Here's a little bit about how we work
As a neurodivergent, disabled, Indian diasporic business owner, it's important that I protect my energy and create boundaries. As someone who engages in receiving and giving business support, I appreciate clarity before entering into a working relationship. My identities and challenges give me a unique perspective not commonly found in the business consulting industry. My experiences and education inform my perspectives which help me to perceive inequity and bring creative solutions to building ethical and inclusive businesses to the table.
Boundaries, in my opinion, keep us all safe. And as such, I've put together some of the guidelines for working with us, especially those kinds of things that might show up as we work together.
At The Kowtha Constellation, we only take on a few clients at a time because we offer a personalized service and hold an energetic space for the transformation work. Therefore, we must be discerning about who we work with and where we spend our precious time. As such, we've created a form with some questions for you to respond to which will help us determine if we would be a good fit and to hear more about your project before we speak in real time. The main three things we are looking for: 1) readiness, 2) clear scope and goals, and 3) accountability.
We work best with clients with clearly defined project scope and targets. We appreciate a clearly defined scope of the project and targets before we start our work with you. We are more than happy to define this together in the sales process. Keep in mind, if the scope or targets change, it will cost more money, and extend the end date.
We value clients who honor our time with compensation: The more we honor one another’s time and engagement, the better for all involved. Ideally, we would like to be paid during the sales process. We have factored this into our pricing and process. Occasionally, we have had individuals and companies honor our time by compensating us financially for the enrollment call and on-boarding process. It's appreciated, but not a requirement.
Open Calls for Proposals are Not our Thing: On a similar note, we generally will not participate in open calls for proposals. Proposals are time-consuming to prepare and the selection process often feels unclear. We will only submit a proposal by personal invitation, if it's a part of your organizations' process, or we are creating a bespoke service for your organization.
Bidding Wars Aren’t Either: We will not participate in a bidding war. Our prices are clearly listed on the website, where possible. We do offer sliding scale prices/alternative forms of payment, as well as courses and memberships at a lower price points for those who need that level of support. We also offer payment plans and unlike many organizations, we do not add an additional fee or increase the price for the payment plans. For our premium services, we only accept monetary payment at this time, we do not offer alternative forms of payment. We are willing to extend a payment plan, but must be paid in full by the time our work is complete.
We aim to work in a relational manner, rather than a transactional one.
As you know, this work is not a quick fix and is dependent on the individuals and team members present -- whether they are ready, willing, and able to do the work and the connection between client/consultant matters too.
The work: what’s our responsibility and what’s yours? I come to this work as a strategist and problem solver. We have developed our methodology and process over the past decade. Our ethical approach and accountability is to you and your success, but also, to the world we want to create and the liberatory praxis we work towards. The aim is to have clearly designated responsibilities before we work together. We come to this work with you as a partner. We do not serve as a secretary for you and your team. And we do not indiscriminately rubber stamp just any approach or process. While we do not implement the strategies for your organization, we can offer personalized approaches and roadmaps to implementation.
We don't guarantee specific time lines and outcomes, it feels unethical to do so.
This work cannot be done well in a hurry or in a chaotic atmosphere. This work cannot be effectively done under duress or an emergency. We are not a PR company to change your image overnight. We advocate for measured, sustainable change aligned with our values and identity that matter. In other words the work needs to go beyond words and snapshots, and instead focus on sustained actions over time.
It is also difficult to work in an organization that has a great deal of disorganization and chaos. This is not about non-traditional or non-linear working working styles, but general chaos and disorganization that makes approaching deep work more challenging. Many of our clients are neurodivergent and work in a non-linear way and I, myself, am a non-linear thinker and action taker. We help individuals and teams hone their systems to support them in their unique ways of being.
The work requires the presence of the stakeholders. While we challenge traditional hierarchy, it's a reality that the board of directors or business owners have a direct impact on the direction of the organization. Therefore, we need the stakeholders and decision makers to be available and present from the start of our conversation and available for this work.
The work often requires additional support to make change and growth possible. It's very important that, in addition to being ready to commit to the work and commit financially, that clients are aware that they may need to consider investing in the people and resources to implement what we talk about. Clients ensure their own success by taking responsibility for doing the other ancillary work, especially around trauma, white privilege and other forms of privilege. This work is ideally done both individually and as a team to enhance the work and the outcomes.
We agree on the values we want to adhere to. In addition to the contract, we enter into our work by agreeing to work through the conflicts inherent in culture change. This agreement is a document both parties sign during the on-boarding process. In it, we proactively identify some of the potential stress points and common difficulties that may arise during the work together and enter into agreement on how to approach these potential conflicts together.
If, after reading this, you feel like you and/or your organization are not quite ready, we got you. We have resources, courses, and tasters to get you started.
Boundaries, in my opinion, keep us all safe. And as such, I've put together some of the guidelines for working with us, especially those kinds of things that might show up as we work together.
At The Kowtha Constellation, we only take on a few clients at a time because we offer a personalized service and hold an energetic space for the transformation work. Therefore, we must be discerning about who we work with and where we spend our precious time. As such, we've created a form with some questions for you to respond to which will help us determine if we would be a good fit and to hear more about your project before we speak in real time. The main three things we are looking for: 1) readiness, 2) clear scope and goals, and 3) accountability.
We work best with clients with clearly defined project scope and targets. We appreciate a clearly defined scope of the project and targets before we start our work with you. We are more than happy to define this together in the sales process. Keep in mind, if the scope or targets change, it will cost more money, and extend the end date.
