FAQ.01Questions
Asked before hiring us.
The questions buyers actually ask before engaging an advisory practice, answered the way the rest of this site is written: plainly, including the answers that rule us out.
How to read this page
17 answers, and several may honestly rule us out.
This page consolidates what prospective clients ask most, including the questions whose honest answers point some buyers elsewhere: the practice is one person, it holds no clearances, it names no clients, and it does not promise outcomes. If those answers end your search here, the page has done its job for both of us. If they are exactly what you were checking for, the how-we-work pages carry the full detail behind every short answer below.
The practice
What Praxis is, and is not.
- Who actually does the work?
- One person: Evan Dang, the founder and principal. Praxis is a sole proprietorship with no junior team, no account managers, and no bench. The person who takes your first call is the person who does the analysis and presents it. What that structure is good for, and where it is genuinely the wrong fit, is written out on the how-we-work pages.
- Is Praxis a registered company?
- It is a sole proprietorship trading as Praxis Consulting Company rather than a registered corporate entity, and the site never pretends otherwise. For most advisory engagements that changes nothing; for procurement processes that hard-require a registered entity with audited references, it can rule the practice out, and that is worth checking before a first call.
- Where is Praxis located?
- The practice is based in California and delivers engagements remotely worldwide, with on-site time as an engagement requires. There is no walk-in office and no public street address by deliberate policy: what you are buying is the thinking and the work, not a lobby.
- Why are there no client logos or testimonials on this site?
- Because the practice publishes only what it can stand behind, and it has decided to publish no client names, testimonials, ratings, or portfolio claims at all. The founder's prior experience at Bain and in running an independent search practice is described on the about page, attributed as exactly that: background, never a Praxis client result.
- What is the relationship between Praxis and EliteSEO Consulting?
- The same founder runs both. EliteSEO is the independent search practice founded in 2022; Praxis is the broader strategy and advisory practice that grew out of it. They share a founder, not clients, staff, or engagements, and SEO consulting remains one of the services Praxis offers directly.
Engagements
Scope, pricing, and what you receive.
- How are engagements priced?
- Mostly as fixed fees for scoped phases, with advisory arrangements for recurring judgment. Pricing is set per engagement after a scoping conversation, and the structure and its reasoning are explained openly. What drives the number, seniority, scope, duration, risk, and delivery model, is laid out in the cost guide on this site.
- What does an engagement actually produce?
- Artifacts you keep: analysis with its reasoning, committed recommendations, and operating documents your team can execute without the consultant present. The what-you-receive page describes the deliverable shapes concretely, and every engagement names its artifacts in the scope before anything is signed.
- What happens on the first call?
- A scoping conversation, not a pitch: what you are deciding, what is at stake, whether the problem fits this practice, and what the smallest useful first phase would be. It costs nothing, and no is a complete answer, delivered plainly, when the fit is wrong.
- How long does an engagement take?
- Scoped phases typically run weeks, not quarters: long enough for real analysis, short enough that you are never far from an exit and a decision. Longer advisory relationships are built out of renewed phases rather than open-ended commitments, so continuation is always an active choice on both sides.
- Does Praxis promise outcomes or results?
- No, and you should be wary of any advisory seller who does. Praxis commits to the rigor of the work: the analysis, the reasoning, and disciplined execution support. Outcomes are decided by markets and by what your organization does, and pretending otherwise would be selling fiction.
Boundaries
Where the practice draws its lines.
- What work does Praxis decline?
- Anything requiring licensed professionals, legal, audit, tax, engineering, clinical, work requiring a security clearance, engagements needing a large parallel team, and any brief whose real request is validation of a decision already made. The not-the-right-fit page lists these plainly, and city pages state the local versions of the same boundaries.
- Does Praxis take equity, commissions, or referral fees?
- No. Fees are professional fees, agreed in advance. The practice takes no media commissions, no vendor kickbacks, and no compensation that would give it a stake in recommending one answer over another. Where a comparison on this site touches the practice's own interest, that interest is declared in the text.
- Can Praxis work alongside our existing agency, firm, or in-house team?
- Yes, and it is a common structure: Praxis owns diagnosis, strategy, or standards, while your team or vendors own production and delivery. The requirement is explicit roles, agreed at scoping, so no one is guessing who owns which decision.
- Is client information kept confidential?
- Yes: confidentiality is mutual, survives the engagement, and is stated in every agreement. It is also why no client names appear anywhere on this site, which doubles as the honesty policy described above.
Working remotely
How a remote engagement actually runs.
- Does remote delivery actually work for strategy engagements?
- The work of a strategy engagement, analysis, interviews, working sessions, decision meetings, runs well over video and shared documents, and remote delivery is part of why an independent's fee structure is what it is. Where being in the room genuinely matters, on-site time is scoped in deliberately rather than performed by default.
- Which time zones and regions does Praxis serve?
- Engagements are delivered worldwide from a California base, with working sessions scheduled to overlap your business hours. The launch market is San Francisco and California, and the areas-served pages describe how the work applies across US markets.
- How do we start?
- Use the request-a-quote form or the contact page. Describe the decision in front of you in a few sentences; the reply either proposes a scoping call or says plainly that the fit is wrong, usually with a pointer to what would serve you better.
Still deciding?
The guides go deeper than any FAQ.
Whether to hire outside help at all, what it should cost, and how to evaluate whoever you shortlist, including us, is covered at full depth in the decision guides: start with do you actually need a consultant and questions to ask before hiring one.
Ask the question this page missed.
Tell us what you're deciding. A first conversation is a scoping conversation: no obligation, no packaged pitch.
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