Independent technology and AI consulting For owner-led businesses
Know which technology and AI solutions will pay off, and which won’t.
You already know technology could help. Knowing which part, in what order, is the hard bit. Blue Harbour Navigator™ tells you, in 7 to 10 days.
I don’t sell software and I don’t implement it. I work only for you, as an extension of your leadership team.
What we look for
Nobody wants software. They want the four things it’s supposed to deliver.
So Navigator looks at the business first and the tools second. These are the four Navigator areas: the four places owner-led firms lose money. The same four questions get asked of every engagement, in the same order.
Revenue you’re already leaking
Quotes that go out three days late. Leads nobody followed up because they lived in an inbox. The renewal that lapsed because one person was holding the date in their head.
Customers who quietly leave
The call that never got returned. The third time they had to explain their own history to you. The problem you would have fixed instantly, if anyone had told you it happened.
Work that costs more than it should
The same information typed into three systems. The report that takes two days to build and nobody quite trusts. The person whose real job has quietly become fixing other people’s spreadsheets.
The advantage you’re not taking
Where AI and automation would pay for themselves, which is rarely where it’s being sold to you hardest. And, just as usefully, where they would not.
Every one of these gets a number against it. That’s what turns “we should probably do something about that” into a decision you can defend to a partner, a board, or a bank.
Why this is hard
Every one of these is a defensible answer. That’s exactly what makes the decision so hard.
You have probably asked yourself most of this list already, and got a different confident answer to each one depending on who you asked.
- Improve the CRM?
- Automate the manual work?
- Use AI for customer response?
- Replace tools?
- Build dashboards?
- Improve onboarding?
- Fix reporting?
- Add a chatbot?
- Use AI agents?
- Consolidate systems?
- Train the team?
You’re right about the list.
The order is the part nobody tells you straight, because everyone in the room is paid by a different item on it.
Navigator starts with the business, not the tool. It finds where you’re losing time, visibility, revenue, or customer trust, puts a number against it, then tells you what to do first, and what to leave alone for now.
The deliverable
What you receive: the Navigator Executive Brief™
Five parts, delivered as a branded document and walked through with you in a live executive readout. Yours to keep, act on, and hand to whoever implements it.
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01
Current-State Diagnosis
Where the business is today across the four Navigator areas, and where friction is creating real business impact.
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02
Current-to-Future Workflow Map
How important work moves today, where it slows down, and what a better future state actually looks like.
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03
Outcome Map
A number against what today’s friction is costing you each year, so the decision stops being a matter of opinion.
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04
Solution Direction Map
The relevant technology, AI, and automation directions, with example platforms where useful. Directional, so you can evaluate them yourself. Never a vendor shortlist.
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05
Priority Roadmap
What to address first, what to defer, what to ignore for now, and the next decision leadership should make. Includes a 30-day action plan and a directional 60-90 day view.
That’s the whole deliverable. Nothing held back for a phase two.
Book a 20-minute fit call Or write me the situation instead and I’ll tell you honestly whether Navigator fits.How it works
Four steps. Seven to ten business days from discovery to readout.
Fit call
Twenty minutes, no obligation, to confirm Navigator is the right instrument for your situation. If it isn’t, I’ll say so on that call.
Leadership discovery
A working session run on the Navigator Discovery Console, plus short stakeholder interviews where they’re needed. About four hours of your leadership’s time in total.
Analysis
Scoring, gap and opportunity mapping, workflow and outcome mapping. Done off your calendar.
Executive readout
A live walkthrough of the Brief and the Priority Roadmap with leadership, and the decision you should make next.
Who delivers it
Trevor Jamieson
Navigator is delivered personally. Not staffed to a junior consultant, not templated by a bot. One senior person, and the same person all the way through.