We value clients who honor our time with compensation: The more we honor one another’s time and engagement, the better for all involved. Ideally, we would like to be paid during the sales process. We have factored this into our pricing and process. Occasionally, we have had individuals and companies honor our time by compensating us financially for the enrollment call and on-boarding process. It's appreciated, but not a requirement.
Open Calls for Proposals are Not our Thing: On a similar note, we generally will not participate in open calls for proposals. Proposals are time-consuming to prepare and the selection process often feels unclear. We will only submit a proposal by personal invitation, if it's a part of your organizations' process, or we are creating a bespoke service for your organization.
Bidding Wars Aren’t Either: We will not participate in a bidding war. Our prices are clearly listed on the website, where possible. We do offer sliding scale prices/alternative forms of payment, as well as courses and memberships at a lower price points for those who need that level of support. We also offer payment plans and unlike many organizations, we do not add an additional fee or increase the price for the payment plans. For our premium services, we only accept monetary payment at this time, we do not offer alternative forms of payment. We are willing to extend a payment plan, but must be paid in full by the time our work is complete.
We aim to work in a relational manner, rather than a transactional one.
As you know, this work is not a quick fix and is dependent on the individuals and team members present -- whether they are ready, willing, and able to do the work and the connection between client/consultant matters too.
The work: what’s our responsibility and what’s yours? I come to this work as a strategist and problem solver. We have developed our methodology and process over the past decade. Our ethical approach and accountability is to you and your success, but also, to the world we want to create and the liberatory praxis we work towards. The aim is to have clearly designated responsibilities before we work together. We come to this work with you as a partner. We do not serve as a secretary for you and your team. And we do not indiscriminately rubber stamp just any approach or process. While we do not implement the strategies for your organization, we can offer personalized approaches and roadmaps to implementation.
We don't guarantee specific time lines and outcomes, it feels unethical to do so.
This work cannot be done well in a hurry or in a chaotic atmosphere. This work cannot be effectively done under duress or an emergency. We are not a PR company to change your image overnight. We advocate for measured, sustainable change aligned with our values and identity that matter. In other words the work needs to go beyond words and snapshots, and instead focus on sustained actions over time.
It is also difficult to work in an organization that has a great deal of disorganization and chaos. This is not about non-traditional or non-linear working working styles, but general chaos and disorganization that makes approaching deep work more challenging. Many of our clients are neurodivergent and work in a non-linear way and I, myself, am a non-linear thinker and action taker. We help individuals and teams hone their systems to support them in their unique ways of being.
The work requires the presence of the stakeholders. While we challenge traditional hierarchy, it's a reality that the board of directors or business owners have a direct impact on the direction of the organization. Therefore, we need the stakeholders and decision makers to be available and present from the start of our conversation and available for this work.
The work often requires additional support to make change and growth possible. It's very important that, in addition to being ready to commit to the work and commit financially, that clients are aware that they may need to consider investing in the people and resources to implement what we talk about. Clients ensure their own success by taking responsibility for doing the other ancillary work, especially around trauma, white privilege and other forms of privilege. This work is ideally done both individually and as a team to enhance the work and the outcomes.
We agree on the values we want to adhere to. In addition to the contract, we enter into our work by agreeing to work through the conflicts inherent in culture change. This agreement is a document both parties sign during the on-boarding process. In it, we proactively identify some of the potential stress points and common difficulties that may arise during the work together and enter into agreement on how to approach these potential conflicts together.
If, after reading this, you feel like you and/or your organization are not quite ready, we got you. We have resources, courses, and tasters to get you started.
General client policies
- Confidentiality: 1) What you share with us, either in the sales process, prework or our sessions is confidential. 2) We do have a few team members and will share the pertinent details with them to help with administrative tasks, accounts, and so on. 3) We do work in a professional capacity with other businesses and occassionally seek supervision, we might share an anonymized version to make sure we support you in the best way possible. 4) I teach and speak to other business owners, I might choose to use an anonymized example of our work in those situations to highlight a teaching point.
- Right to refusal: We hold the right to refuse service to any individual or business for any reason. We will not work with so-called networking marketers or MLMs and business owners who have a history of unscrupulous behavior.
- Communications: I mainly communicate with our potential clients via email, however with private clients, we can communicate between appointments via voice notes/texts or document sharing channels.
- Payments: We use ThriveCart to handle payments and payment plans, via credit card, PayPal, or Google Pay. We also accept bank transfers via Wise or cheques (UK Only).
- Refunds: We have rarely been asked for refunds and only do so on a case-by-case basis. If services have been rendered, we may decide to cancel any future work, but refunds will not be offered. Clients working with us in a consumer capacity (as opposed to working together in a business capacity) are entitled to a 14-day cooling off period.
- Contracts and services: For courses and services under £1000, the terms of service need to be accepted as part of the check out process. For services over £1000, we will sign a contract together, specific to our terms together before embarking on our work together via DropBoxSign. In addition, we have created a separate document to outline specifics to our work together that we all sign.
- Guarantees: We don't offer specific results or guarantees in our work with you beyond our promised deliverables. As a consultant and strategist, I may offer ideas or strategies, but it is on you and your team to make appropriate decisions based on the advice given and implement what is right for your organization. Please do take any due diligence before making any decisions based on your agency and autonomy.
- Feedback: We do want to improve our services and want to be accountable, we welcome feedback.
About our services and approach
- queer, disability, and BIPOC friendly
- supportive to neurodivergent business owners
- many our of strategies take into account chronic illness and mental health challenges
- we love working with community oriented or mutual aid projects
- many of our clients are based in North America and Europe, our work is delivered virtually
- we often use Kolbe A, Human Design, and reflection prompts as tools within our work with you