The retained advisory format is one of the least understood things we offer. People sometimes imagine it as a subscription to a consultant who sends a monthly report. It is not that. It is closer to having a thinking partner who already knows the context and can be reached when something comes up, without the overhead of briefing someone from scratch every time.
What the relationship looks like month to month ¶
In a typical retained month, there are two scheduled calls of around an hour each. These are structured but not rigid: we might spend one call working through a specific decision and another reviewing how a recent change is landing. Between calls, there is availability for shorter conversations when something urgent comes up. The rhythm adjusts as the situation changes.
What it is not ¶
A retainer is not a project. There is no deliverable at the end of the month, no report, no presentation. The value is in the ongoing relationship and the accumulated context. A retained advisor who has been working with a founder for six months can give better counsel in a thirty-minute call than a new consultant can give in a week of intensive work, because the context is already there.
Who it suits ¶
The retained format works best for founders and CEOs who are making significant decisions regularly and want a consistent outside perspective. It is less suited to organisations that have a specific, bounded problem to solve: for those, a sprint or an audit is usually a better fit. The question to ask is whether the need is ongoing or episodic.
The minimum commitment and why it exists ¶
We ask for a minimum three-month commitment for retained advisory. This is not a commercial requirement. It is a practical one. The first month of any retained relationship is mostly about building context. The second month is where the relationship starts to be genuinely useful. The third month is where it becomes efficient. Ending before that point means neither party gets the benefit of the investment.
Starting a retained relationship ¶
Most retained relationships at Egret Endeavor begin after a completed project, when the client has a sense of how we work and we have a sense of the organisation. Occasionally they begin cold, with a founder who has a clear ongoing need and wants to start without a project first. Both routes work. The starting point is a conversation about what the situation actually calls for.
If you are trying to decide whether a retained relationship or a project engagement is the right format, that is a good question to bring to an initial call. We can usually work it out in twenty minutes.