No, and honestly the opposite. If you come to me before the number's locked, I can help you shape what you're actually asking for - which usually makes the internal conversation easier, not harder. Tick "still scoping." Nobody has ever been penalised for it.

Especially then. The people who bring this into an organisation are almost never the people with the chequebook - they're the ones who've noticed something and can't unsee it. Tell me where you're stuck and I'll give you what you need to take upstairs. That's not a favour, it's how most of my work starts.

It arrives in my inbox - no ticketing system, no queue. I read it and reply inside one business day. If a conversation makes sense, you'll get a link to a twelve-minute slot. Twelve, not fifteen, because fifteen is what people book when they haven't thought about it.

Not if you'd rather not - say so in the form and we'll keep it in writing. Some of the best briefs I've had arrived as a long email at eleven at night. But you'll get the option on the next page, and I'd gently make the case for taking it: twelve minutes tells you things a proposal can't. Whether I'm easy to work with. Whether I'd handle your MC, your run sheet and your most difficult stakeholder without drama. Whether I'm someone you'd want in front of the people you're responsible for. That's not a sales call - it's chemistry, and it goes both ways.

Only to me. I'm not selling data, not sharing it, and not adding you to anything you didn't tick a box for. If you want the occasional note about what I'm seeing in workplaces, there's a box for that - and if you don't, that's the end of it.

No. Some of the rooms I'm proudest of were regional councils with a fraction of a corporate budget and twice the appetite. Tell me what you're working with and I'll tell you honestly whether there's a version that works - sometimes there's a partnership arrangement that suits us both.

Nope! You don't need the date locked. You don't need a signed-off number. And you don't need permission from three layers of management before you're allowed to ask a question. "Our engagement numbers are ugly and nobody can tell me why" is a perfectly good place to start.

Everything I deliver gets built for the room it's going into - and built with you, not just for you. Your language, your season, your people's actual situation. Which is why early conversations produce sharper work: the more time we have, the more of your organisation ends up in the thing. So no, you're not interrupting the process by turning up half-formed. You are the process.