MICRO-CONSULTING
My micro-consulting services are designed to help uncover answers to one essential question:
what to change or improve, and why?
HELLO, I’M FRANCES
I deliver strategic clarity to small businesses.
One session at a time. Many dots connected.
Drawing on experience in large-scale transformation, my micro-consulting reveals the hidden architecture of your business - your model, customer experience, value proposition, processes and tech.
We go beneath the surface; no more patching over problems. We expose the foundation so solutions align, complexity fades, and progress accelerates.
The more you see, the better you understand, the smarter your next move.
What Is Micro-Consulting?
Micro-consulting is a flexible, focused form of consulting that delivers high-impact expertise in short, targeted engagements. Outputs are delivered over hours or days rather than weeks or months. It’s designed to bring a fresh, external perspective, and unlock direction — fast.
Who Is It For?
Designed and tailored for independent professionals, startups, and small businesses who want to understand, evolve, or maximise their work, offer, or business.
You don’t need a big team or a perfect plan - just the ambition to take your business seriously and the curiosity to see what’s possible with the right tools. Ideal for anyone seeking a clear view of what they’ve built and where it could go.
No business is too small for Strategy.
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For those working independently, looking to maximise and enhance for greater impact and consistency:
Solopreneurs with strong ideas but shaky structure, seeking deeper understanding to increase value and refine their offer.
Freelancers and solo practitioners evolving a signature offer and need help understanding what their clients actually need — and how to deliver it.
Independent professionals with layered skillsets who struggle to explain what they do, or how it all fits together, who want to shape a direction that reflects their full capability.
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For those starting or building a business — and want to evaluate where they stand or explore what’s next:
Business owners who suspect there’s more potential in their business than they’re currently accessing and want a clear picture of their current business before deciding what to change or create.
Small businesses needing a structured way to weigh up clear but significant options and choose a path forward with confidence.
Startups who sense misalignment between their services, systems, and goals — and want to fix it before scaling.
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For those whose work is creative, expressive, or craft-based, and who want to make it sustainable, aligned, and inspiring:
Artists who want to make their work profitable and sustainable but feel overwhelmed by the “business side”
Established creatives who feel creatively unchallenged, and want space to explore what’s next, professionally and artistically.
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For those working with others, and needing facilitation or a sounding board for better alignment:
Co-founders and Co-creators who need a neutral facilitator to surface blind spots, misalignments, or innovation opportunities.
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For mission-driven organisations with limited resources and complex challenges:
Nonprofits seeking clarity and direction that matches mission and increases impact.
Micro-consulting gives you right-sized expert insight to move forward with clarity - without the cost, commitment, or complexity of traditional consulting.
No long term commitment is required, no retainers, no subscriptions. Micro-consults can be booked individually with flexible frequency.
Ready to Work Together?
If you’re ready to rethink, refine, or elevate your business, let’s make change happen—starting with a conversation.
I help you to rethink and redesign:
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Ideas aren’t inherently valuable — they need the right business model around them. The model is the structural scaffolding that turns vision into value, showing how your business creates, delivers, and captures that value, and aligning it with a market need or opportunity.
I help you visualise the big picture: customer types, activities, partners, revenue streams, and more — all in one place.
Visualising the model reveals what’s really happening and where change might be needed. And as your business grows or shifts, it evolves with you, becoming a living tool for clarity, alignment, and smarter decisions.
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A strong business needs a clear value proposition, one that delivers directly what your customers truly want and need.
I help you zoom in on how your business uniquely addresses customer needs, revealing gaps in product-market fit and opportunities for deeper connection, clearer messaging, and smarter delivery.
Designing value proposition from a point of fundamental business architecture (not simply copy) strengthens your understanding of what you offer, why it matters, and how it reaches the people it’s meant for. Whether you're refining an existing offer or exploring a new one, this process helps align your value with your delivery — so your business resonates, performs, and grows.
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Customer experience is about how your business actually works in practice. And superlative, designed customer experience is a key differentiator in a crowded market.
Map your business as your customers experience it: touchpoints, processes, tech, and people. This operational view exposes friction, overlaps, and inefficiencies — guiding more precise, empathetic, and differentiating service or product improvements.
It helps you see where things break down, where they shine, and where they could be better, so you can improve not just what you offer, but how it’s experienced.
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This expands the thinking around how technology supports your strategy. We map usage, explore possibilities, and co-design ways tech could create efficiency, enhance experience, or enable growth, all without touching the backend.
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We visualise and identify how work flows across departments or functions — especially useful for spotting bottlenecks, duplication, or opportunities for systems and automation.
You’ll always leave with tools, frameworks, and a co-created roadmap you can carry forward—on your own terms.
This is consulting designed to empower you to think strategically, visualise your business clearly, and act with confidence - not just manage a to-do list. Every method and tool is shared openly, so you can keep building independently.
Using tools like frameworks, maps, diagrams, and data analysis to dig deep and discover what’s working, what’s not, and what’s hiding in plain sight.
We will work visually and collaboratively.
Through our co-creative sessions, we unearth:
Opportunities for differentiation and innovation
Inefficiencies in workflows, communication, or systems
Emerging or latent customer needs or adjacent segments you may service
Untapped potential within your value proposition, offer positioning, partnerships, or assets
The most high-impact priorities that contribute best to your strategic themes and objectives
Misalignments between goals, operations, or customer expectations
Readiness for scaling
Promising ideas ready to be tested, piloted, or taken through proof-of-concept
Insight into how external factors might shape what’s next
You don’t need to know all this upfront. I’ll help you uncover what matters most for your strategy and your context, and where to focus.