I have sat in all four seats of this decision. I have been the owner choosing the system and paying for it. I have built the sales organisations that sell it, inside other people’s companies. I have been the vendor, on the other side of the table from someone like you. And I now advise on cloud go-to-market, which is where I see what the largest enterprises on earth are actually doing. Most advisors have sat in one.
Three things I have done, not advised on
I chose the CRM. Adoption was the hard part.
The problem. The Hercules Group had grown by acquisition into five brands. Each had its own sales team, calling on nearly the same customers, out of the same inventory, at the same prices. Two of my reps would sometimes visit one customer on the same day. Customers worked out fast that they could play us against each other.
What I did. I fixed the business before I touched the software. If 80% of a customer’s spend sat under one brand, that brand owned the whole relationship, except where a genuine specialist was needed. Then I rebuilt the commission structure so it stopped rewarding the old behaviour, and gave every customer a single point of contact. Only then did I evaluate the platforms, choose one, design the system and the screens my reps would use every day, write the training manual myself, and roll it out across the country. I restructured and redeployed the Quebec sales team in the same period.
What happened. Between 2015 and 2017 both industries we sold into collapsed at the same time. Offshore Newfoundland production fell by 16 million barrels, provincial royalties dropped by a billion dollars in one year, exploration stopped and the supply chain shed thousands of jobs. Meanwhile the northern shrimp quota was cut 78% in two years and snow crab was cut 22%. We grew more than 10%.
I built the sales organisations, not just the strategy
The problem. TELUS had an independent dealer channel that only knew how to sell retail. The mandate was to make it sell B2B.
What I did. Six dealers, and I effectively acted as VP of Sales for each of them. I wrote the plan for what a B2B rep should do all day, sat in on hiring their reps and their sales managers, built the process, and put a CRM into each dealership so they could run it. Not a deck handed over at the end. I was in it.
What happened. The channel ran at 3.3 times the performance of traditional direct sales channels covering the same territory. 85% year over year growth, the number one performing region in Canada, and I co-led the largest mobile contract TELUS had won in Atlantic Canada.
I have been the vendor on the other side of the table
The problem. At Dayforce I was accountable for the Canadian partner network, selling human capital management software through consulting partners.
What I did. Built the partner go-to-market from the inside: the ideal customer profile, the outreach, the materials, how partners engaged us. Launched a reseller programme that added 300 new logos to the pipeline in its pilot alone, and scaled the consulting relationships into two seven-figure national opportunities across North America, Australia and Europe.
What happened. 33% of national revenue came through that channel. It also means I know exactly how the people advising you get paid, because I used to be the one paying them.
And one I got wrong, recently, with my own money
At PhoneStack I bought a dialler because it was built into the email platform we already used. On paper the integration was the whole point: one system, email and calls in a single sequence. In practice it broke constantly, and support was slow enough that I could not get it working. I killed it and we built our own instead. It is not the best product on the market. It works, and I may well replace it again.
Two things that cost me money and are now the first things I look for. Integration that looks clean in a demo is not integration that works on a Tuesday afternoon. And support quality is invisible while you are buying and decisive the moment you have bought. No vendor will ever raise either one with you.
The Hercules rollout taught me the other half. My reps pushed back hard, because a new system feels like being watched and because what they were doing already worked, for them. I gave each location one day of training. It needed two or three, and a second visit. It was rough for months and took about six to land properly. The software was never the risk. Adoption was, and it always is. So when I tell you a rollout stalls at adoption rather than at the technology, that is not a theory I read somewhere.
And I still build things
I am co-founder and CEO of PhoneStack, where I have evaluated well over a hundred platforms across AI, marketing, email, content, CRM and dialling, and chosen the handful that fit and connect to each other. Blue Harbour built and shipped WildEcho, which is live on the App Store.
I also run PhoneStack on AI day to day, and not as a pilot anybody is being careful about. Our operations, our research and our data all move through it, and the product itself was built and is maintained that way. So when we talk about what AI would do for your business, I am not describing something I read. I am describing something I run, including the parts that did not work.
