Terms of Service
These Terms describe the general rules for using the website and for starting, managing, and completing business consulting engagements.
1. Agreement to These Terms
These Terms of Service govern use of the website and establish general conditions for inquiries and consulting relationships initiated with 970 Holdings. By using the website or submitting a consulting request, a visitor agrees to use the site in accordance with these terms.
A website visit, form submission, service selection, or displayed price range does not by itself create a consulting engagement, attorney-client relationship, fiduciary relationship, employment relationship, partnership, or joint venture.
2. Nature of the Business
970 Holdings provides remote business consulting and advisory services to entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses. Services may address strategy, business planning, internal operations, workflow efficiency, organizational structure, project planning and coordination, market and competitor research, growth strategy, and ongoing business advisory support.
The company provides practical recommendations, planning support, research, process analysis, and advisory perspective. It does not guarantee business outcomes and does not replace licensed legal, tax, accounting, investment, engineering, medical, or other regulated professional services.
3. Website Information
Website content describes the company's general services, working approach, pricing ranges, policies, and ways to request consultation. Content is provided for general business information and may be updated without notice.
Examples, service descriptions, process explanations, and general advisory concepts are not individualized recommendations until they are applied to a specific client's facts within an accepted engagement.
4. Formation of an Engagement
A consulting engagement begins only when both the client and the company accept the material terms of the work. Those terms may be documented in a proposal, statement of work, invoice, project confirmation, email confirmation, or another written record.
Material terms may include the service selected, project objective, deliverables, exclusions, price, payment timing, estimated schedule, revision process, client responsibilities, and any special confidentiality or intellectual property provisions.
The company may decline an inquiry if the requested work falls outside its consulting scope, requires a regulated license the company does not provide, presents a conflict, depends on unavailable resources, or cannot reasonably be delivered within the requested timing.
5. Service Descriptions and Price Ranges
Typically $150–$300. Focused advisory on priorities, tradeoffs, direction, and business decisions.
Typically $500–$1,200. Structured planning around goals, assumptions, operating logic, and implementation.
Typically $400–$900. Review of current processes, bottlenecks, dependencies, and operating friction.
Typically $350–$800. Advisory on recurring task flow, approvals, handoffs, and workflow efficiency.
Typically $400–$1,000. Review of roles, responsibilities, decision ownership, and organizational working structure.
Typically $300–$750. Milestone planning, sequencing, dependencies, coordination, and project review structure.
Typically $350–$900. Focused research organized around a defined market or competitive business question.
Typically $500–$1,200. Growth priorities, readiness, capacity, sequencing, and implementation planning.
Typically $400–$900 per month. Recurring review of priorities, operations, projects, and growth decisions.
Displayed ranges are not binding quotes. Final pricing depends on the actual scope, complexity, timing, volume of information, number of deliverables, research depth, meetings, revision requirements, and other project-specific factors.
6. Client Responsibilities
- Provide materially accurate and current information relevant to the engagement.
- Identify a primary point of contact when multiple participants are involved.
- Respond within a reasonable period to questions, requests for documents, review requests, or decisions needed to continue the work.
- Ensure the client has authority to share documents, data, business information, and third-party materials provided for the engagement.
- Review deliverables and recommendations using the client's own knowledge of its business, legal obligations, finances, personnel, contracts, and operating environment.
- Remain responsible for final management decisions and implementation.
7. Scope Changes and Additional Work
An accepted scope defines the work included in the agreed fee. A request for a materially different objective, expanded research, additional deliverables, extra meetings, new coordination requirements, or work outside the agreed revision process may be treated as additional work.
Where practical, additional work will be identified before it is performed. The parties may agree to a revised fee, revised schedule, supplemental scope, or separate engagement.
8. Delivery, Timing, and Dependencies
Delivery dates are estimates unless expressly confirmed as fixed. Timelines may be affected by client responsiveness, access to information, project complexity, requested changes, third-party dependencies, or circumstances outside reasonable control.
If a project is delayed because necessary information, approvals, or decisions are not provided, the company may adjust the schedule or place the engagement on hold until the required input becomes available.
9. Revisions and Acceptance
Revision expectations may be defined in the applicable engagement terms. Revisions are intended to refine the agreed deliverable, not to replace the project with a materially different objective.
A deliverable is considered complete when it materially addresses the agreed scope. Minor preferences, new ideas, or later requests outside the original objective do not automatically make a completed deliverable incomplete.
10. Payment Obligations
Clients are responsible for paying accepted fees according to the applicable invoice or engagement terms. Some engagements may require advance payment, a deposit, milestone payments, or monthly recurring payment.
Work may be paused if payment remains overdue. The company is not required to continue performing unpaid work while a payment dispute remains unresolved, except where otherwise required by applicable law.
11. Cancellations and Refunds
Cancellation and refund principles are described in the Cancellation & Refund Policy. Project-specific cancellation terms may also appear in a proposal, invoice, or statement of work.
Consulting fees compensate for professional time, analysis, research, planning, meetings, reserved capacity, and deliverables rather than a guaranteed commercial outcome.
12. Confidentiality
The parties should use reasonable care with non-public information received in connection with an engagement. More specific confidentiality obligations may be included in a separate written agreement or engagement document.
Confidentiality generally does not apply to information that becomes public without breach, was already lawfully known, is independently developed, is received lawfully from another source, or must be disclosed by law.
13. Intellectual Property
Pre-existing methods, frameworks, templates, processes, checklists, research methods, concepts, know-how, and general consulting materials remain the property of their original owner.
Subject to full payment and any specific written terms, client-specific deliverables may generally be used by the client for internal business purposes. This does not automatically transfer ownership of underlying reusable consulting methods or templates.
14. No Guarantee of Results
Business performance depends on market conditions, execution, customer behavior, competition, capital, staffing, contracts, pricing, economic conditions, technology, timing, and many other factors outside the consultant's control.
No revenue, profit, cost savings, growth, funding, market share, efficiency, hiring, project success, or other specific outcome is guaranteed.
15. Limitation of Website Reliance
The website is not a substitute for individualized analysis. A visitor should not make a material business decision solely because a general statement appears on the website.
Any recommendation used for a specific project should be evaluated in light of the client's current facts and any legal, tax, financial, regulatory, contractual, or professional requirements that apply.
16. Suspension or Termination
The company may pause or terminate an engagement if the client does not provide required information, fails to meet payment obligations, requests work outside the agreed or appropriate consulting scope, engages in abusive or unlawful conduct, creates a material conflict, or makes continued performance impractical.
The client may end an engagement subject to payment for work completed, reserved consulting time, non-recoverable costs, and any applicable cancellation terms.
17. Changes to These Terms
These Terms may be updated to reflect changes in services, website operation, business practices, or legal requirements. The revision date at the top identifies the current website version.
A later website update does not automatically amend a signed project agreement unless the parties agree otherwise.