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The Diagnostic

A 1-hour call to find where the time goes.

For managers of growing businesses, roughly a dozen people or more, who know the office is costing them and can't yet say where. You talk, I dig, and you leave with a written report and a clear first step.

Start the admin check

Is this for you?

  • Your team is busy all day and the admin still piles up.
  • People keep asking how AI fits, and nobody has a straight answer.
  • You've tried a tool or 2 and it didn't stick.
  • You'd like to grow without the office being the thing that breaks.

Sound familiar?

Most growing firms don't run out of skilled people first. They run out of office.

  • The same details typed into 3 different systems.
  • Invoices that wait until someone has a quiet afternoon.
  • Emails that need doing but never feel urgent, until they are.
  • A renewals spreadsheet only 1 person understands.

None of this shows up on a profit and loss sheet, which is why it lasts so long. It shows up as late evenings, missed follow-ups and a team too busy to try anything new.

AI can take a good deal of it off your plate. The hard part is knowing which piece to start with, and that's what the call is for.

The admin I help firms sort out

  • Invoicing
  • Quotes
  • Job sheets
  • Chasing payments
  • Renewals & compliance
  • Client updates
  • The shared inbox
  • Rotas
  • Typing it in twice

What happens

  1. 01Book

    You book and answer ~10 questions.

    They cover how work comes in, who handles it, where things get typed twice and what fell through the cracks lately. Rough, honest answers are more useful than polished ones.

  2. 02Talk

    We talk for an hour.

    Online, or in person in London or Gloucestershire. I've read your answers, so we go straight to the places where time and money are leaking. I'll often ask one awkward question: if twice the work arrived tomorrow, what would break first?

  3. 03Report

    You get a written report.

    You'll have it within 2 working days of our call, written and checked by me.

What the report gives you

  • The highest-return next step for your business, stated plainly.
  • The problems costing you most, named in plain English, with what to fix first and what to leave alone.
  • An estimated saving for each recommended fix, worked out from your own figures: the hours it takes now and what those hours cost you.
  • The kind of help each one needs: teaching your team, a workshop, a thinking partner set up for the founder, advice or a build.
Download an extract from a real report (PDF, 3 pages)

A full report usually runs to about 8 to 14 pages, depending on how complex the business is.

What it isn't

  • It isn't a chatbot quiz.

    It's a conversation with me, and the report comes from that conversation.

  • It isn't a software sale.

    I'll recommend what fits your business, and sometimes that's nothing at all.

  • It isn't a commitment.

    Your Diagnostic fee comes off the price of the work I recommend, if you go ahead within 60 days. If you don't go ahead, the report is still yours to keep and use.

Questions

Questions people ask

Something else on your mind? Email me at [email protected]

Within 2 working days of our call. I write it and check it myself before it reaches you.

Then the report will say so plainly. Knowing where not to spend money is worth something too.

Whoever knows how the work moves through the business. Usually that's you, and sometimes the person who runs the office as well.

Yes, in London or Gloucestershire. Anywhere else, we'll meet online.

A person. You'll speak to me, Matthew Thistle, for an hour, and I write and check your report myself. I use AI in my own preparation, the same way I might suggest you do, but the Diagnostic is never an automated report.

It stays with me. I don't share or sell anything you tell me, and you can ask me to delete it at any time. The privacy notice has the detail.

No. If you can describe how a job moves through your business, that's all I need. Most of the people I speak to aren't technical, and the report is written in plain English.

The fee is shown when you book. It comes off the price of the work I recommend, if you go ahead within 60 days, so the call costs you nothing extra.

I'll recommend what fits, which might be a workshop for your team, some advice, a build, or nothing at all. In one Diagnostic the most useful finding was what not to do next. You decide what happens after the report.

Yes. The Diagnostic works for firms of any size from a dozen people up. If several teams or departments need looking at in depth, the Diagnostic Audit goes further into 1 or more areas of the business.

Running a larger firm with more than one department?

The Diagnostic Audit goes deeper into 1 or more areas of the business, such as finance, scheduling or customer service. I interview the people who do the work, map how it really runs and hand you a summary a director can read in 15 minutes.

About the Diagnostic Audit

Start with one conversation.

Start the admin check

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