How we'd work together
Three ways to put thirty years of experience behind your business.
Most owners don't need another vendor. They need somebody senior who'll look at the whole picture, tell them the truth, and stick around to see it fixed. Here's how that usually starts.
Start here
Three engagements
The IT & Security Assessment
I go find out what you're actually running, what it's costing you, and what's exposed.
Best for
Owners who've never had a real outside look, or who just inherited an IT situation they didn't build.
What you get
- A full inventory of your systems, devices, licenses, vendors and recurring IT spend
- A plain-English security review, measured against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework
- Backup and recovery testing — not "do you have backups," but "do they actually restore"
- A look at who has access to what, including former employees and vendors nobody's cleaned up
- Compliance gap notes for your industry — HIPAA, FINRA, SEC, PCI, whatever applies to you
- A prioritized findings report: what's on fire, what matters this quarter, what can wait
- A 90-minute call where I walk you through all of it and answer whatever you throw at me
- Timeline
- 2 to 3 weeks from kickoff to readout.
- Investment
- Fixed fee, scoped to your headcount and locations. You'll know the number before we start — no hourly surprises.
The Advisory Retainer (vCIO)
A senior technology voice in your business, without a six-figure hire.
Best for
Owners doing $50K–$500K a month who have IT people or a vendor, but nobody actually steering the ship.
What you get
- A standing monthly session on roadmap, risk, and spend
- A rolling 12-month technology plan tied to where your business is actually headed
- Vendor management — I deal with your MSP, ISP, phone provider and software vendors so you don't have to
- A budget review; most clients find real money leaking out somewhere in the first quarter
- Security oversight: policy, training, incident readiness, insurance questionnaires
- Direct access between sessions for decisions that can't wait a month
- A quarterly written summary you can hand to a partner, a bank, or an insurer
- Timeline
- Ongoing. Most clients start with an assessment, then roll into this.
- Investment
- A monthly retainer based on headcount and complexity.
Fractional CTO
For when technology is the thing standing between you and the next stage of the business.
Best for
Owners going through real growth, a merger or acquisition, a compliance deadline, or rebuilding an IT operation that's genuinely broken.
What you get
- Everything in the Advisory Retainer, at a much deeper cadence
- I own the technology workstream — architecture, migration, buildout, whatever it takes
- Hiring and evaluating technical staff, or replacing a vendor that isn't cutting it
- Due diligence support on the technology side of a deal
- Board, partner, and lender-facing reporting
- A direct escalation path, including outside business hours
- Timeline
- Usually a 6 to 12 month commitment.
- Investment
- Scoped to the engagement. It's a real commitment on both sides — we'll know from the intro call whether it fits.
Need day-to-day IT support, a 24/7 helpdesk, or fully managed cybersecurity? That's my company, Incognito CyberSecurity
The working relationship
What it's actually like to work with me
You get me, not a junior.
Thirty years of doing this. When you call, you're talking to the person who's actually going to solve it.
I'll tell you when the answer's no.
Sometimes the right advice is "don't buy that," or "your current guy's fine, here's what to ask him." I'd rather be useful than billable.
Plain English, always.
If you can't explain a technology decision to your bookkeeper, it's not a decision — it's a hope. Everything I write is written for an owner to read.
Hablo español.
I work with clients across the U.S. and Mexico. Documents and meetings in either language.
FAQ
The questions owners ask first
The intro call is free, and it's twenty minutes.
Worst case, you walk away with two or three things worth fixing and you go fix them yourself. That's a fine outcome by me.