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Services

Diagnose Five independent reviews with a fixed fee and a defined output, from £1,500. Know where you stand before you spend anything. No software to sell you.
AI opportunity audit A fixed-fee AI opportunity audit from £2,000. Find out where AI saves money, makes money and reduces risk, ranked by return, with a 90-day plan.
AI readiness assessment A five-dimension assessment of whether your organisation could adopt AI at all. Data, governance, skills, process and infrastructure, scored. £2,500 fixed.
Digital audits An AI-powered digital health analysis of your website, search, advertising and competitors, with RAG-rated priorities and a 30/60/90-day action plan.
Get-gain-grow An agency audit and growth process built on more than forty years of business and technology experience. Systems, processes, projects, reporting and financials.
Advise Independent strategic guidance for boards and leadership teams facing digital and AI decisions they will have to live with. Scoped to the decision, not sold as a package.
Digital strategy Independent digital strategy for the next two to three years, in an order you can fund and defend. No software to sell you and no delivery to protect.
AI strategy and governance Two halves for two readers. Where AI belongs and in what order, and who approves it, what is never delegated to it, and how a board evidences oversight.
Board and trustee advisory Independent digital and AI counsel for boards and trustees, as a non-executive director, adviser or committee member. Scrutiny before the spend, not after.
Strategic advisory retainer A standing advisory arrangement for leadership teams that would rather ask early than commission late. Advice and governance, never delivery capacity.
Lead Director-level digital leadership one or two days a week, inside the leadership team. A six-month initial term, a named handover point and no long tie-in.
Fractional digital leadership A director-level digital lead inside your executive team one or two days a week. A six-month initial term, one month notice, and a named handover point.
Capability development Structured sessions that build digital and AI capability in the people who already own it, worked through live decisions. Designed to end, not to continue.
Deliver Selective, fixed-scope implementation work, accepted only when all five published conflict conditions are met. Advisory access is never used to win the build.
AI implementation sprint One defined AI use case, built into your existing systems and handed to your team. Fixed scope, under a published test that governs when I accept the work.
Digital and business transformation Transformation sequenced as stages you can stop after any one of them. Each stage is fixed scope, fixed fee, and independently worth doing on its own.

