Out of Office
Your Alternative Quarterly Review
It's hard to see the whole business clearly when you're the one holding it together.
Committed time in the diary, away from the desk, so your next big decisions get the time and thought they deserve.
It starts with a walk across a field, coffee in hand, towards a converted horsebox in the middle of a vineyard. The doors are open, the post-its are out, and the South Downs are sitting there in the background.
It's an unusual place to talk business, and that's sort of the point.
I'll hold the day, so you can be in it.
Quarterly reviews get a bad reputation
Rigid, corporate, a bit admin-heavy, and if we're honest, fairly anxiety-inducing. And if most of the business still runs through you, quarters tend to blur into each other, with everything living in your head and nowhere to put it all down.
Designed differently, they can do a lot more, for you as much as the business. A chance to step out of it all, reorientate and re-energise.
Even just changing the space you're in makes a difference. Step out of the office, out of the day to day, out of the how, and there's room to look back properly and think about what's possible next.
From a day at the Den
“Taking me through the journey today has really helped. Looking at what we want to do in the next three to six months really, really lit me up. I've got some fire in my belly.”
~ Rob Alcroft, Wayforward
How the day tends to go
None of it is accidental. It's built around where you are and to give you room to see the business clearly, decide what matters next, and come back to it with more energy. The shape stays the same: each time: arrive, look back, move, look ahead and land.
Most days happen at the Unlost Den in Sussex, or somewhere just as peaceful. The kind of quiet where you can finally hear yourself think. We start with a walk, a coffee and no agenda, so you've arrived before we begin.
The morning looks back, before anything looks forward. We remember the hard bits more loudly than the good ones, so we check both against what really happened. It's easier to plan well once you can see the quarter as it was, not just how it felt.
Lunch and walks are woven in, because some things are easier to say side by side, looking at a view. Small breaks, a hot drink, a little shake-out, keep it feeling like a conversation rather than a meeting.
After lunch, laptops go away and we look ahead. We hold the how back until now, so ideas get room to breathe. Then we get practical about your runway and capacity, so the goals are ones you can run at. One goal, three goals, however it looks.
We finish by heading back outside, to the view you arrived through, and noticing what's different.
You leave a little lighter, a lot clearer on what's next, and with something to act on Monday morning.
Either side of each review
No two quarters look the same, so no two days do either.
Whatever the quarter's brought, we look at where the money's coming from, what the team can hold, and how it's all sitting with you.
Before each review, I'll look through your numbers and whatever else you've got, and design the day around what really needs unpacking this time. If something useful is missing, I'll suggest what to pull together and bring along.
Afterwards, you'll get a written reflection on what we noticed and where we landed, with your Roadmap in a visual you can keep, so nothing relies on memory alone.
Why I love hosting these
I remember a business advisor encouraging me to make stepping back a rhythm when I was running my first business. I gave it a go. Every quarter we'd look properly at the numbers, the team and where we were heading, and bring our advisors in to ask what we weren't seeing.
After a few tries, I kept going, because it became clear that we were usually too close to the weeds to see past them. Stepping back gave me the overview I needed to see the wood for the trees, and somewhere to put it all down.
Having people from outside the business in the room gave us context we didn't have, and a lot of the time it backed up what we'd been sensing all along. That made the big calls feel far less risky, and I wasn't second-guessing them on my own afterwards.
We'd come out the other side energised, and all on the same page about what came next.
Those days are where we decided what to stop selling, which clients to focus on, and who we needed to hire next. And, more importantly, they gave us the confidence to act on what we'd decided.
Why not just run one yourselves?
You could, and some founders do. But it's hard to step back from your business and run the day at the same time. Someone ends up watching the clock and steering the conversation, and that someone is usually you.
With me running it, you get to step back properly.
I also bring a commercial and ops head to everything we look at, and I'll ask the questions that are easy to skip when it's your own business.
I've sat on both sides of these days. I've been a founder twice, paying myself last and wondering if I'd got it right. And I've spent most of my career as the right hand to founders, making sure the business can keep up with where they want to take it.
The calls are yours to make, but they don't have to be made on your own.
Investing in space to grow
£5,300 for the year, or twelve monthly payments of £442. That covers designing and running each session, venue hire, lunch, and building simple tools.
A few things you might be wondering
Why every quarter?
Each day picks up where the last one left off, so the year builds on itself. You get to see how one quarter's goals actually played out by the next.
What happens after each day?
You'll get a written reflection on what we noticed and where we landed, with a visual Roadmap. So nothing relies on memory alone.
Do I need to have anything ready?
Not a thing. You can start from wherever you are, and across the year we'll build a few simple tools to make keeping track easier.
Can I bring someone with me?
Of course. It can be just you, or bring a co-founder or your leadership team if the conversation needs more than one of you in it. The price covers up to two of you, and for a bigger team we'll talk through venue and lunch together.
Fancy getting Out of the Office?
For a day, someone else holds it together, and you get to see the whole business clearly again. Your next big decisions deserve that.
Tell me how you do things now, and what you'd hope a bit of distance might help with. We'll shape the right space for you from there.