The questions prospective clients ask most often.

What actually happens on a Triage Call?

A 30 minute call with Michael. Free. The first ten minutes, you tell us where you are. Your market, your team, your numbers, the competition, what has and has not worked. The next ten are diagnostic questions that tell us which part of the commercial chain is broken. The last ten, we tell you whether we can help, which part we would tackle first, and what the realistic shape would look like. If we cannot help, we say so and point you somewhere better. No follow-up calls from a sales team. No just-checking-in emails.

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Do I need to know what I want before I call?

No. Most useful calls start with a problem, not a brief. You tell us what is not working. Declining launch, stalled pipeline, events that burn budget without producing meetings. We help you diagnose what is causing it before anyone talks about scope or cost. If you arrive with a shopping list, we will still respect it, but the diagnostic will tell you whether the list is the right one.

What information should I bring?

Nothing formal. If you have your last twelve months of pipeline data, launch numbers, or event ROI figures to hand, it sharpens the conversation. But the call works without prep. We can usually tell within the first ten minutes whether the problem is in the commercial chain or somewhere else entirely.

What happens after the Triage Call?

One of three things. We recommend an engagement and send a proposal. We recommend you do not need us yet, and tell you what to do in-house first. Or we recommend a different specialist who is a better fit. A good share of triage calls end with the second or third answer. The first only happens when the fit is obvious.

Read the methodology →

Are we too small to work with AGENCY?

Probably not. We work with founder-led companies pre-revenue through to enterprise pharma. The question is not size, it is stage. If your problem is commercial (you are ready to sell, you just need the system to do it), we are a fit. If you are pre-product and pre-evidence, you need a clinical advisor more than you need us.

For Founders →

Are we too enterprise?

Unlikely. We work with UK subsidiaries of global med-tech, pharma brands with global regulatory envelopes, and platforms with multi-market teams. Our constraint is not scale, it is focus. We take on engagements we can materially move the needle on. If the engagement would be a governance exercise with no decision-making authority, we will say so.

For Enterprise →

Do you work with pre-launch products or only approved ones?

Both. A material share of our work is pre-launch product positioning, launch readiness, and market entry. The 3 E's framework is specifically designed for the pre-launch window. If you are still years from approval, we can still do market-shaping work, but we will suggest a phased engagement that matches where you are.

Product Launch Excellence →

We already have a marketing team. Will you conflict with them?

Rarely. We are most useful when we plug into an existing team, fill a specific capability gap (launch readiness, patient marketing compliance, sales enablement, content at scale), and leave cleanly when the gap is filled. We do not replace marketing teams. We extend them. The clients we stay with longest are the ones where the internal team is strong and we play to a defined scope inside it.

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Do you work internationally?

Yes. UK-based, global remit. Recent work spans the UK, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia, and several EMEA markets for patient-side campaigns. For heavily-regulated markets we work with local regulatory partners where their expertise matters more than ours.

Contura international launch case →

Do you only work in healthcare?

Yes. Twenty years of commercial experience inside operating theatres, procurement meetings, and healthcare boardrooms. The methodology would transfer to other regulated markets in theory, but we deliberately do not dilute the focus. A generalist is the last thing healthcare clients actually need.

Project, retainer, or both?

Both. Pre-launch and launch engagements are typically project-shaped with a defined scope and end date. Ongoing content programmes, sales enablement iteration, and post-launch demand work run on retainer. We tell you on the triage call which shape fits your situation. We do not put everything on retainer just because it suits us.

How long is a typical engagement?

It depends on the work. A brand identity or launch readiness project usually runs 8 to 12 weeks. A sales enablement build is typically 6 to 10 weeks. Content programmes start monthly with a three month minimum and most run year on year. Training days are single day. Triage calls are thirty minutes.

The four-stage process →

Who actually works on our account?

Michael runs strategy and diagnosis on every engagement. Delivery is by a small specialist team scoped to the work. We do not sell you a senior partner and hand you off to a junior. The team that shows up on the kick-off is the team that delivers. Names, faces, and roles are in the proposal.

Meet the team →

Do you sign NDAs as standard?

Yes. Every engagement is covered by an NDA before any client information is shared. We sign yours or we send ours. Most of our best work stays private at the client's request, which is why the named case studies on this site are a small fraction of the work we have done.

Who owns the IP and creative?

You do. Full IP transfer on delivery and sign-off. We keep no rights beyond the right to reference the engagement in anonymous case studies, unless you have agreed to a named case. Training materials are licensed to your team under the terms of the engagement.

What is a typical price range for a launch engagement?

A focused launch readiness engagement typically starts from £15,000 and goes up to £60,000 or more for a full pre-launch system covering messaging, sales enablement, digital presence, and advocate enablement. We quote against the specific brief, not a tiered menu. The triage call is where we shape the number against your situation.

Product Launch Excellence →

Is training available without project work?

Yes. Training is a standalone product. Half days start at £850, full days at £1,500. Ten workshops covering compliant creativity (SAFE), playbook creation, stakeholder mapping, event strategy, AI-assisted marketing, brand playbook, storytelling, in-house content, launch excellence, and patient marketing. We run them on-site with your team or at our Bristol office.

See all training →

What is included in the fee, and what is extra?

Every proposal lists the scope line by line. Deliverables, number of revision rounds, who reviews what, what is out of scope. Amends beyond three rounds are quoted separately. Asset licensing (stock, fonts, production) is billed at cost. Travel for on-site work is billed at cost where it is significant. No retainer creep.

How are you different from a big network agency?

A network agency sells capacity. A boutique like ours sells judgement. The difference matters when the work needs commercial-chain fluency across clinical, procurement, compliance, and finance. Network agencies typically solve the creative brief and leave the commercial mapping to you. We do it the other way around. We start with the commercial chain, then the creative follows. Our team has sat in those meetings. Most network agency teams have not.

Our methodology →

Why not just use AI tools, hire in-house, or give this to our brand agency?

Use AI for the parts of the work that scale well. Draft generation, SEO research, calendar prompts. Hire in-house for the functions you run permanently. Content leadership, marketing operations. Use your brand agency for visual identity. We are useful when the problem is specifically commercial: making a commercial model work across a regulated stakeholder chain. That is the intersection where AI is brittle, in-house is rarely experienced at the chain level, and brand agencies are unqualified.

When does an AGENCY engagement fail?

Three failure modes, in order of frequency. First: when the internal team has no decision authority - the engagement produces good work that nobody can sign off, and the budget is wasted on a strategy that sits on the shelf. Second: when leadership has not aligned on what the commercial problem actually is - if Sales says it is positioning and the CEO says it is reps, we cannot diagnose with that contradiction unresolved. Third: when we are brought in to validate a decision that has already been made. We are a diagnostic firm. Confirmation is what marketing decks are for. If any of those three apply, we will tell you on the triage call and decline politely. Most of the time it saves both sides a quarter of avoidable disappointment.

Can we speak to a current client before engaging?

Yes, named, on the triage call. We do not ask clients to do public testimonials because the regulated environments they operate in make that complicated, but reference calls with a current or recent client are part of the diligence we expect serious buyers to do. Three named case studies are public on this site. Sector-disclosed engagements have named references available under MNDA on the call.

See the case studies →

Michael is on every engagement. What if he is unavailable?

Realistic question. Michael runs strategy and diagnosis on every engagement, but delivery is a small specialist team and the senior bench named on the team page is built precisely so single-point dependency does not become a delivery risk. Long engagements have documented continuity plans. If the engagement is structurally dependent on one person being permanently available, we will say so and propose a different shape.

Meet the bench →