execution I carry versus hand off.
Advisory
For you if: the organization is smaller or less complex, the leader has capacity to execute, and what's missing is direction, structure, and someone to hold the thread between meetings.
What you get
- Biweekly standing check-in with the leader
- Full operational diagnosis in the first 30 days
- One completed system by day 90
- One tangible artifact delivered every month
- Written monthly operations summary
- Quarterly review against stated goals
How it runs
- 60-minute kickoff call
- 1–2 team interviews in week one
- Days 1–30: diagnosis plus one light fix
- Strategic direction with light execution support
- Email between sessions; async as capacity allows
Embedded
For you if: everything still runs through the leader, systems live in people's heads, and you need consistent operational leadership and accountability — not advice. This is the most common fit.
What you get
- Weekly standing check-in with the leader
- Diagnosis plus first structural build in the first 30 days
- One completed system and one in progress by day 90
- One tangible artifact delivered every month
- Written monthly operations summary
- Quarterly review against stated goals
How it runs
- 90-minute kickoff call
- 2–3 team interviews in week one
- Present in your leadership meeting rhythm
- I build and run systems, then hand them to an internal owner
- Direct access between sessions
Complex
For you if: you're in a high-complexity season — a live leadership transition, rapid growth, a new site, or a stabilization that can't wait for a slow build.
What you get
- Weekly check-in plus ongoing async availability
- Diagnosis and active stabilization running in parallel from week one
- Two or more completed systems by day 90
- Active transition support through the season
- One tangible artifact delivered every month
- Written monthly operations summary and quarterly review
How it runs
- 90-minute kickoff plus a follow-up working session
- 3–4+ team interviews in week one
- Deep involvement in leadership decisions and cadence
- Multiple systems built in sequence, not one at a time
- Priority responsiveness during the active season
The standard, regardless of tier
Six things every engagement includes
These don't scale up or down with price. They're the floor.
A monthly artifact
Every month produces at least one real, usable deliverable — an SOP, a dashboard, a hiring rubric, a decision-rights map. Never just a verbal update.
A written monthly summary
What we worked on, what shipped, what's next, and anything waiting on your decision.
A structured first 90 days
The same sequence for every client: listen and map, diagnose, establish rhythm, deliver. Checkpoints at 30, 60, and 90 days.
A defined "success in 90 days"
Written in your own words at kickoff, and honestly assessed against at the 90-day review.
Scope handled in writing
If a request lands outside our agreement, you get options — upgrade, a fixed-fee addition, or defer — before any work or cost happens.
A clean exit, whenever it comes
Full documentation handoff, a state-of-operations summary, and a prioritized list of what to do next. Nothing leaves with me.
Side by side
The differences, in one table
| Advisory | Embedded | Complex | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | $3,000 | $5,000 | $7,000 |
| Hours per week | 5–8 | 8–12 | 12–16 |
| Kickoff call | 60 min | 90 min | 90 min + working session |
| Check-in cadence | Biweekly | Weekly | Weekly + async availability |
| Team interviews, week one | 1–2 | 2–3 | 3–4+ |
| First 30 days | Diagnosis + one light fix | Diagnosis + first structural piece | Diagnosis + stabilization in parallel |
| By day 90 | One completed system | One completed, one in progress | Two+ systems, active transition support |
| Monthly artifact | Included | Included | Included |
| Monthly written summary | Included | Included | Included |
| Quarterly review | Included | Included | Included |
How the work sequences
The twelve-month arc
Engagements are month-to-month. But the work has a shape, and knowing it up front means you can tell whether we're on track.
Diagnose & Stabilize
Understand what's actually happening, name the two or three bottlenecks that matter most, and stop the bleeding on the ones that can't wait.
Build & Implement
Structural work — process documentation, role clarity, decision rights, hiring and budgeting systems — introduced one at a time with the team's buy-in.
Optimize, Embed & Scale
Systems get handed to internal owners and start running without me. The measure of success is how little the organization needs me in the room.
Not ready for a monthly engagement?
SOP Sprint — fixed scope, fixed price
A defined project rather than ongoing leadership. We identify your highest-value undocumented processes, build them into usable SOPs, and hand them over with your team trained to run them. Clear start, clear finish, no retainer.
Focus
5 SOPs. The critical few processes that break when one person is out.
Core
12 SOPs. A full functional area documented end to end.
Full
25 SOPs. Organization-wide documentation with a maintenance structure.
Boundaries
What's included, and what isn't
Outside the scope of any tier
- Legal, tax, or licensed financial and investment advice
- Executive title, signing authority, or fiduciary decision-making
- Hands-on technical implementation and software development
- Full-time coverage or day-to-day staff supervision
You remain responsible for your organization's business, legal, financial, HR, and regulatory decisions.
When something falls outside
If a request sits outside our agreement — or if the weekly hours consistently run past the tier range — you'll hear about it before the work starts, with three options in writing:
- Move up a tier, with new hours and fee effective from an agreed date
- Add it as a fixed-fee project, scoped and dated, after which we return to the current tier
- Defer it to a later phase, with no change in fee
Getting started
Four steps from first call to week one
- A fit conversationAn honest look at your size, situation, and what's actually breaking. If this isn't the right help for you, I'll say so and point you elsewhere.
- A tier recommendation and proposalA specific tier with the reasoning behind it — including recommending down a tier when that's the right call.
- Agreement and intakeA master services agreement and a statement of work for your tier, plus a short intake questionnaire so week one is spent working, not re-asking questions.
- Kickoff within five business daysGoals confirmed, "success in 90 days" defined in your words, cadence set, and the first month underway.