What a Business Diagnostic Actually Is (and What to Look For)

Most business owners have been pitched before they were diagnosed. A consultant sits down, asks a few questions, and comes back with a scope of work. The engagement begins. Six months and $80,000 later, something got built, but it is not always clear whether it was the right thing to build.

This is not a consulting problem. It is a structural one. When the diagnostic is free, the revenue comes from the engagement that follows. The incentive is to find something to sell, not to find what actually matters. You end up with a proposal whether you needed one or not.

The Lumify diagnostic works differently: it is priced at $8,500, it stands on its own, and it belongs to you unconditionally. You keep the Findings Report regardless of what you decide next. That structure changes the posture of everything that follows.

What the Diagnostic Is (and What It Is Not)

The diagnostic is a two-to-four-week working analysis of your operation. It is not a survey, a workshop, or a slide deck of best practices. It is a structured examination of your data, your processes, your reporting, and your team structure, run by the operator who built these systems inside a real company at scale.

Rob Estrada leads every analysis personally. No handoffs to junior associates. No standardized frameworks applied without context. Every finding in your report comes from your numbers, not from industry benchmarks.

The deliverable is the Findings Report: a structured document showing exactly what is wrong in your operation, what each problem costs you in your actual numbers, and what to fix first. Plus a 90-minute presentation with you and your leadership team to walk through the findings together.

Who This Is For

The diagnostic is built for owner-operators of roughly $1 to $3M companies with a team in place and real ambition for the next few years.

If that sounds like you, there is a good chance you have hit what we call the first ceiling: the point where gut feel and spreadsheets stop being enough, but you are still too small for the large consulting firms with enterprise price tags. Decisions keep stacking up on your desk. No two reports agree. Growth is happening, but it keeps getting heavier instead of lighter.

That is exactly what the diagnostic is designed to find.

What Happens During the Engagement

The diagnostic runs in two phases.

Phase One: Access and Interviews

The first week is intake. You give us access to the data you already have: accounting exports, operational records, any dashboards or tracking sheets your team uses. It does not need to be clean. Messy data is often where the real picture is hiding.

We run a set of leadership interviews alongside the data review. These typically take two to three hours total across your team. We want to hear what you believe the problems are before we form our own view.

Phase Two: The Analysis

With data access and context in hand, we work through your numbers and processes systematically. We map what information exists, where it lives, and where it breaks down. We track what each gap actually costs: not in hypothetical terms, but in your own figures.

Most companies at this size have three to six significant operational problems. They typically know about one or two of them. The others show up in the analysis. Sometimes those are the bigger ones.

The Findings Report

At the end of the engagement, you receive the Findings Report. It contains:

The presentation is where we walk through the work together. You ask questions. We show the math. If anything does not match what you know about your own operation, we want to hear it.

The report is yours to keep regardless of what you decide next. Execute it with your team, hand it to another firm, or use it to decide whether to work with us. There is no condition attached.

The 3x Rule: How We Decide Whether to Propose More

After the findings presentation, we evaluate whether an implementation engagement makes sense. Our internal standard is this: we only propose implementation when the annualized value identified in your findings is at least three times the full engagement cost.

The full implementation engagement is $48,500. Your completed diagnostic credits in full, so the net is $40,000. For us to propose it, the findings need to show at least $145,500 in annualized value. If we cannot show that math, we tell you, and we stop there.

This is our proposal standard, not a promise of results. It exists to keep us honest. A proposal from us should mean something; this is how it does.

Three Paths After the Diagnostic

Once the findings presentation is done, you have three options.

You can take the Findings Report and execute it yourself. The work is already mapped; the priorities are already set. Everything you need to direct your team is in the document.

You can take it to another firm. We mean this genuinely. The diagnostic is priced as a decision, not as a sales funnel. If another provider is a better fit for the implementation, the report gives them everything they need to start.

You can move forward with implementation with us. If the 3x math holds, we send a proposal: fixed price, fixed scope, written acceptance criteria before work begins. No hourly billing, no scope creep, no surprises.

There is no fourth path where we follow up repeatedly or try to change your mind.

What We Need From You

Three things:

Data access. Whatever you have, even if it is messy. Accounting exports, operational reports, spreadsheets with formulas that half the team does not understand.

A few hours of leadership interviews. Two to three hours total across the engagement, not consecutive.

A primary contact who replies within a couple of business days.

That is it. We run the analysis; you keep running the business.

One Question Before You Book

Before you request a fit call, ask yourself honestly: if someone showed me exactly what is wrong in my operation, what it costs, and what to fix first, would I act on that?

If the answer is yes, the diagnostic is built for you. If the honest answer is not yet, that is worth knowing before you commit the time.

Ready to find out if we are a match?

Book a 15-minute fit call. No pitch. A short conversation in both directions so we both decide before anyone commits to anything.

[Book the fit call: lumifyanalytics.com/book]