The expensive mistake is solving the wrong problem.
I'm Andrea. I help business owners figure out what's really going on before they spend more time or money trying to fix it.
A business can look like it needs more leads when the offer is the problem. It can look like it needs a team when there isn't enough money coming in. I'd rather find that out with you now than after you've spent six months on the wrong fix.
Octavian is just me, so spots are limited.
What you think is wrong may only be the part you can see.
If people are already finding you and not buying, more leads just means more people who don't buy.
If the business isn't making enough money, hiring people to do more of the same can make the problem worse.
A lot of the time the business changed and nobody updated the story. That's a repositioning problem first. Rebrand second.
You may already have something useful sitting in the business that you stopped noticing.
An idea can be exciting and still be the wrong place to put the next six months of your life.
Those are different problems, and they need different fixes. My first question is never “What should we do?” It's “What do we actually know?”
Anyone can hand you a list of ideas.
AI can give you 37 ways to get more leads in about ten seconds. Somebody still has to decide which one deserves your money, and notice when the facts don't fit the answer.
I use AI to research and work faster. The judgment is mine. Not sure the person you're about to hire has any? Try this.
Ask them why.
Why that conclusion? What did they rule out? What would change their mind?
Take the AI away.
Can they still think? That's the whole test.
Check their history.
Were they doing this work before ChatGPT showed up, with real money and real consequences attached?
I've been doing this since 2012. I've made expensive mistakes and learned something from every one of them.
I don't start with an answer.
I look at the business. I ask questions. I follow the parts that don't quite add up. I come up with possible answers and try to prove them wrong. If the facts don't fit, I change my mind. That's the job.
Look at what's there.
The numbers. The offers. The customers. The owner. What's been tried and what keeps happening.
Ask what doesn't make sense.
This is usually where it gets interesting. The odd piece often tells us more than the obvious one.
Decide what I'd do next.
Not twenty ideas. Not a giant list. The one move I think deserves your attention now.
Usually, you bring me a question you can't quite answer.
We find the real cause before you throw another fix at it.
We look at what you've already built and see what you're overlooking.
We work out which one deserves your time and which can wait.
We figure out what needs to change so you're not carrying all of it yourself.
Good. Those are fun. We find out if there's a real business hiding in it.
Hi, I'm Andrea.
I've been consulting since 2012. I've worked with big companies and tiny ones, in the U.S. and on the other side of the world. I'm also an investor, an author and the host of the True North podcast.
Octavian is just me, on purpose. You get my full attention and my judgment, not a handoff. That's also why spots are limited.
The weird problems are usually my favorite ones.
You don't need to know which offer you need.
Start with what you're trying to figure out. The offers page will show you the different ways we can work together.