// illustrative: what a commission looks like
This is a worked example, not a client engagement. No client sits behind this page and nothing on it is a receipt. It exists to show the shape a commission takes. The domain is real, though: ~10 years ago my work was hospitality tech (gamification, CRM, shift management), so the problem below is one I’ve actually met, not one invented for a portfolio.
The problem, as it typically arrives
A multi-location hospitality operator runs shift management, CRM, and guest engagement as 3 disconnected tools with no shared data model. Staffing can’t see guest demand, the CRM doesn’t know what the floor looked like, and the engagement programme rewards behavior nobody can reconcile against revenue. The stated symptom is usually “we need a dashboard.” The actual bottleneck: the systems have never agreed on what a shift, a guest, or a visit is.
The build
// build once · prove cheaply · graduate what works
Every commission runs the same method:
- Scope. Find the actual bottleneck, not the symptom. Sometimes this step kills the project. That’s the cheapest possible outcome.
- Shared data model first. One model that shift management, CRM, and engagement tooling all read and write. The value isn’t a new tool; it’s the systems finally informing each other.
- Tight first build. The smallest system that touches real rosters and real guest data: one location before all of them.
- Graduate what works. What survives real use gets hardened and rolled out; what doesn’t, we stop.
The outcome shape
A real write-up ends in receipts: hours of manual reconciliation removed, tools consolidated, adoption by the people actually on the floor. This page carries none because none exist. I don’t publish invented numbers. When the first real commission ships, its anonymized write-up replaces this example: same structure, real numbers.
Be the first real one
If disconnected systems are your bottleneck, hospitality or otherwise, the method transfers. Engage covers the 3 ways to work together; one email is enough to start the scope conversation.