ENGAGEMENTSStrategy is where the next operating model gets built.
Small businesses don't fail at inflection points because the strategy is wrong. They fail because the plan stops short of execution. The operating model that got them to the threshold can't carry them through it. Most of the help available either delivers a deck and disappears or fills a chair and leaves the team making decisions the same way they always have.
A new operating model doesn't hold if the behaviors running the old one don't shift with it.
Liminal is built differently. We sit through the part where the new operating model has to actually get built, because that is the part most engagements are designed to skip.
HOW WE ENGAGEAn assessment first. Then the engagement that fits.
Phase 01: Inflection Assessment — A 30-day, fixed-fee diagnostic across the lines of business. We name the threshold issue, map what the next operating model requires, and deliver a prioritized recommendation the CEO can act on with or without us. The assessment stands on its own, and it earns the right to scope deeper work.
Phase 02: Scoped to the finding — What the assessment finds determines how the second phase is scoped, not the other way around. Three options, chosen to fit the finding.
Executive Advisory
A monthly retainer for standing CEO access. The team is in place; senior judgment is on call.
Threshold Sprint
Fixed-scope work against one inflection: post-acquisition integration, sale-prep, or succession design. Six to twelve weeks.
Embedded Fractional
A seat at the table on a recurring cadence, executive leadership or subject matter expert, running the playbook the next stage requires. Six to eighteen months.
Every engagement is tailored and designed to graduate. We build the bench, document the operating cadence, transfer the playbook, and leave. We measure success by what the team can do without us.
BUILT FOR THRESHOLDIntegrated leadership support.
Threshold fluency
The size-standard cliff, the post-acquisition first hundred days, the sale-prep push, the founder transition, or the leap to mid-market. These are not edge cases for us. They are the practice. You don't have to explain what's happening; we've lived it on the other side of the table.
Operator authority
Run by an operator, not a consultant who studied operators. Twenty years of progressive GovCon leadership, with concurrent direct line responsibility across finance, contracts, HR and recruiting, IT, security, quality, program delivery, and facilities — up to seven functions at the same company at the same time.
Capability alignment
At every inflection point, the strategy is downstream of whether the leadership team can actually operate the next version of the company. We hold tactical execution and behavioral leverage in the same hand with certified leadership & performance coach credentials and applied neuroscience training behind it.
The work is operational. The leverage is behavioral. Most engagements that fail at the threshold fail in the gap between the two.
FITWho this is for — and who it isn't.
We work with founders and CEOs of five- to fifty-million-dollar federal contractors at a recognizable threshold: the size-standard cliff, the overnight success, an acquisition to integrate, a sale to prepare for, a founder transition to run.
We are not the right fit for pre-revenue startups looking for a fractional executive resume, large primes with internal transformation offices in place, pure compliance shops that want a DCAA fixer, or buyers who want a deck delivered and a consultant gone. Saying no to these clearly is part of what makes the yes credible.