Nothing until you win

Most advisory work in my category is sold as a monthly retainer for nebulous deliverables, brand work, strategy decks, things a client can't tie to a number they'd measure anyway. I built Common Ground's advisory contracts around a pre-agreed result, baseline, and measurement cadence, with no retainer, taking the risk and the upside myself instead of charging for time or deliverables. Production, websites, decks, outreach, CRMs, is free now, commoditized by the same AI tools everyone has access to. The only thing left worth paying for is a result tied to a number the client already cares about, and if you can't tie your work to that number, you're charging for something about to be commoditized anyway. The diagnostic itself became the contract. A free consultation reveals the problem, and the engagement starts on the spot with a pre-agreed metric, no separate paid diagnostic and no proposal theater in between. If you can't point to the number a client would already measure themselves, you're not selling a result, you're selling something about to be free. I chose to put my own compensation at risk alongside the client's outcome, instead of asking the client to pay regardless of whether the work actually worked.