Most consulting agreements run to thirty pages to say four things. I'll do the work I said I'd do, with proper skill and care. You'll pay what we agreed, when I ask you to. What's yours stays yours, and what's confidential stays confidential. If either of us wants to stop, we say so in writing and settle up fairly. Everything below is just those four sentences, with the detail filled in. Plain English throughout, on purpose.
I'm Ian Sharpe, a freelance consultant trading as ConsultingPartner.io ("I", "me"). You're the client ("you"). Each piece of work is agreed in a short Statement of Work or engagement email ("SOW") that describes what I'll do, by when, and for how much. These terms apply to every SOW and to every call booked through this site; if a SOW and these terms ever conflict, the SOW wins.
Curious what an SOW actually looks like? Download an example (PDF). Two pages, plain English, no surprises. Real ones are just as short.
I provide advice, analysis and deliverables. Decisions, and responsibility for them, stay with you; it's your business. Timescales are good-faith estimates and rely on you giving me reasonable access to the people and information the work needs. Where a job needs more than one pair of hands, I may bring in trusted associates; I remain responsible for their work and for their compliance with these terms.
The free 30-minute intro call costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You can move or cancel it from the link in your confirmation email up to 12 hours before; after that, a reply to the email is all it takes.
A "Let's just talk" session is £195 for ninety minutes, paid by card when you book. Card payments are handled by Stripe, and I never see your card details. If it's clear in the first ten minutes that I'm not the right person, we stop there and I refund you in full.
You can move or cancel a session from the link in your confirmation email up to 24 hours before it starts. Cancel at that point and I refund you in full, normally within two working days, back to the card you paid with. Inside 24 hours there's no refund, but reply to your confirmation email and I'll move it once. If I ever have to cancel, you get a full refund or a new time, whichever you'd rather.
Calls take place on Zoom unless we agree otherwise; the link arrives with your confirmation.
Prices are as agreed in the SOW, or as shown when you book a call. I'm not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added; if that changes I'll tell you, and VAT will apply to invoices from the date of registration. One-off engagements are payable in advance. Retainers are invoiced monthly in advance. Project work is invoiced against agreed milestones, starting with a mobilisation payment. Invoices are payable within 14 days, by bank transfer to the account named on the invoice, or by Direct Debit or card where we've agreed to set that up. If an invoice is late I may charge interest and compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, and pause work until it's settled. Pre-agreed travel and expenses are recharged at cost. Unused retainer days don't roll over unless the SOW says so.
Once an invoice is paid in full, the deliverables created for you are yours. The methods, frameworks and know-how I brought with me stay mine, with a permanent licence for you to keep using them inside your business. I may reuse general lessons and anonymised patterns from our work, but never your confidential information.
Each of us keeps the other's confidential information confidential, uses it only for the engagement, and shares it only with people who need it and are bound to keep it confidential too, or where the law requires. This survives for five years after we finish. I may say you're a client (name and logo) unless you ask me not to in the SOW. Anything you tell me on a call is treated the same way, whether or not any work follows.
We each comply with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. How I handle your personal details, who helps me do it and how long I keep them is set out in my privacy notice. If I process personal data on your behalf as part of the work, we'll put a short data processing agreement in place first.
I work freelance; legally, I'm a self-employed sole trader. I'm responsible for my own tax and National Insurance, I decide how the work gets done, and I'm free to work for other clients. Nothing in these terms makes me your employee, worker, partner, agent or officer, and neither of us will present the relationship otherwise.
Neither of us will poach the other's people. During an engagement and for six months after, neither of us will solicit for employment or engagement anyone from the other side who was materially involved, without written consent. Breaching this costs a fee of 25% of that person's first-year pay.
Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law says can't be limited. Subject to that, my total liability under an engagement is capped at the fees you've paid under the relevant SOW in the 12 months before the claim (for a call booked online, the price of the call), and neither of us is liable to the other for loss of profit, revenue, anticipated savings, goodwill or data, or for indirect or consequential loss. I carry professional indemnity insurance and will evidence it on request. My advice is for you alone; it may not be relied on by anyone else.
One-off engagements end when I deliver. Retainers roll monthly after any initial term in the SOW, and either of us can end them with 30 days' written notice. Projects end on completion, or as the SOW says. Either of us can end an engagement immediately if the other seriously breaches these terms and doesn't fix it within 14 days of being told, or becomes insolvent. On any ending, you pay for work done and unavoidable commitments up to that date, and I refund, pro rata, anything paid in advance for work not yet done, unless the ending was caused by your serious breach.
Neither of us is liable for delays caused by things genuinely beyond our control. Neither of us can hand this agreement to someone else without the other's consent, not unreasonably withheld. These terms plus the SOW are the whole agreement, and changes only count in writing. Notices can be sent by email. No one other than you and me gets rights under this agreement. If you're buying as a consumer rather than for a business, nothing here affects your statutory rights. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and any disputes go to its courts.