FRACTIONAL AI LEADERSHIP FOR OWNER-OPERATED COMPANIES — PORTLAND METRO
I’ll show you where your hours actually go — and what AI is genuinely worth in your operation.
Three weeks inside your business. At the end you own a written document that says where the hours go (including the workarounds nobody documented), what AI can actually address ranked by hours returned per dollar — with the arithmetic shown — and, named specifically, what you are being oversold and should refuse. $5,000, fixed. The document is yours outright whether or not we ever work together again.
Fixed fee · No software sold · No referral fee taken from any vendor assessed
Who this is for
Owner-operated companies in the Portland metro doing roughly $5–50M a year — contractors, trades, distributors, multi-location service businesses — where the owner still makes the technology decisions and keeps getting pitched AI by people who have never run anything. If that is you, the problem is not finding AI ideas. It is knowing which three of the forty are real for your operation, and having someone accountable say no to the rest.
What you get, exactly
- Where the hours go — mapped from your actual operation, including the undocumented workarounds your best people quietly maintain.
- What AI can genuinely address — ranked by hours returned per dollar, with the arithmetic shown, not asserted.
- What to refuse — named specifically, including whatever you are being pitched right now.
- A costed roadmap and the recommended first move.
- Written, plus two hours of discussion. You own the document outright either way.
Why trust the measurement
Before offering this, I ran two original studies in two unrelated industries — recording, word for word, what ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity actually tell buyers. One covered dog breeders across twelve states (180 recorded answers); one covered Oregon senior living. Two industries, same method, published on this site. The point is not the industries — it is that I measure what these systems do before holding an opinion about them, and I show the working. That is the same discipline the Review applies to your operation. Every measurement I publish is written up the same way in the field records — four of them, each dated, each naming what the evidence does not support.
What this is not
- Not a software pitch. I sell no software and take no referral fee from any vendor I assess — which is the whole point of asking me instead of a vendor.
- Not a promise of outcomes. Nobody can guarantee what a given tool will do in your shop before looking; anyone who does is selling you something.
- Not for committees. This works when one owner can act on it. (Nonprofits, with committee decisions and grant cycles, are honestly not the fit.)
Price and terms, plainly
$5,000, fixed. Three weeks. Invoiced after we have talked and agreed the scope — there is no buy button here because I will not take $5,000 from someone I have not spoken to. The way to speak to me is to send me the times that work for you. If, afterwards, you want ongoing help putting the roadmap to work, a standing engagement exists at $12,000/month, month-to-month with 30 days’ notice and no minimum term — and $2,500 of your Review fee is credited against the first two months if you start within 30 days. Said out loud so you can weigh it: that credit means I have an interest in recommending ongoing work. The document is built to stand on its own precisely so you can take it and walk away.
Operations Review FAQ
Who does the work?
Mark Griffin, personally. I have run four organisations over nine years — budgets to about a million, payroll, boards, vendors — and I own and operate an eighteen-acre boarding kennel in the Portland metro area today. I know what a week inside an owner-run operation looks like.
Can you show me a client result?
One, and I will be exact about what it is and what it is not. North Star Tutoring in Gresham, Oregon ranks first for its main search term and is the first business named in Google’s AI Overview — measured 9 September 2026, re-checked 22 September, published with that client’s written permission. It takes about ten seconds to check for yourself. What it is not: that was search work, not an Operations Review, so for the Review itself you really would be among the first. And nobody has measured what the ranking produced in enquiries, so I do not claim it. The field records set out all four measurements, each with the evidence that does not support it named alongside the evidence that does.
What do you need from us during the three weeks?
Access to how work actually happens: a walkthrough of your systems, time with the people who run the day, and honesty about the workarounds. The disruption is deliberately small; most of the analysis happens on my side.
What if the honest answer is that AI isn’t worth much in our operation yet?
Then the document says that, with the arithmetic, and it tells you what to refuse in the meantime. That answer is worth $5,000 too — it is usually the one nobody selling software will give you.
Questions owners ask me
What is the Operations Review?
Three weeks looking at where your hours actually go and what AI can honestly return against them. It is $5,000. You get a written review naming the specific work worth automating, what it would cost, what it would save, and the parts I think you should leave alone.
Who is it for?
Owner-operated companies roughly between $5M and $50M in revenue, outside tech, where the owner is still the bottleneck for decisions. If you have a CTO or an internal data team, you do not need me.
What makes you different from an AI consultant?
I run businesses. I own a boarding kennel and a breeding programme, and the first AI visibility study I published was about my own company, where the news was bad. Most people selling AI to owner-operators have never carried a payroll.
Will you tell me to buy software?
Only if it earns its cost, and I take nothing from vendors. A good share of what I find is not a software problem: it is a process one person is holding together by memory. Naming that honestly is usually worth more than a licence.
What happens after the review?
Most owners take the document and run it themselves, which is a fine outcome. If you want me in the business on an ongoing basis there is a seat at $12,000 a month, but the review is deliberately useful on its own and stands alone.
How long until I see anything?
Three weeks to the written review. Whether the changes in it pay off depends on which ones you act on, and the review says plainly which are quick and which are not. I would rather set that expectation now than oversell a timeline.