We Offer Fixed-Fee and Results-Based Engagements
We offer two engagement structures: a straightforward fixed fee, or a results-based model that ties a portion of our price to the outcomes we achieve together. This page walks through how the results-based option works and how to know if it's right for your agency.
Entering into a results-based engagement with us includes:
The benefit to you is that:
To balance that shared risk, your total price in the end would be higher than the purely fixed-fee engagement—but only because the results justified it, based on a shared definition of value we agree on before the work begins.
How We Define Results
We define "results" together—specific metrics, specific targets, specific timeframes.
Examples would be increases in average deal size, improvement in win rate on qualified opportunities, growth in revenue from defined offers, improved price realization on proposals, or the successful launch of higher-margin solutions.
In some cases, it can be as simple as your leadership team's assessment of the strategic value delivered.
We don't assume anything or leave anything open to interpretation.
We don't tie the performance component to total revenue, EBITDA, or valuation. Those matter and are certainly impacted—but they involve too many variables for fair attribution.
Three Principles That Determine Success
Accountability runs both directions.
At the end of the engagement, we assess both sides—Lodestar on the quality and impact of our strategic work, and your team on agreed-upon commitments like executive engagement, implementation follow-through, and timely access to the data and decisions the work requires. Both assessments carry weighted impact on the final performance calculation.
Your team's engagement affects the outcome.
Results depend on having an executive sponsor who removes blockers and an operational owner with the acumen and time to drive the work forward. If either role becomes unavailable to the engagement, deprioritizes the work, or doesn't fulfill their responsibilities, work stalls and the final scorecard that determines the performance price reflects it.
The economics reward results, not effort.
Your total investment scales as a small percentage of your gains only if the value created scales.
Is This Right for Your Agency?
Before we go down this path together, there are a few patterns you should be aware of that can make results-based engagements unsuccessful. If any of the following exist in your firm, a fixed-fee engagement will usually be the better starting point:
- Key decision-makers often have competing priorities making it difficult to stay engaged from start to finish on key initiatives
- It takes a long time to align internally—critical decisions often stall, go through multiple rounds of discussion, or require consensus from stakeholders who aren't part of the process
- Agreed-upon decisions often get revisited or reversed when someone who wasn't in the room weighs in after the fact
- There isn't a clear operational owner within the agency with the bandwidth and authority to keep things moving between sessions
- The leadership team isn't fully aligned on whether the model needs to change—some are bought in, others are skeptical or waiting to be convinced
- Leadership team members aren't prepared to have hard conversations—potentially regarding restructuring roles, retiring a service line, or challenging long-held assumptions that no longer serve the business
- There's reluctance to share the commercial data or confidential internal realities the work may require
It's perfectly fine if the patterns above lead you to feeling more comfortable with a fixed-fee engagement. Most of our engagements start that way because the structure gives both sides room to build trust, establish rhythm, and see results before introducing shared accountability.
By experiencing the process of defining a results-based engagement as our client—seeing how we define goals, measure value, share risk, price the value—can help you think about structuring your own client engagements. It's a side benefit of the work that agency leaders find useful.