Case studies

How a digital agency won bigger work without hiring anyone A £120k financial services win and bigger accounts across finance, fashion and ecommerce, delivered by the same team after an agency review.
How a full-service agency grew retained client revenue 166% Retained client revenue up 166% and project efficiency up 230% after a full agency review made existing clients the heart of the business.
Opening up public sector work for a digital agency How a South Yorkshire digital agency learned to bid for government work, with a tender approach and reusable templates it could run itself.
St Modwen Homes: a twelve month digital reset How I took a national housebuilder from a broken website and a stalled CRM to a relaunched site, enquiries up 234% year on year and a marketing budget cut by £200k without cutting output.
A Yorkshire housebuilder: nine years on the client's side of the table How I spent nine years as a Yorkshire housebuilder's client-side digital lead, rebuilding the website, holding four agencies to account and proving £16.6m of digitally attributed sales in a single year.
A stockbroker whose own staff called its website "frustrating", handed a plan to catch up. How I audited a long-established stockbroker's website, heard it called 'frustrating' by its own staff, and built the strategy for a rebuild with online trading.
A firm that thought its website converted at 2% was really at 0.4%. I built the strategy to fix it. How I audited Halo Financial's digital estate, found a website converting at 0.4% not 2%, and built the strategy for a full responsive rebuild.
140 websites, an in-house team at capacity, and a plan to hand it all over cleanly. How I scoped and ran the search to hand a 140-website insurance broker estate to a specialist agency, under FCA compliance, without disrupting a single client.
Building a category, a brand and a website in ten weeks How I defined a market category, built the brand system and specified a full website for an early stage software company in ten weeks, using AI as production capacity.
How a struggling agency lifted pitch conversion 40% and got acquired How I turned a stalled Yorkshire agency around, lifting pitch conversion 40%, building recurring revenue past half of turnover, and attracting an acquisition.
How coaching cut a digital agency's proposal time in half How I coached a small Leeds agency through its pitch and project management process, cutting proposal time by 50% and freeing capacity to win repeat work.
Fixing delivery at a fast-growing digital agency How I reviewed and rebuilt online delivery at an award-winning Leeds agency, brought in agile, and delivered its largest project on time and to budget.
Managing a major website project for a national law firm How a national law firm's sprawling 17,000-page website became an evidence-led brief and a fair, defensible agency choice, run independently under NDA.
Central government: large scale digital transformation A £2.5m programme that brought 41 websites and multiple government departments under one strategic approach, with governance and procurement to match.
Superbreak: commercial digital transformation Executive board member for digital and technology in a £140m travel business. Online revenue roughly doubled, from about £40m to more than £80m, in three years.
Helping digital agencies deliver better A pattern fixed again and again: delivery capability rebuilt across agency teams of 70-plus, so agencies grow without margins slipping or clients losing faith.
Tech for social good: a digital audit case study The organisation A charity working to connect surplus food from shops and restaurants with families who need it. Small team, meaningful budget by charity | 1968 Consulting
DementiaNet: building a dementia support platform people actually use After a diagnosis nobody hands you a map. How UK wide research, not guesswork, shaped a dementia support and planning platform for Teesside.
Eleven responses. Three on the pitch day. One agency appointed in eight weeks. Eleven responses scored against a weighted matrix, three agencies on pitch day, one appointment. How the selection ran for a mid six figure build.
How a mid size regional UK law firm grew online enquiries by 190% without rebuilding their website 182 enquiries to 529 across eighteen months. No rebuild, no rebrand, no six figure project. What changed, and in what order it happened.
Four years, two websites, one consultant: rebuilding digital marketing for a UK foreign exchange firm. An embedded four year consultancy with a UK foreign exchange firm. Organic conversion moved from 0.51% to over 6% across two websites.
55 digital audits. Here’s what I found. 76% had SEO problems. 69% ran their CRM from a spreadsheet. Two years of digital audits across every sector. The findings, the data and what to fix.
From fragmented activity to an integrated digital marketing engine A national new homes developer joined up personas, SEO, paid search and lead nurture. What it did to cost per lead and pipeline quality.
Six months. One defendable brief. A website worth pricing properly. How six months turned we need a new website into a 41 question RFP, five personas, fifteen journeys and a CMS recommendation.
Global law form – digital strategy preparation The challenge A transatlantic law firm wanted to future-proof its digital presence. Their existing website was underperforming in both visibility and | 1968 Consulting
Global law firm – digital audit Transforming Their Website with Strategic Digital Insight The challenge A transatlantic law firm with a broad client base and international presence, | 1968 Consulting
Case Study: DementiaNet – Bridging the Gaps in Dementia Support Two years from researching the online dementia support landscape to a feasibility study, a full ITT and project managing the website build.
Configurator – house builder Background The house building industry has historically been adept at “selling shells” but curiously, not so clever at filling them. New house buyers move | 1968 Consulting
Charity coaching How a community foundation charity digitised its website, grant process and stakeholder reporting through a structured digital coaching programme.
Wildlife Trust – customer journey mapping Background:The Wildlife Trust, dedicated to conserving and protecting wildlife habitats and species, recognised the importance of leveraging digital tools | 1968 Consulting
Fund management system A 30 year old community fund running on unfit software and a compromised hand built CMS. How the system and the site were rebuilt together.
High end drinks ecommerce strategy Project Overview:A high-end drinks e-commerce platform sought to enhance its user experience and streamline its operations by implementing an intelligent | 1968 Consulting
Devon Wildlife Trust – digital review Devon Wildlife Trust digital review needed to get a better understanding of how the current digital tools could work efficiently across the organisation.
Conveyancing lawyers – strategy Background Top specialist conveyancing lawyer realised their online real estate was not performing as they wanted it to. The internal team were fielding | 1968 Consulting
Lawyers – digital strategy What was needed: A national lawyer company asked me to review their full digital footprint - website, paid , social media. They had had the same website | 1968 Consulting
Care home charity – digital strategy What was needed: A multidisciplinary care home charity serving a large local community needed assistance with their online estate. Following a complete IT | 1968 Consulting
Digital transformation; a housebuilders story Situation A major UK housebuilder determined their digital processes and presence was possibly not as effective or efficient as their customers demanded. | 1968 Consulting
Insurance Group – CMS A national insurance broker running twelve standalone WordPress sites. How consolidation cut the manual hours spent updating them.
CIPHER Medical A Hartlepool medical services business swamped by Covid demand. How we prioritised web, training and product ordering when everything needed doing.
Redmayne Bentley How a Leeds agency structured its ITT response, split ownership across the team and won a three way pitch for a stockbroking client.
Halo Financial – migration to Kentico CMS Project management Consultancy User acquisition strategy Usability testing What I Did: The old Halo website was built around old technology and was not | 1968 Consulting
Travis Perkins Online Strategy Challenge Travis Perkins PLC a national builder’s merchant with over 1800 trade counters has been struggling with online marketing and transactions, | 1968 Consulting
Emigrate2 Migrating a 30,000 visitor a month emigration site off ageing technology to WordPress, while the customer journey was reviewed properly.
Halo Financial Ten years working with Halo Financial on wireframe information architecture, usability review of design candidates and early stage fixes.
Hotelnet Refactoring a late nineties hotel booking brand from ColdFusion to .NET MVC, with distributed development and a Superbreak web services feed.
Needlecase A modest budget site for a bricks and mortar wool and sewing supplies business, built around keyword research rather than guesswork.
Charles Church Case Study Challenge Charles Church wanted to come out of the recession at the front of the market – able to react quickly to customer demands and exceed their | 1968 Consulting

