How we work together
The engagement pathway
Five ways to work with us, and one that runs alongside them all. Every engagement starts with understanding the business before anything is designed, built or embedded — and every one is structured so the capability stays with your team when we step back.
You don’t have to start at the beginning. Most clients enter where the pressure is.
Melbourne, Victoria · working with businesses across Australia
The road
Understand. Diagnose. Build. Embed. Sustain.
The pathway describes the maturity of the work, not a mandatory sequence. Where you join depends on what you already know and how much is changing.
Understand
Ops Diagnostic Report
A structured read of your operating system across leadership, systems, delivery, team and technology. The fastest way to see where the business is losing time, money and momentum — before committing to anything.
Diagnose & design
Operational Deep Dive
The business mapped end to end, then the strategic decisions made with your leadership team — returning a 12-month roadmap of operational initiatives you own, with the first 90 days set in detail.
Build
Transformation Engagement
One defined change — a system migration, a workflow rebuild, a restructure of roles and accountability — designed, built and landed alongside your team in fixed-price phases.
Most clients enter here
Embed
Embedded Fractional COO
Operational leadership alongside you across three levels — Operate, Elevate and Lead — with fractional COO oversight of your business operations coordinator throughout. We work with your team, not instead of them.
Sustain
Fractional COO Advisory
Senior operational judgement at a set rhythm once the team owns the systems. Also the step-down model for embedded partnerships that have matured — the structure stays, the intensity reduces.
Runs alongside any stage
Building the person, not just the system.
Operational change usually lives or dies with the person holding the middle. If they can run the new systems confidently, it sticks. If they can’t, it quietly reverts. Mentoring develops that person while the business work happens.
Operational Leadership Mentoring
One to one with Nicole Smith for Executive Assistants, Chiefs of Staff, Operations Managers and team leaders — the people who carry more than their title suggests. Always individual, never a group program.
Where should we start?
Three questions that usually settle it.
Most businesses know the answer to these before they call. Working through them first means the conversation starts somewhere useful.
01
Do you know what to fix?
If it isn’t settled, or your leadership team disagrees on where the constraint sits, start with a diagnostic. Building the wrong thing well is the most expensive outcome available.
→ Ops Diagnostic Report or Operational Deep Dive
02
Is it one change, or many?
One defined change with a clear start and finish is a project. A run of them, with priorities competing, needs operational leadership rather than a project plan.
→ Transformation Engagement or Embedded Fractional COO
03
Does the work need doing, or directing?
If your team can execute and what’s missing is direction and accountability, that’s advisory. If the systems still need building and your people need guiding through it, that’s embedded.
→ Fractional COO Advisory or Embedded Fractional COO
Still not sure? That’s what the Ops Diagnostic Report is for — sixty minutes and $497 + GST to establish where the business actually needs attention first.
Whichever stage you’re at
What doesn’t change.
The work differs at every stage of the pathway. The way it’s done doesn’t.
✓
Your team delivers, we guide
Work we do for you leaves when we do. Work your team is guided through stays in the business.
✓
Actions agreed before anything’s changed
Deliverables, owners and dates confirmed upfront, not discovered as we go.
✓
Priced by scope, not by the clock
What you pay reflects the depth of the work, not the hours it happens to take. No timesheets, no creeping invoices.
✓
No auto-renewal, no long lock-in
Ongoing engagements continue on 30 days’ notice after the initial term.
✓
Platform-agnostic
We recommend what fits your business, not what we resell. If what you have will do the job, we’ll say so.
✓
Whatever we produce is yours
Reports, roadmaps and documented systems are yours to keep and act on, whether we continue together or not.
Questions
Choosing between them.
Do we have to start at the beginning?
No. The engagement pathway describes the maturity of the work rather than a mandatory sequence. Most clients enter at the Embedded Fractional COO stage because they already know they need ongoing operational leadership. Others start with a $497 Ops Diagnostic Report to establish what needs attention first.
What’s the difference between the Diagnostic and the Deep Dive?
The Ops Diagnostic Report is a structured read of the operating system based on a 60-minute session with the business owner, returning quick wins and a 90-day plan for $497 plus GST. The Operational Deep Dive maps the business end to end with the whole leadership team, validates findings against what actually happens, and returns a 12-month roadmap of sequenced operational initiatives from $15,000 plus GST.
Should we do a Transformation Engagement or an ongoing partnership?
A Transformation Engagement suits one defined change with a clear start and finish — a system migration, a workflow rebuild, a restructure of roles. An Embedded Fractional COO partnership suits a run of changes where priorities compete and the business needs operational leadership rather than a project plan. The two can also run alongside each other.
What’s the difference between Advisory and Embedded?
Advisory brings senior operational judgement to a team that can already execute, at a monthly or quarterly rhythm from $1,950 plus GST per month. Embedded brings that judgement plus the capacity to make change happen, from $3,500 plus GST per month. The question that usually settles it is whether the work needs directing or doing.
Can we move between stages?
Yes, and most businesses do. A Deep Dive often identifies two or three transformations worth doing. An embedded partnership that has matured frequently steps down to Advisory, where the operating rhythm stays but the intensity reduces. The pathway is not a one-way sequence.
Where does mentoring fit?
Operational Leadership Mentoring sits alongside the pathway rather than on it. It develops the person holding the operational middle — an Executive Assistant, Chief of Staff or Operations Manager — and can run standalone or alongside any engagement. Operational change tends to hold considerably better when the person running it has been developed alongside it.
What if we’re not sure which we need?
Start with the Ops Diagnostic Report. Sixty minutes and $497 plus GST establishes where the business is actually losing ground, and the findings are yours to action whether we work together or not. It is the lowest-risk way to work out which stage of the pathway fits.
Do you work with businesses outside Melbourne?
The Artisans Business Solutions is based in Melbourne, Victoria, and works with businesses across Australia. Travel within metropolitan Melbourne is included in all engagements. Work with businesses elsewhere combines remote delivery with scheduled on-site time, scoped at the point of proposal.
Start with clarity, not commitment
Not sure where you are on the road?
Sixty minutes, a written review and a strategic call. You’ll know where the business is losing ground and which stage of the pathway fits — and the findings are yours to action either way.
Melbourne, Victoria · working with businesses across Australia
Start with clarity, not commitment
Every business has an operating system. Let's explore yours.
Book the Ops Diagnostic — $497Partners
Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we work and live. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We celebrate the stories, culture and traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Elders of all communities who also work and live on this land.