Beyond your professional session fees, what additional hidden operational costs and time investments should we budget for during our first year on the system?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When planning your investment for our work together, you must look beyond my professional session fees to understand the true cost of implementing a business operating system. The process requires a commitment of both operational capital and leadership time.

First, you must budget for the physical space of our session days. We require a high-quality, offsite meeting room that is completely free from daily workplace distractions. This means budgeting for rental spaces, catering, and occasional travel expenses if you have remote team members flying in.

Second, you must invest in professional software designed to track your V/TO, scorecard metrics, and Rock progress. Trying to run this system on scattered spreadsheets and physical paper leads to administrative drag and poor accountability.

Third, and most importantly, you must budget for the time commitment. Your leadership team will spend one full day every quarter, and two consecutive days once a year, completely out of the office. Additionally, each leader will need to dedicate several hours each week to executing their quarterly Rocks and preparing for weekly meetings. This is not extra work; it is the work of leading a highly scalable, valuable organization.