Fractional CRO and COO. Honest answers, before you ask.
If your question isn't here, email us or book a call. We'll come back the same working day.
What makes Catalyst12 different from a typical consultancy?
Advisors diagnose. Consultants write reports. We are operators.
Sam and Phil embed personally, do the actual work, and hand over a business that runs without us. No junior teams. No slide decks. No handoffs. If the work runs past the hours, the work runs past the hours. The outcome comes first.
Is the 4-hour diagnostic really free? What's the catch?
It's genuinely free. No catch.
Four hours on-site (or remote if that's the only workable option). Structured commercial, operational and founder-side conversations. A written report of findings, prioritised actions and deliverables back to you within 10 working days. Yours to keep.
You are not obligated to engage us afterwards. We are not obligated to continue with every business we diagnose. Fit works both ways.
Do I have to take a full 12-week engagement?
No. We started with a fixed 12-week sprint. Then we listened. The Anchors & Engines framework now runs over 4 weeks, 12 weeks or 12 months depending on the business.
Three engagement shapes: The Embedded Sprint (4, 8 or 12 weeks). Advisory Retainer (monthly, rolling, 6-12 months). Ad Hoc Project (scoped around a single brief).
How much does it cost?
Every engagement is priced after the diagnostic. No menu. No rate card. We scope to the actual work, not the hours.
Most sprints pay for themselves inside the first 90 days through margin recovery alone. Retainer fees typically sit below the line in your P&L and can offset your corporation tax bill. We will show you the expected return during the scoping conversation.
Do you work remotely, or does it have to be on-site?
Both, with anchors. The diagnostic is always on-site. The value is in seeing the business, not reading a dashboard. Sprints include regular on-site days plus remote work. Retainers can be largely remote with periodic on-site sessions.
We are based in Manchester. We work with founders across the UK and internationally. No geographic restrictions.
What size of business do you work with?
Founder-led businesses professionalising for scale. Our sweet spot is 3-15 people where the founder is still the bottleneck, but we work with bigger businesses where the same pattern holds.
Industry and headcount matter less than whether you are serious about making change actually stick. If you are open, willing to act, and want structural change rather than a second opinion, we are a fit.
Why both Sam and Phil, not just one?
Because most operational problems have a commercial shadow, and vice versa. A broken pipeline shows up as operational chaos. Undisciplined discounting shows up as margin erosion that looks like a delivery problem.
Running both engines together in one engagement is faster, cheaper, and cleaner than fixing one then realising the other is still broken six months later. You get a CRO and a COO for the same engagement.
What do we actually get at the end?
Things your team still uses six months after we leave. Not advice. Not a framework on a slide.
Pipeline definition with evidence-based stage logic. Pricing rules and discount guardrails, enforced at the point of sale. CRM build or clean-up with adoption coaching. Target operating model design and live SOPs. Capacity modelling and hiring logic. Customer journey mapping. Dashboards and reporting rhythms the team actually uses. KPI frameworks, ownership maps, decision rights. 13-week rolling cash forecasts. Board and investor reporting packs.
How confidential is all this?
Everything we see, hear and receive is confidential. We do not name clients publicly without their permission. Case studies, quotes and testimonials are only published with written consent. Your data is handled under our privacy policy.
What if we decide mid-engagement we want out?
Every engagement has clear notice and termination terms in the signed statement of work. Sprints are typically fee-for-outcome with milestone payments, so you can exit with predictable cost exposure. Retainers are monthly rolling with 30 days' notice.
We would rather you left happy than stayed reluctantly. If the fit breaks, we will have the conversation first, not last.
Do you take referral fees or partnerships?
We work with a small network of specialists when an engagement needs something outside our lane (specialist finance, legal, tech integration). We do not take kickbacks or referral fees from these partners, and we will tell you when we are introducing one.
How quickly can you start?
The diagnostic can normally happen within two to three weeks of an initial call. A sprint starts inside a month once scope is signed. Retainer engagements start on the first of the following month.
We keep a deliberately limited number of live engagements at any one time. If we are at capacity we will tell you on the discovery call.