Fullstride | Frequently Asked Questions

Do you offer discounts for small companies?

For distributors doing less than $20m USD in annual revenue and occupy a single warehouse under 50k square feet, we discount our Clarity First Blueprint offering to $7,500 USD.

What does it cost to work with you?

We charge $10,000 USD for the initial site under the Clarity First Blueprint program, and if other sites make sense to visit and analyze, each additional side is $6,500 USD.
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We offer a discount for small companies, check the FAQ for more details on what that means.

For those that also want help working through the 90-day action plan, we offer a Clarity First Accelerator program to work with you in a "done-with-you" format. This is available in a monthly subscription format starting at $14,500 USD, with a 3-month commitment minimum.

What do I actually get at the end of the blueprint?

By the end of our process, you'll get a comprehensive action plan to help move your business forward that you can choose to tackle on your own:

1. a set of quick-wins you can jump on right now
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2. an action plan detailing what we recommend you do over the next 90-days to make the biggest impact
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3. guidance on a number of topics, including when to invest in your first WMS, how to evaluate vendors, and what hidden costs to anticipate proactively.

The intent is to get you moving on your own with recommendations that spell out where to focus so you can move beyond constant fire fighting.

How long does the blueprint process take?

From the time we come on-site to perform the warehouse audit and team interviews, you can expect your action plan to be in-hand within the next two weeks. We strive to turn these around as soon as possible.

At that point, you'll have everything you need to make progress on your own. Or, you can choose to keep working with us in a "done-with-you" format, called Clarity First Accelerator, where we become an extension of your team advocating on your behalf to get you ready for your first WMS and evaluate vendors.

What are some possible outcomes?

Some possible outcomes may include:

• new ways to increase delegation
• cleaning up data for accuracy and consistency
• physical changes to streamline the flow of work
• investments in technology to enforce procedure
• getting your teams to agree on rules of engagement

Our goal is to get you some quick-wins to help everyone feel good about tackling improvements that will require more effort, time, and investment.

How do you differ from other consulting firms?

Most advisory and consulting firms are built to serve large companies with massive or complex scaling issues within their distribution networks.

We focus on growth-stage distributors with scaling issues that hurt productivity and cause errors that kick profits. In general, this drives the decision to pursue their first Warehouse Management System (WMS).

We do this with well-defined programs as opposed to a bucket of hours and a fuzzy scope of work. And we price our initial program, Clarity First Blueprint, to be an easy way to vet whether you want to keep working with us or go another direction after the two-week engagement.

How do I get started working with you?

First things first, everything starts with booking an initial video call. That call serves both of us in answering "will we work well together?" and "what are we trying to solve?" questions.

If we're aligned, you'll pay to secure your spot because we're a first-come, first-served company.

What do you look for in a potential client?

We want to work with people and businesses that value spending the time upfront to avoid mistakes later on.

It's so common to see businesses turn to technology before they are ready to succeed with it.

So, a willingness to carve out time so you can ensure you know what must happen before you approach vendors, is critical for us to work with you effectively.

Why don't most consulting firms share pricing?

With consulting, client work is typically custom or whatever you tell them to do. This means there is no set price and quite often the "product" is a bucket of hours. So, most firms hide behind "it depends" and fail to even provide a price range and factors that make it go up or down.

Also, most firms look the same so sharing pricing feels like a liability if competitors can see it. Keeping pricing hidden has more to do with keeping competitors in the dark and their own lack of confidence than it does keeping potential clients guessing.

What pre-work will we need to do before you visit?

Once you've decided to work with us and made your payment to secure your spot in our schedule, the only bit of pre-work is to ensure your leaders and front-line teams will all be present when we visit. This is to ensure our time together is as productive as possible.

Why don't you offer hourly rates?

Hourly pricing encourages bad behaviors (external link)
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Firms want to maximize hours, while clients want to minimize. This means everyone focuses on effort, not outcomes.

Instead, we offer well-defined programs to ensure all our clients are thoroughly focused on results.

Do you work with large companies?

We only work with mid-sized distributors given we focus on helping you prepare for first systems within your warehouse operation.

Most large corporations have matured well beyond this point so their challenges are more focused on shaving milliseconds off of high volume processes or adding automation to new or existing warehouses.

How long do most clients stick around?

While our initial Clarity First Blueprint program typically takes less than two weeks and is designed for you to execute on your own (DIY), many of our clients choose to continue working with us in a "done-with-you" format. We've packaged that program as our Clarity First Accelerator.

Given our clients are experiencing significant growth, the work involved to build scalable systems typically takes 3-9 months of continuous work.

We help accelerate that work as an extension of your team and advocate on your behalf with vendors and third parties to ensure you can head off issues and see around corners.

We have clients that choose to engage us for multiple years given we are often more cost effective than trying to build a dedicated, in-house team.

You asked, we answered