Guides

Prompt mastery guide A five part framework for writing prompts that produce usable output first time, with ten worked examples. 42 page PDF, £9.99, instant download.
10 AI prompts A free guide of ten copy-ready AI prompts for founders, consultants and professionals, with when to use each, expected outcomes and a cheat sheet.
Charity checklist A free board-level checklist for charity trustees. Seven sections, twenty-nine questions on oversight, spend, data, suppliers, AI and accessibility. No technical knowledge needed.
Guides Long-form, evergreen guidance on choosing digital suppliers, what a review should cost and technology decisions in the social sector. Free, and they sell nothing.
Choosing a digital agency A guide for managing partners and practice managers on selecting a digital agency, briefing one properly, reading proposals and managing the relationship afterwards.
What a digital audit costs Four different things are sold as a digital audit, at prices from nothing to five figures. The honest UK market range, what drives the price and how to judge one afterwards.
Charity and trustee technology Technology decisions in the social sector, written from the trustee side of the table: restricted funding, personal accountability, the questions to ask and where AI helps.
The trustee checklist A board-level checklist for charity trustees. Seven sections, twenty-nine questions on oversight, spend, data, suppliers, AI, accessibility and key-person risk. No technical knowledge needed.

Reading by journey

Professional services firms buying digital or AI Questions law firms, financial services firms and broker networks ask before buying a website, a transformation or AI, in the order they come up.
Charities governing digital spend Questions trustees and charity chief executives ask before committing donated money to digital, from the first check to running a tender.
Agency owners fixing delivery and growth Questions agency owners ask when delivery is breaking or growth is hurting the business, from why it happens to what to change first.
Small businesses getting more from digital Questions small business owners ask about their website, search, analytics and AI, drawn from 55 digital audits.

