Most firms have been sold a large piece of thinking before, and have the folder to show for it. So the first piece of work I do is small on purpose: it needs no strategy first, little of the partners' time, and it comes back as something you can hold, with names on it.
What if the first thing you bought produced calls worth making in its first month, rather than a document?
What if you could see what the work produces before deciding whether to do anything more?
What if it needed nothing from the partners beyond an export and an hour?
What if it paid for itself early, so the longer work had the room it needs?
What would you want to be holding at the end of the first month?
There is a sensible wariness in most managing partners when an outside person arrives with a plan. Strategy is expensive, it takes months, and the firm has to trust the thinking before it sees a result. I understand the wariness, and I think it is right. A firm that has never worked with me has no reason to buy a large piece of work on my say-so.
So the sequence runs the other way. First, something small and tangible that needs no strategy work at all, chosen because it brings a result quickly and shows what the department does. Then, if it earned its place, the next piece. The firm decides at each step, with the last piece's results in front of it. Whatever gets built along the way stays with the firm.
Here's how I take that off your plate
For most firms the first piece is a read of your book: fifty accounts, read one at a time, with the quiet ones alongside, coming back as who to call this month, why now, and the note drafted. A firm that keeps its clients close might start with the next fifty names worth winning instead. Either way it is a fixed fee agreed before it starts, nothing from you beyond an export and an hour, and the partners leave the walkthrough with calls to make in the next fortnight.
It is built to pay for itself early. The calls it produces tend to bring the first fees in before the next decision is due, which is the point: the department should be paying its way from the start, and the firm should be able to see that in its own numbers before it commits to more.
Picture a managing partner who has said, politely, that the firm isn't ready for a strategy. Four weeks after sending an export, she is walking through a short list with her partners: eleven accounts worth a call, a reason for each, a drafted note in each partner's name. The first reads: "I noticed you've taken on the new premises, congratulations. We handled the lease work on the last two sites and I'd like to make sure the new one is set up the same way. Would a short call this week suit?" Three calls are made that afternoon. The strategy conversation, when it comes, starts from something real.
Start small. See what it brings in. Then decide.