Partnerships
A small number of growth partnerships, decided case by case
For a small number of established businesses, I take on the search side of the business as a partner rather than as a hired service: the SEO, the website that carries it, and oversight of the other channels bringing in leads. Payment comes from what the work produces, not a fee charged before anything starts. Every arrangement is a decision I make personally, one business at a time, checked against four criteria first.
What a growth partnership is
A partnership is broader than any service on this site. It covers the website, the SEO that brings the business its customers, and an eye on the other lead channels and operational pieces feeding them, run as an ongoing arrangement rather than a delivered document. It is not a standing service anyone can order, and it is not a discount on one: the four criteria below rule most requests out before a conversation starts.
The four criteria I check first
Four things rule an application in or out before a conversation even starts. Score your own business against each one honestly before applying.
Revenue today, not a plan for revenue
The business already earns money from paying customers, right now. A pre-launch plan or a strong idea does not qualify on its own, whatever the plan looks like on paper.
A market I already have conviction in
I take this on only in a market where I already understand the buyer, the competitors, and what actually moves search results there. A market I've never worked in starts as a paid audit, not a partnership.
Operator quality on the business side
The team already runs the business well operationally: it ships, it serves customers, it handles growth when it shows up. Search is the constraint I am being asked to fix, not everything at once.
Real access to the operation
Real access means seeing the business's numbers, its other lead channels, and its operational bottlenecks, a partner's access, not a vendor's. A request for a website alone, with no access past that, is a service engagement, not this.
How I get paid
Payment is a percentage of the revenue the work helps produce, agreed with the business before anything starts and fixed for the life of the arrangement, not renegotiated at every renewal. No fee changes hands upfront: no deposit, no setup charge, no retainer billed before results exist. This is a plain revenue-share arrangement, the closest existing version most people already understand is a contingency-fee lawyer or a real estate agent's commission: the person doing the work gets paid only when the outcome they were hired to produce actually happens, and not before.
What this is not
- A free website. Nothing here is free: the cost is a share of the results this work produces, for the life of the arrangement, not a one-time favor.
- Open to a pre-revenue idea. A business plan, however strong, is not the same as a business already earning money, and that gap rules out most requests before anything else does.
- A guarantee of anything. No consultant controls search rankings or a business’s revenue, and a partnership does not change that. What changes is the incentive: I only get paid if the work produces something.
Questions
Questions before you apply
Who actually qualifies?
A business that clears all four criteria above: revenue today, a market I already have conviction in, operator quality on the business side, and real access to the operation. Missing even one of the four is usually enough to rule a request out before a conversation starts.
What does it cost, and why nothing upfront?
Nothing upfront: no deposit, no setup charge, no retainer billed before results exist. The cost is a share of what the work produces, so the only way I get paid is the same way the business does, from results that already happened.
How is the share structured?
As a percentage of the revenue the work helps produce, agreed with the business before anything starts and fixed for the life of the arrangement, not renegotiated at every renewal. The exact percentage is set case by case in that agreement, not published on this page.
What happens if it does not work out?
The arrangement runs for the life of the arrangement, not a fixed term, and it carries no guarantee: nothing here promises a ranking, a keyword, or a dollar figure. Since no fee is ever charged upfront, a partnership that never produces results costs the business nothing beyond the time it took to try.
How do I apply?
Through the contact form, choosing "Partnership inquiry" from the dropdown. I read every application against the four criteria above and decide each case myself, not a form that auto-qualifies or auto-rejects anything.
This runs as a fraction of the practice, decided case by case, and most applications do not get past the four criteria above. If a business clears all four, apply through the contact form, choosing "Partnership inquiry" from the dropdown. I read and decide every case myself.