Insights

How to run a charity tech tender to Charity Commission standards A short, practical guide to running a charity technology or website tender that is fair, transparent and defensible, and gets you value for donated money.
Buying a website: the five questions that save you from spending twice Five checks that stop you buying the wrong website build. Drawn from years of website projects across legal, financial, charity and agency work.
Your website is probably fine Ask an agency if you need a new website and you already know the answer. Why the redesign reflex wastes money, and what to check before you rebuild.
Process before technology: why 'which tool should we buy?' is the wrong first question The most common question about technology is the wrong one to start with. Why you should fix the process first, then fit the tool, and spend once.
Why agencies grow faster than they can deliver, and how to fix it The trap almost every growing agency hits: sales outrun delivery, margins slip, clients wobble. What breaks as you scale, and the discipline that fixes it.
The cheapest bid is the most expensive decision on the table Picking on price is not prudence, it is deferred cost. Why the money saved at selection gets spent twice in delivery, and how to score value instead.
AI for small businesses: what is worth it and what is just expensive noise A plain, hype-free filter for AI spend, for small business owners without a technical team. How to tell the useful tools from the expensive noise.
Why accessibility is a governance issue, not a design extra Accessibility gets treated as a design preference and priced as an optional extra. For most boards it is a legal duty with nobody's name against it.
Is your charity's agency marking its own homework? When an agency's monthly report is rosier than the real data. How charities can check the reports they're sent, and the questions to ask.
Nobody needs a digital transformation Transformation is a budget, not a plan. What organisations actually need is specific problems fixed in a sensible order, which is harder to sell.
When your own staff call the website 'frustrating', listen The research a firm skips before a website rebuild is the research that should decide it. What staff, branches and clients reveal that design never will.
When a fractional digital leader is the right answer Fractional leadership suits a narrow set of circumstances. Here are the signals that point to it, and the ones that point somewhere else.
The questions to ask before your firm buys legal AI Legal AI is being pitched hard. A plain set of questions to separate the tools worth buying from the expensive noise, before your firm commits.
A review with no actions is an invoice Consultancy's most reliable product is the report nobody acts on. What a review actually owes you, and how to tell paper from progress.
The hidden cost in your agency's pitch process The money in a small agency leaks in the pitch, not the creative. How tightening the proposal process cut one agency's proposal time in half.
Why AI multiplies judgement rather than replacing it AI has removed the production constraint from a lot of work. It has not removed the constraint that mattered, which was knowing what was worth producing.
The charity digital spend checklist: questions to answer before you commit a penny A plain checklist for trustees and charity leaders. The questions to answer before spending on a website, system or agency, so you spend once.
Your agency's monthly report is a sales document The people you pay should never be the only people measuring their own work. Why agency reports flatter, and the one change that fixes it.
The website metric that is quietly flattering your numbers How a single mis-attributed referral can make a website look five times better than it is, and how to catch the same trick in your own analytics.
The hidden cost of vendor-led advice The advice you get is shaped by what the adviser sells. That is not dishonesty. It is structure, and it costs organisations more than any single bad decision.
How to run a law firm website project without wasting money A practical order for running a law firm website project: understand the site, brief it properly, then choose an agency. How to avoid an expensive mistake.
The consultant who tells you what not to buy Most digital advice quietly pushes you to spend. Here is the case for the opposite: an independent consultant whose job is telling you what not to buy.
What boards should ask before approving an AI project Six questions a board can ask about an AI proposal without understanding the technology. None of them require a technical answer.
Why technology projects fail before implementation starts Most failed technology projects were technically fine. The decision that sank them was made months before anyone wrote a line of code.
A digital strategy that fits on one page and a small budget A digital strategy is just clear decisions about what to do, what to skip and in what order. How SMEs build one on a small budget, without the big agency bill.
The boring AI wins that actually save SMEs money Skip the hype. The AI worth having for a small business takes dull, repetitive admin off your plate, saving hours every week for a few pounds a month.
Why your website gets visitors but not customers Traffic that doesn't convert isn't a traffic problem. Sharper pages, clearer calls to action and a working enquiry path turn visitors into enquiries.
Your customers are dropping out somewhere. Here’s how to find where Losing customers between interested and paid? Map the customer journey, spot the leaks and recover sales you've already paid to win, without more traffic.
The £1500 audit that finds money you’re already leaving on the table Most SMEs cannot say which digital spend makes money and which wastes it. What a focused audit finds, and what it typically pays back.
The Covid digital scramble 20 of the 55 businesses I audited pivoted digitally during Covid. Most of those emergency solutions were still running unchanged two years later. Sound familiar?
Google Analytics was installed but nobody looked at it 32 out of 55 businesses I audited had Google Analytics on their website but weren't using it. Here's the four things to check monthly that take ten minutes.
“Our web developer disappeared” 11 of the 55 businesses I audited had a broken relationship with their web developer. Here's how to make sure you're never stranded if yours walks away.
What 55 audits taught me Two years, 55 businesses, 728 pages of reports. The patterns that showed up again and again, and why small firms struggle with digital.
The first question I always ask Before checking page speeds or meta descriptions, I ask the same question: what does this business actually need digital to do? The answer is almost never what the owner thinks.
Why I always look at the competition Competitor analysis was part of 32 out of 55 audits. Most businesses had never systematically looked at what their competitors do online. Here's why it's one of the most useful things I do.
Two websites, one mission An ethical recruitment firm had two websites for two audiences. Double the maintenance, double the problems. Here's why one good site with clear navigation beats two mediocre ones.
From networking group to the United Nations A professional networking group for women in a male-dominated industry grew into an international organisation. The digital platform was still designed for local meetups.
