Close-rate target on a live Quebec ingredients distributor mandate, sales motion in scope.
You are the system, and that is the constraint.
Revenue stalls, quotes pile up, and the work still routes through you. Astrocytes rebuilds the operating system underneath the business so growth stops depending on your attention, and we are paid from the value we create, not from your hours.
The wedge
A two-week diagnostic. The written plan is yours either way, and a value guarantee backs it.
Book a free 30-minute diagnostic call§ 02 / Where it leaks
Same disease, different symptom.
The nonprofit door buys cost reduction first; the business door buys revenue lift first. Named plainly, here is where an owner-led business bleeds.
- Revenue leaks first: pricing that drifts, pipeline that hides, quotes that take days, and discounts that stand in for qualification.
- A CRM filled in after the sale instead of during it, so the forecast moves with mood rather than evidence.
- A web store disconnected from inventory and finance, where the catalogue, the warehouse, and the ledger each tell a different story.
- No process discipline: work moves through people instead of a visible system, and exceptions quietly became the normal path.
§ 03 / The offer
Audit, reset, then operate.
Three steps, each earned by the one before it. You commit budget to the rebuild only after the audit shows the business case, and the operating mandate is paid from the value it creates.
- Step 1
The Symbiotic Audit
Scoped to your organization. Two weeks
The wedge. A two-week diagnostic that finds where revenue leaks before cost leaks, with a written plan and ranked repairs.
- Recommended Step 2
Operating Reset
Scoped to your organization. 8 to 12 weeks
The rebuild. Eight to twelve weeks on the constraint the audit found: a low fixed operating fee plus a share of the value created.
- A share of the verified cost reduction we create
- A share of the incremental gross margin where sales motion is in scope, year one only
- Step 3
Fractional Operator
Scoped to your organization. Plus platform management
The continuity. A quarterly cadence with senior operator judgment on call, plus web-store hosting and management where a storefront is in scope.
Included in the reset
| Included | Stated value |
|---|---|
| Agentic workflow starter pack | Included |
| SOP library | Included |
| Dashboard set | Included |
| Bilingual capability, EN and FR | Included |
§ 04 / The guarantee
- Two new mandates per quarter
- Two-week diagnostic
- Bilingual EN/FR
§ 05 / Sales architecture
Make sales legible again.
Where sales motion is the constraint, the reset rebuilds the CRM stages, territories, and qualification rules, installs a weekly pipeline review, and moves the founder's selling instinct into team language and coaching. Pricing, account quality, and service capacity are tied back to gross margin, not vanity activity.
§ 06 / What the stack covers
One operating stack, five surfaces.
CRM and sales architecture
Pipeline, territories, cadence, and MEDDPICC or Challenger coaching, now platform-backed so the founder's selling instinct transfers to the team.
Web store and commerce management
Storefront build and ongoing management: catalogue, pricing rules, and inventory and order flow connected to finance.
Process intelligence
The Symbiotic Audit, Six Sigma and Scrum rebuilds, SOPs, and operating cadence applied to the way the company really runs.
Agentic AI implementation
n8n, Make, and custom flows on bounded workflows, where judgment can be bounded and handoff can be measured.
Finance-connected operations
Quote-to-cash visibility, reconciliation, and margin dashboards, so the signal the business sends about its own health stays clean.
§ 07 / The data is yours, and it compounds
The customer graph stays yours.
Your customers, quotes, and orders live in a CRM you own, not a vendor's. Every interaction attaches to the same record, so the pipeline and the customer graph strengthen quarter over quarter instead of resetting when a tool or a rep changes. Like a mycelial web that grows denser with every exchange, the owned data lifts retention and margin, and the relationships stay with the business, not the software.
Privacy by design: customer data is handled under Quebec Law 25 and PIPEDA.
§ 08 / Proof
A live mandate, not a pitch.
A Quebec food-ingredients distributor is mid-mandate now: CRM rebuild, territory logic, weekly forecast cadence, and an agentic outbound layer for tier-2 accounts. The targets below are the mandate's own.
The Symbiotic Audit: a written plan and ranked repairs in two weeks, no open-ended hours.
New mandates taken per quarter. Founder-led delivery, never oversold.
§ 09 / Owner questions
The questions an owner asks.
Where do you start, revenue or cost?
Revenue first, cost second. Owner-led businesses usually buy revenue lift before cost reduction, so the audit looks at pricing, pipeline, and quote-to-cash before it looks at process waste. The order is the opposite of the nonprofit door, and deliberate.
What is the Symbiotic Audit?
A two-week diagnostic that maps where money, signal, process, and attention leak, then delivers a written operating plan with a ranked sequence of repairs. It is the front door, and process, sales, AI, and web work only follow when the diagnostic shows a business case.
How does the audit guarantee work?
If the audit does not identify opportunities worth several times its cost, the fee is credited against any future work. The first step carries its own risk reversal.
How are you paid after the audit?
The Operating Reset mandate is a low fixed operating fee plus a share of the value we create: a share of verified cost reduction, and where sales motion is in scope, a share of the incremental gross margin, year one only and capped. You pay from value created, not from open-ended hours.
What does the web-store management cover?
A storefront build and its ongoing management: catalogue, pricing rules, and inventory and order flow connected to finance. It is naturally recurring, which is why it sits in the continuity tier rather than as a one-time project.
How do you keep agentic AI safe to run?
We automate bounded workflows only, with clear inputs, rules, review points, and outputs, built in n8n, Make, or custom code. The system is told where it acts, where it asks, and where it stops, and the prompts and rules are documented so the workflow can be governed.
What is the Fractional Operator engagement?
A quarterly cadence for owners who want senior operator judgment on call, plus platform hosting and management where a web store or other recurring system is in scope. It is the continuity layer after a reset, not a standing retainer that grows on its own.
How much of your capacity is available?
Two new mandates per quarter. The limit is capacity-true: delivery is founder-led, so the pipeline is paced deliberately rather than oversold.
Do you work in French and English?
Yes. The practice is Quebec-focused and bilingual, with delivery in French or English and an international register when the context calls for it.
§ 10 / You might be thinking
And every worry is fair.
-
Just one more tool to manage.
You own the system and the data. We are the operators, not another subscription to babysit.
-
A migration risk.
We map before we touch anything. The rebuild is staged and reversible, and nothing is ripped out without a fallback.
-
Losing control of how we run.
Nothing is forced. The audit shows the real constraint and you choose what to change.
-
A new cost on a tight business.
You pay from the value we create, not from open-ended hours.
§ 11 / Book a diagnostic call
Two weeks to a written operating plan.
Ranked repairs and a value guarantee. The plan is yours to act on either way.