This is what we would actually do, in what order, and what it costs.
No discovery call is required to see the number.
What we would go looking for
These are patterns that recur in agencies and media, written as things to
look for. They are not findings from a named engagement.
Retainer hours contracted against hours actually worked, diverging steadily on the largest and longest-standing accounts.
Pass-through and third-party cost absorbed rather than recharged, because the conversation is awkward and the amounts are individually small.
Pitch cost — real people for real weeks — uncosted against win rate.
Freelance spend used to absorb overservice, converting a scoping problem into a cash problem.
Media rebates and commission arrangements that clients increasingly ask about and agencies are increasingly unable to evidence.
The sequence
Five weeks for one operating unit. More units run in parallel rather than in
series, so a group does not take five times as long.
Week 1
Intake and reconciliation7 requests written for agencies and media, alongside the 107 covering the operating spine. We tell you which findings the gaps will limit before any fieldwork starts.
Weeks 2–3
Full pass, not a sampleEvery client in scope is read rather than sampled.
Week 4
Quantification and challengeEach finding sized, and put to whoever owns it before it is written down.
Week 5
Report and walkthroughThe written report, ranked by annual value and by how hard each finding is to act on.
3 core requests written for agencies and media, inside the full intake.
Anything you do not have can be skipped with a reason — skipping narrows what the
review can conclude, and we tell you where before the work starts rather than after.
Client list with fee basis — Retainer, project or commission.
Scope against delivered — Retainer hours contracted versus hours actually worked. Retainer overservice is the characteristic loss in this sector.
Utilization and billability by role
If any of this is already happening
The review is always worth doing and rarely urgent. It becomes urgent when
something else is happening — and if one of these is, the sequence above compresses
to fit it.
A client review or a competitive pitch defense
A media transparency audit by a client or their consultant
Losing an anchor account that carried the overhead
An acquisition, where retainer profitability by client is the first request
A founder trying to step back and finding the margin was their own billable time
Who needs to be in the room
Signs it: Founder, managing director or CFO
Will resist it: Account directors whose client profitability becomes individually visible — worth telling them what the
review is for before they hear it from somewhere else.
Has been asking for it: Delivery leads, who have been absorbing the scope creep
What it costs
Priced by operating unit — an entity, a location, or a business the accounts are
kept separately for. The second unit costs less than the first because by then the
intake is built, the chart of accounts is understood and the patterns are known.
Purchase order is the primary route — most
buyers this size raise a PO and pay against an invoice on terms. Card and bank
transfer exist for those who prefer them.