The workshop that changes lives A woodturner running commercial manufacturing alongside training for veterans and people with mental health difficulties. A website that needed to serve both. And a content strategy nobody expected.
Not every digital problem is about websites One of the 55 businesses I audited employed hundreds of people. They didn't need marketing help. They needed to replicate the creative accidents that happen when people work in the same room.
The instrument maker targeting Japan A manufacturer moving production back to the UK. A cult following in Japan. Products costing thousands. The digital challenge: building an e-commerce experience worthy of the product.
The company that was already winning One of the 55 businesses I audited had grown from 8m to 30m turnover and was already number one nationally. They wanted an Amazon-style customer journey. Here's what that taught me.
When the website IS the business For some businesses I audited, the website wasn't a marketing channel. It was the entire business. Here's what changes when every page speed issue costs you actual revenue.
Digital on a charity budget Six of the 55 businesses I audited were charities. Same digital problems as everyone else, fraction of the budget. Here's what works when free is the only option.
Creative businesses, creative problems Photographers, illustrators, theatre companies, designers. The irony: their work is stunning and their digital strategy is nonexistent. Findings from auditing creative businesses across 55 digital audits.
When manufacturers go digital Seven of the 55 businesses I audited were manufacturers. Their digital problems weren't about social media. They were about stock systems held together with spreadsheets and quoting processes that involved printing PDFs.
Your homepage is about your customer, not your company \"Founded in 2015, we are a leading provider of...\" I read some version of that sentence on the homepage of nearly every business I audited. 35 out of 55 | 1968 Consulting
The case study your business hasn’t written yet 20 out of 55 businesses I audited were sitting on brilliant client stories they'd never written up. Here's a three-part structure that takes 30 minutes and works every time.
Social media strategy for businesses that don’t have a marketing team 37 out of 55 businesses I audited had social media problems. Most were posting without a plan. Here's what actually worked for the ones that got it right.
From spreadsheet to CRM: a small business guide to making the switch 38 out of 55 businesses I audited ran their client relationships from spreadsheets. Here's when to switch, what to switch to and how to do it without losing an afternoon.
SEO for small businesses: the quick wins that take an afternoon and last for years 42 of 55 businesses I audited had basic SEO problems. Missing meta descriptions, generic titles, no heading structure. All fixable in an afternoon.
The mobile usability gap: why 64% of small business websites still fail on phones 35 of 55 businesses I audited had mobile problems. Buttons too small to tap, text needing pinch zoom, menus that collapsed on themselves.
How to challenge your agency without falling out with them A practical playbook for marketing leads whose agency report keeps showing green arrows. How to push back constructively without losing the relationship.
AI Mode is coming. Here is what brands should be doing now – part 3 Google is positioning AI Mode as a replacement for search as we know it. What is worth doing now, and what is just anxiety dressed as strategy.
Why B2B businesses should look at their desktop search data differently – part 2 Most SEO advice is written with smartphones in mind. That's understandable — mobile accounts for the majority of global search volume, most industry | 1968 Consulting
Your organic rankings are fine. So why are clicks falling? part 1 Something strange has been happening in search over the past year or so, and it is showing up in client conversations more often than almost anything | 1968 Consulting
Give the unsuccessful agencies a feedback call Half a day of structured feedback calls to the agencies that didn't win your RFP. Why it matters and how to do it well.
A pitch day is for probing the gaps, not for repeating the brief Three agencies, forty five minutes each, eight hours. How to use pitch day to probe the gaps rather than hear the RFP read back to you.
Most law firm websites get rebuilt because nobody could write the brief Projects that overrun and disappoint usually share one thing. Nobody wrote the brief before briefing the agency. What to write instead.
Why your contract should have the RFP response stapled to it How attaching the agency's RFP response to the contract stops scope arguments six months into the build. A few hours of work, years of value.
Five things that show up in nearly every law firm digital audit Five problems that show up in almost every law firm digital audit, with a quick self check for each. For marketing leads without audit budget.
Why your CMS choice matters less than your agency choice WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Umbraco. The platform debate matters less than most people think. The agency that builds on it matters more.
The RFP is the work Most marketing leads treat the RFP as a formality at the end of discovery. It is the document that proves you know what you actually want.
The four things people actually do on a law firm website Services, sectors, lawyer bios, contact details. The four things clients actually use a law firm website for, in priority order.
Why the insights section on your law firm website probably isn’t worth what you’re spending on it One firm had 2,631 indexed insights pages driving one per cent of traffic. A close look at whether that investment pays for itself.
How to read eleven RFP responses without losing your mind Eleven agencies. Eight working days. The scoring matrix that lets you read every response with the same eye and end up with a defensible shortlist.
What counts as a lead? Most law firm marketing reports can’t tell you Why your agency report and Google Analytics disagree on lead numbers, and how to fix it. A working definition for marketing leads at mid size UK law firms.
Non-Executive Directors can really help agencies The boards of UK companies are populated by 6,000 Non-Executive Directors (NEDs). So, it’s no wonder that many smaller business owners turn to hiring part | 1968 Consulting
when your digital strategy fails – how do you recover? What do you do when your website is not delivering the results you want/expect - a review of your online presence will shed light on any issues
7 Ways Agency Audits Can Help You Many digital agencies are born out of either a creative or technical (development) lead owner/manager. Whilst in the early days this works - the | 1968 Consulting
Agency Audit: Expectations vs. Reality What is an agency audit, what should you expect, how will it help, what will you learn. A quick 5 minute read.
What happened when the consultant stopped helping… ...and the agency didn't deliver the brief We took on a project the autumn of 2013 acting as web strategy consultants/web project managers for a business | 1968 Consulting
Digital Skills; how far can outsourcing go? Outsourcing as strategy Companies increasingly outsource specialist services and logistics; Accounting, HR, Delivery, server hosting, advertising etc. The | 1968 Consulting

