Beyond the Form: How Your First Conversation With Us Works

No. The first 30 minutes are completely free and carry no obligation whatsoever. We use that time to understand your firm's banking structure, identify whether specific improvement opportunities exist, and determine if a formal engagement makes sense for both parties. If we don't see a clear path to recovering at least 3× our advisory fee, we'll tell you so directly — and you'll still walk away with useful benchmarking insights from the conversation. Roughly 15% of initial consultations end with us recommending that the firm's current banking arrangement is already well-optimized.

If your firm generates $2M+ in annual revenue, we can almost certainly help. Our Banking Relationship Audit typically identifies $15,000–$30,000 in annual improvements for firms in the $2M–$5M range, scaling proportionally for larger organizations. For firms below $2M, the economics of a formal advisory engagement are difficult to justify — the fees involved may not produce a meaningful net return. However, we're always happy to point you in the right direction during a complimentary call and can recommend resources appropriate to your firm's current stage.

Banks notice when clients arrive at reviews with benchmarking data and competitive intelligence. That's the point. In 18 years of advisory work across $2.4 billion in credit facilities, we've never seen a bank terminate a relationship because the client was too well-informed. In fact, the opposite is consistently true: banks improve their service, pricing, and attention when they understand the client has independent advisory support and access to competitive alternatives. Your banker may actually prefer working with a well-advised client — it makes the relationship more productive for both sides.

Your accountant focuses on tax strategy, financial reporting, and compliance — essential work, but fundamentally different from banking advisory. We focus exclusively on the relationship between your firm and its financial institution: fee structures, credit facility terms, covenant design, treasury management efficiency, and lender selection. Most accounting firms don't have the specialized banking benchmarking data or lender negotiation experience that our team has built over 120+ engagements. In fact, many of our referrals come directly from accountants and CPAs who recognize that their clients' banking relationships need dedicated, specialized attention. Learn more about our team's background.

Nothing formal is required for the initial consultation — we keep that first conversation low-friction by design. That said, if you have easy access to your most recent bank statement, current loan or credit facility agreement, or a summary of monthly banking fees, those documents can help us provide more specific preliminary insights. Don't worry about pulling together a comprehensive package; we'll tell you exactly what we need if we move to a formal engagement.

It depends on the scope. A focused Banking Relationship Audit typically completes in 3–4 weeks. Credit facility restructuring or lender selection engagements run 6–10 weeks depending on complexity. Our Annual Strategy Retainer clients work with us on an ongoing basis, with quarterly reviews and year-round advisory access. During the initial consultation, we'll outline a realistic timeline specific to your situation — and we hold ourselves to it. You can review specific timelines and outcomes from past engagements on our Results page.

Our fees vary by engagement type and firm complexity, but every engagement follows a fixed-fee or capped-fee structure — never hourly billing that creates unpredictable costs. We provide a detailed fee proposal before any engagement begins, and you'll never receive a surprise invoice. More importantly, we design every engagement so that the identified banking improvements significantly exceed our advisory fee. Our historical average across 120+ engagements: clients recover 4–7× our fee in annual banking savings. The preliminary assessment we provide after your consultation includes projected savings, so you can evaluate the ROI before committing.