Service Types
Business Model
£495+VAT / 2-hour session · Online or in-person
Get clear on the core logic of your business: how it creates, delivers, and captures value. This session helps you articulate your business model with precision, uncover strategic gaps, and align your activities with your purpose, natural advantages and potential.
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We’ll co-create a visual map of how your business creates, delivers, and captures value—making the invisible visible and surfacing what’s working, what needs attention, and where new opportunities lie.
Expect to challenge assumptions, explore “what-if” scenarios, and uncover leverage points for better alignment, innovation or efficiency.
You’ll leave your first session with a practical, visual map of your business model—annotated with insights, risks, and opportunities. This is your strategic starting point: a working version you can use immediately to guide decisions, implement changes and close gaps – focusing energy where it matters.
Continue independently or book further sessions to deepen and accelerate progress. The pace and depth are always up to you.
Customer experience
£495+VAT / 2-hour session · Online or in-person
Expose the multi-layered nature of how customers, people and technologies interact — or fail to — across your business. See how your customer experiences your service, from initial inquiry through to delivery and completion.
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We’ll co-create a detailed, visual map of your service journey—from first contact to proposals, delivery and beyond—revealing both the customer’s experience and the underlying business touchpoints and processes that shape perception.
Expect to uncover friction points, handoff gaps, and moments of delight, as well as opportunities to align operations with customer needs and elevate the customer experience.
You’ll leave your first session with a comprehensive, annotated map of your service journey that highlights where things flow, where they stall, and where you can make immediate improvements.
For a deeper dive or to iterate and optimise further, you can continue independently or book additional sessions for expert support. The pace and depth are always up to you.
Process Mapping
£495+VAT / 2-hour session · Online or in-person
Businesses are built on processes yet processes are rarely built intentionally. Mapping them gives you a bird’s-eye view of what’s really happening, revealing bottlenecks, duplication, delays or missed opportunities, and laying a foundation for automation.
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We’ll map out your internal workflows in detail—clarifying who does what, where inefficiencies or bottlenecks exist, and where duplication or confusion is costing you time and money. This is a creative, diagnostic deep-dive into how your business really operates behind the scenes, and where it could work better.
You’ll leave your first session with a clear, visual process map that highlights pain points, handoffs, and immediate opportunities for streamlining, automation, or digital transformation. This map is your foundation for simplifying operations and delegating with confidence.For a deeper dive, or to iterate and optimise further, you can continue independently or book additional sessions for expert support. The pace and depth are always up to you.
WHY I DO THIS
I believe small businesses and solo professionals deserve to benefit from the same strategic tools that big businesses use to win — because that’s how they win.
Not by chasing someone else’s version of success, but by making smart, confident decisions that fit their own goals.
I also believe small businesses already hold a unique combination of strengths — original ideas, the energy of passion and purpose, and the agility to adapt quickly and make bold moves. What’s often missing is the confidence that comes from thinking things through; clearly, strategically, and with the right tools.
My background is in change and strategy implementation, and I’ve seen how powerful these tools can be. I also know they’re often reserved for large organisations with big budgets and long timelines. That’s a gap I want to close.
Micro-consulting is my way of making high-level insight available in a format that works for small business, for their version of success. It’s fast, focused, and designed to build the capability, clarity and confidence they need to move forward, effectively and efficiently, without dependency.
It’s about winning at being in business — whatever that looks like for you.
FAQs.
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Usually with a conversation. We’ll talk about your goals, challenges, and where you’re stuck.
From there, we can decide if a micro-consulting session makes sense.
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My sessions are designed for focus and momentum. You’ll get a clear, actionable outcome in each session, but some tools (like mapping the business model) can take several sessions to explore in full detail. You’re always welcome to continue independently, or book further sessions for deeper insight and support.
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While we dig into strategy, operations, technology, and customer experience, there are areas I intentionally leave to other specialists:
Financial data analysis: No budgets, cash flow, valuation, accounting, or financial deep-dives.
Team or individual performance reviews: No HR diagnostics, performance management, or coaching.
Legal or regulatory compliance: No audits or advice on legal issues or risks.
Formal marketing execution: No marketing mix, content production, SEO strategy, or campaign delivery.
Operational management: No day-to-day management or direct oversight.
Tech troubleshooting or implementation: No software configurations, system fixes, or vendor/platform recommendations.
If you need support in any of these areas, I’m happy to recommend trusted professionals who specialise in them.
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Each service is priced per micro-consulting session, delivered in focused 2-hour blocks.
We start with a call to explore your challenges. Based on that, I recommend the most effective service for your needs.
You’ll always know the cost upfront, with payment made in advance.No hidden fees, no ongoing commitments.
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For micro-consulting, I don’t offer retainers. My services are designed to be modular and flexible, so you can engage with exactly what you need, when you need it. There’s no long-term commitment, just clear, focused work that fits your goals.
Should you be interested in multiple sessions, I offer bundles.
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I don’t act as a tech consultant. However, I can help you define your tech needs clearly so you can make better decisions when working with IT or software vendors, and can make recommendations for options.
Note that I am not associated or affiliated with any technology providers, giving me full impartiality.
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Yes. These short, high-impact engagements bring an external lens that blends creative insight, systems-level thinking, and deep expertise in innovation and change. By mapping patterns, surfacing hidden connections, and reframing challenges visually and strategically, we unlock flow and momentum where it matters most.
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No – my approach is designed for those who are self-motivated but want clarity, structure, and smarter ways to achieve their goals and stay on track themselves. If you need check-ins or someone to help holding you accountable, my service may not be the right fit.
I can make some recommendations for services that may be better suited to these needs.