About and contact

About Brian Schur runs 1968 Consulting from Amble in Northumberland. More than forty years in business and technology, more than thirty of them in digital.
Contact Talk to Brian Schur about digital and AI work. A free 30-minute call, no pitch. Call 07572 453 811, email info@1968ltd.com, or send a message.
Testimonials What clients say about working with Brian Schur and 1968 Consulting, across agencies, financial services and travel over more than a decade.
Northumberland and the North East Senior, independent digital and AI advice for organisations in Northumberland and the North East, from Amble. Board-level experience, no juniors and no subcontractors.
Newcastle An independent digital advisor for Newcastle organisations juggling several suppliers. Board-level experience, no delivery arm and no supplier commissions.
Privacy policy What happens to your personal data when you use 1968ltd.com: what the forms collect, why we use it, who else sees it, how long we keep it and your rights under UK GDPR.
Cookie policy This website uses Google Analytics only if you accept it, and no advertising or social trackers. Every cookie it can set, what it does, how long it lasts, and how to change your choice.

Agency growth consultant A structured review for agency owners: where the work leaks money and what to fix first. Results include retained revenue up 166% and an agency sold.
Housebuilders Client-side digital leadership for housebuilders: honest measurement, agencies held to account, portal spend interrogated and websites that convert. Ten years of it, evidenced at a Yorkshire housebuilder and at St Modwen Homes.
Fractional digital director A fractional digital director for Newcastle, Durham, Teesside and Northumberland. Senior digital leadership inside your team, without a full-time hire, from someone with nothing to sell you.
Free review One free half day digital review for one organisation. Applications close 5pm Monday 12 October 2026.

Not sure where to start?

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Just a straightforward discussion about where you are and whether I can help.

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