Engage · Three doors in
Pick the door that fits where you are.
Three paths. Each one has a defined scope, a defined deliverable, and a fee of zero. You're not committing to a full engagement by starting one — you're committing to the named deliverable at each tier. We tell you up front when something isn't a fit. We walk away if we can't add value. You owe us nothing.
Tier 1 · Self-serve
Contract Benchmark
What you submit: Your current telecom, UCaaS, contact center, SD-WAN, or security contract (PDF preferred). About six form fields. No phone call required.
What you get back: A benchmark PDF showing where you're paying above market for your industry and scale. Three identified savings opportunities ranked by dollar value. A recommended next step.
Turnaround: Five business days. One follow-up email. No sales drip.
10 min · Free · No commitment
Run the benchmark →Tier 2 · Named offer
Vendor Shortlist
What you submit: A 3-minute intake form below. Industry, role, use case, current incumbent, top constraint.
What you get back: A 45-minute scoping call. Within five business days afterward: a written 3-vendor shortlist with the Cardinal Method scoring rubric applied to your specific context, plus our pick and reasoning.
Turnaround: Call scheduled within 24 hours. Shortlist in your inbox within five business days afterward.
~1 hour total · Free · Written deliverable
Start Tier 2 intake →Tier 3 · Engagement
Sourcing Engagement
What you submit: A deeper intake form below. Company context, what you're trying to accomplish, current incumbent supplier, timing, decision authority.
What you get back: A scoping call within 48 hours. An engagement plan within one week. Then the full Cardinal Method — Sourcing Brief, Benchmark Report, Vendor Scorecard, Decision Memo, signed contract, implementation oversight through go-live.
Your time investment: About four to six hours total across a 30 to 90 day engagement. Most of the work is ours.
30–90 days · Supplier-paid · Defined milestones
Start Tier 3 intake →What happens after you submit.
No mystery. No long sales process. Same predictable cadence for every engagement.
Hour 0
You submit.
Form, benchmark upload, or intake. Takes a few minutes.
Hour 1–48
We respond.
Tier 1: confirmation email immediately, benchmark PDF in five days. Tier 2: scheduling email within 24 hours. Tier 3: scoping call within 48 hours.
Days 3–14
We scope.
Tier 2: written shortlist delivered. Tier 3: engagement plan back to you within a week.
Days 14–60
The Method runs.
Tier 3 only. North Star, East Wind, South Spine, West Frontier. Four named deliverables.
Days 47+
You decide.
Signed contract. Implementation oversight. We step back at go-live. You can fire us at any point with no fee.
Tier 2 · Vendor Shortlist intake
Tell us what you're sourcing.
Six fields. Three minutes. We'll reach out within one business day to schedule the 45-minute scoping call.
Tier 3 · Sourcing Engagement intake
Tell us about your engagement.
Ten fields. About five minutes. We'll have a scoping call on the calendar within 48 hours.
What we actually produce.
Tier 3 produces four named deliverables — one at each Cardinal Method stage. Sample versions of all four are published openly, so you know exactly what you're getting before you start.
Sourcing Brief
Defines the outcome. Inventories current state. Sets success criteria. About six pages.
View sample · HTML + PDFBenchmark Report
Current-state spend compared against peers. Identified savings ranked by dollar value. About ten pages.
View sample · HTML + PDFVendor Scorecard
Qualified vendors scored against buyer-context-weighted rubric. Top three with reasoning. About eighteen pages.
View sample · HTML + PDFDecision Memo
Three-page board-ready recommendation. Commercial terms, implementation plan, risk register, residual disclosure.
View sample · HTML + PDFThe Cardinal Source isn't a fit if:
Before you submit, the honest filter. If any of these describe you, we're not the right firm.
- You operate a single location with fewer than 25 employees. Supplier pricing tiers don't work at that scale.
- You've already signed an LOI with a vendor and want help negotiating against them. We work from intake, not from a pre-decided answer.
- You need ongoing managed services or implementation hours billed by the project. We source the contract. We hand the build to an MSP partner.
- You're looking for hardware sales. We source services and software-defined contracts.
- You need an answer this week. The Method takes 30 to 90 days. Anybody promising faster is selling you their preferred vendor.
Risk reversal · The honest version
Zero retainer. Zero project fee. Walk away anytime.
We work without a retainer, without a project fee, and without implementation billing. If we shortlist three vendors and you decide none of them are right, we walk away. You owe us nothing — not a deposit, not a kill fee, not a discovery invoice.
The only way we get paid is if you sign with a vendor we recommended, and the supplier pays us — not you. The commission is in their pricing whether you used an advisor or not. The risk is entirely on us, not on you. That's the entire offer.