Not a strategy document. A seat at the table, and someone in it with nothing to sell you.
Your leadership meeting, with my own objectives alongside everyone else's. Not a monthly report from the outside.
Where the organisation makes and loses money comes first. Where the digital looks worst comes second. They are rarely the same place.
The agencies and freelancers already on your payroll get held to their reports. I have put an agency's monthly reporting next to the actual analytics and found they did not match.
A fractional seat that leaves nothing behind is an expensive way to rent an opinion.
Quite often the honest answer is that your website is fine, your agency is doing a reasonable job, and the money is better spent somewhere else entirely.
I would rather tell you that in a fifteen minute call than after an invoice.
Read the longer argument: A review with no actions is an invoice.
Three seats, priced from a floor rather than a rate card. Most engagements take the middle one.
One day a month
£1,000
from, per month
Two days a month. The shape most engagements take
£1,800
from, per month
Four days a month or more
£3,500
from, per month
That is a floor, not a price list. What an engagement costs depends on how many days it needs and how long it runs, and both of those come out of the first conversation rather than a rate card. I would rather quote you properly once I understand the problem than anchor you to a number before I do.
Start here instead
£1,000 fixed fee, 1 week turnaround, and you get a written list of what is worth doing, what is not, and what to stop. Most fractional engagements I run started as one of these. No obligation to continue.
Three engagements. Three different things proved.
Proves: projects land
A regional law firm replacing a website that no longer matched the practice. I ran the scope, the budget and the governance on the client side rather than the agency side.
What was actually wrong was decision-making, not design. Nobody owned the sign-off, so scope moved every month.
190%
growth in online enquiries, without rebuilding their website
The lesson: a project does not need more agency, it needs one person accountable for saying no.
Proves: the brief is not the problem
An investment firm came to me for a website review. Staff called the site frustrating, so that was the brief I was handed.
The research said something else. Clients did not want a better site, they wanted online trading. The findings became the brief.
60%
of staff described the website as frustrating, and it still was not the problem
The lesson: research before scope, every time.
If you take one thing from this page, take that one. The brief you walk in with is not always the problem you have.
Proves: independence has a price
A charity tender where I sat as an unpaid trustee advisor, assessing bids for a system the organisation would live with for years.
The cheapest bid was the one that would have cost the most. I argued against it, with nothing to gain either way.
75%
growth in quality enquiries after the tender
The lesson: the advice is only worth what the advisor stands to lose by giving it.
1968 takes no commission from any supplier. I do not build websites, I do not resell software, I have no partner agreements and I take no referral fees.
If I recommend an agency, I get nothing for it, and if I recommend you cancel something, I lose nothing by saying so.
That is not a moral position, it is a structural one. Ask any advisor you are considering what they get from each outcome. If everyone in the room benefits from a yes, borrow someone who does not, even if it is only for a day.
I am based in Amble in Northumberland. Most of my work is in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, Durham and across Teesside, with Northumberland clients from Morpeth to Hexham. Anywhere in the region is a morning's drive, and for a two-day-a-month seat that matters more than it sounds. I work outside the North East too, but this is where I can be in the room at short notice.
A senior digital leader who sits in your leadership team part-time. Usually two days a month, on a retainer, making the decisions a full-time director would make without the full-time cost.
An agency sells delivery and a consultant usually sells the next project. I sell advice and nothing else, so cancelling something costs me nothing. I also sit on your side of the table when suppliers are assessed.
Two. That is enough for a leadership meeting, supplier oversight and the thinking in between. One day suits organisations with a settled plan. Four or more suits a live programme.
Seats start at £1,000 a month for one day, £1,800 for two and £3,500 for four or more. Those are floors. The real number comes out of the first conversation, not a rate card.
No. No build work, no software resale, no partner agreements and no referral fees. If I recommend a supplier I get nothing for it. The full declaration is above.
Organisations big enough to have real digital spend and a leadership team, and small enough that a full-time director cannot be justified. Charities and not-for-profits included.
Yes, and some engagements run remotely. The North East is simply where I can be in the room at short notice, which is what a two-day-a-month seat depends on.
An audit usually starts within a fortnight and takes a week. A seat starts at the next leadership meeting once we have agreed the shape of it.