Business practice
The 30-Day Proof.
With the 30-Day Proof, you get one workflow fix built and live inside your SaaS or AI company within thirty days, measured and owned by your team, or the invoice is zero. It's one real operational problem, in a support queue, onboarding, a handoff or reporting, fixed and running with a before and after number.
You've paid for advice before. What arrived was a document, a set of recommendations, and a quiet return to how things already worked.
It's a common story, not a bad run of luck, and the reason is rarely the analysis. The analysis is usually fine. What fails is the gap between a recommendation and something actually changing in the work, because nobody owned crossing it.
Thirty days from now you're standing somewhere different. One workflow in your company runs differently than it did, whether that's how tickets get triaged, how a new account gets onboarded, or how the weekly report gets built. The change is written down, a named person owns it, and you have a before and after number rather than an impression. It's one thing. It's real, and it's the first piece of evidence that the rest of the list is achievable.
The Proof is the natural next step when manager training surfaces an operational problem, like a queue nobody owns or escalations that all run through one person. It's also a front door on its own. If you already know which workflow is costing you the most, start here.
The commitment
Live, or free.
Something runs.
If day thirty arrives and there's no fix running in your company with a measured before and after, the engagement costs you nothing. Not a partial credit. Nothing. The commitment attaches to shipping, which is inside our control, rather than to a promised percentage, which nobody honestly controls.
It keeps running.
If the fix stops working within sixty days for a reason inside the agreed scope, we come back and repair it at no charge. Durability is part of the deliverable, not an optional extension of it.
You choose it.
The fix is agreed in writing by day seven, and you pick it from the scored findings. It runs inside systems you already own, like your help desk, CRM or project tool. If something you want won't fit in thirty days, you're told before you choose it, not after.
The work
Thirty days, four moves.
Observe
The first week is spent watching the work as it actually happens rather than as the org chart says it happens. Tickets moving through the queue, accounts moving through onboarding, the handoff from sales to success, the tools genuinely in use, and the cost of the current state measured rather than estimated. Watching work doesn't interrupt work, so the cost to your team is close to zero.
Score
Every finding lands on one matrix: impact against complexity. Each gets an honest disposition. Fix the process, write it down, configure something you already own, automate without AI, or let AI earn its place. Most findings aren't AI, and saying so out loud is the point.
Ship
One fix, chosen with you, built and put live before the engagement ends. Not recommended. Running, with its procedure written, its owner named, and its before and after measured, so the result is a number somebody else could verify.
Hold
A working session with your team so the change survives our exit, a sequenced ninety-day roadmap for everything else we found, and thirty days of support afterward. The objective is momentum without us, not dependence on us.
What you keep
Everything below is yours.
Exposure map
Every AI tool actually in use across your company, what customer data flows into each, and where the exposure sits. Most leadership teams are off on this by a wide margin, which is exactly why it goes first.
Paid-for-already list
What your existing software already does that you're about to buy again, like the AI features already inside your help desk or CRM. It's the least glamorous finding we produce, and it's money you can stop spending this quarter.
Written use policy
Tool tiering, permitted data classes, and signed acknowledgments from your team. The document your enterprise customers, your SOC 2 auditor and your cyber insurer are going to ask about. See AI use policy.
Process map and baseline
Your highest-cost workflow documented as it truly runs, with a price attached. Measured, not estimated, because every later claim of improvement is judged against this number.
The priority matrix
Every finding scored on impact and complexity and tagged with a disposition. You keep the scoring method, which means you can run it again on the next problem without us.
One fix, live
Built, running, with the procedure written and the owner named. This is the deliverable the guarantee attaches to, and it's the one most consulting engagements don't include.
Ninety-day roadmap
Everything else we found, sequenced and costed, with the next piece of work scoped. Useful whether you continue with us or hand it to your own team.
Track record
Numbers from prior operating work.
50%
Reduction in customer churn
50%
Faster customer onboarding
20%
Lower support cost, one year
Documented results from Sal Cervantes' prior operating roles, across 14+ years in SaaS customer operations. They're not client results.
Your side of it
The commitment runs both ways.
- Four scheduled hours of access to the person who knows how the work really happens.
- A decision when one is asked for, rather than a decision deferred to the next meeting.
- Honesty about the current state, including the parts that are embarrassing.
- Agreement on the one fix by day seven, in writing.
- If access isn't available, we tell you the day it happens, not at the end.
Related reading.
All insights Operations
The two-person dependency test
Every SaaS company has them. Two people, sometimes one, who hold a process together through memory and habit. They're usually excellent, they're usually loyal, and they're usually the reason nobody has ever needed to write the process down.
Governance
Shadow AI is already in your company. Here's the map
Ask a CEO how many AI tools are in use across the company and you'll usually hear about the ones on the invoice. Ask the team anonymously and the list gets longer: free chatbot accounts, browser extensions, meeting notetakers, and AI features switched on inside software you
Questions
Asked before, answered plainly.
Exactly what it says. If day thirty arrives and no fix is running and measured in your company, the invoice is zero. Not discounted. Zero. It's a safe commitment to make because it attaches to shipping rather than to a promised outcome size, and shipping is the part we control. If the fix breaks within sixty days for a reason inside scope, we repair it at no charge.
No. It's an operations engagement with an AI governance starting point. Most findings in a typical diagnostic aren't AI at all. They're unwritten processes, duplicated software and broken handoffs, like a sales-to-success handoff that loses what the customer already told you. AI is one disposition on the scoring matrix, and it has to earn its place there like every other option.
The engagement is structured so a document can't be the final deliverable. The readout includes a fix that's already live, its written procedure, and its measured before and after. Findings are included, but findings are the beginning of the engagement rather than the end of it. That structural difference is the whole offer.
They could. The difference usually isn't skill. It's that the internal owner still has their day job, which is often the same reason the last attempt stalled just short of done. If your team has real protected capacity, do it internally, and we'll tell you so.
Four scheduled hours of access across the thirty days, timely decisions on the fix we scope together, and honesty about how the work really happens today. The commitment runs both ways. We commit to shipping. You commit to being reachable enough that shipping is possible, and if that stops being true, we raise it the day it happens.