All of which matters for one reason: when I tell you the licence is the cheap part and the year afterwards is the expensive part, I am telling you that as someone who has recently paid for both.
If that sounds like the room you’re standing in, we should talk.
Tell me what you’re facing Two minutes, no calendar slot. Or book a 20-minute fit call.I spend my week watching enterprise AI projects either ship, or burn a year and quietly die in pilot. Most die. That is a useful thing to have watched a hundred times before you start yours.
Having sat on the selling side of the table means I know how roadmaps get sold, and I know how “AI-ready” gets defined by the people selling AI. I also know the part nobody selling it will tell you: which of these projects reaches production, and which ones consume a year and get quietly shelved.
There is a pattern in all of it. Hercules had five brands whose systems and teams had stopped lining up. Dayforce customers were running several payroll systems that never agreed with each other. At PhoneStack I now choose tools on whether they connect, not on their feature lists. The problem I keep being handed is a business whose systems have sprawled and stopped talking to each other, which is what tends to happen to an owner-led firm somewhere between 10 and 100 people.
All of which means I have interests to declare, so I declare them, in writing, on this page, before you have to ask. Navigator is the one room where the only interest I’m paid to serve is yours.
Now, all three, declared
- Amazon Web Services (contract) Partner marketing lead, global System Integrators, GenAI and cloud go-to-market, North America.
- Blue Harbour Solutions Founder. Navigator Assessment™ and WildEcho.
- PhoneStack Co-founder and CEO. An AI phone service, a separate company, not a Blue Harbour product.
Before
- Dayforce (Ceridian) 2019-2022Director, Channel Sales, Canada
- The Hercules Group 2013-2018Regional Sales & Marketing Manager, 17 branches
- TELUS 2009-2013Senior Manager, Independent Channel
- Xerox 2005-2006Sales, Dallas Fort Worth territory
Recognition
- President’s CircleDayforce (Ceridian), 2020, at 130% of target
- Pinnacle AwardTELUS, 2011, on 85% growth
- President’s ClubXerox Canada, 2006, at 135% of target
- Top-ranked portfolioNorth American partner marketing, AWS, 2024
Four companies, four times, across twenty years. One is luck.
Qualifications
- Dalhousie UniversityBCom, Marketing Management
- Lean Six Sigma Green Beltvia Xerox Canada
- Certified Predictive Index® AnalystCovey: Great Leaders, Great Teams, Great Results™
Want to put a real decision in front of me?
Book a 20-minute fit call Or describe it in writing, about two minutes, and I’ll come back with a straight answer.Why the read is worth anything
Three things I don’t do, and two interests I declare.
Every one of the first three is something I could be paid for, and each would quietly bias what I tell you. So I don’t take them. The other two I can’t remove, so I put them in writing instead.
You’re not buying a document.
You’re buying the one opinion in the room that isn’t being paid for by the answer.
- I don’t implement. So I have no incentive to find you a big project.
- I don’t resell. No margin, no reseller agreements, no software on my invoice.
- I take no commissions. Not one dollar from any vendor named in your assessment.
I contract with AWS.
I lead partner marketing for the global System Integrators at Amazon Web Services, on contract. I’m not an AWS employee, Blue Harbour is not an AWS partner or reseller, and neither of us earns anything from whichever cloud you land on. Navigator is cloud-agnostic, and where the honest answer is that you don’t need cloud at all, that’s what the roadmap will say. Nothing here is written, reviewed, or endorsed by AWS.
I’m the CEO of PhoneStack.
A separate company, an AI phone service for businesses that miss inbound calls. It’s not a Blue Harbour product and Blue Harbour earns nothing from it. If it’s genuinely the right answer to your problem, I’ll name it and name my role in it in the same breath. It never appears in your assessment as a neutral recommendation, and only ever beside independent alternatives you’re free to choose instead.
The licence fee was never the expensive part.
The expensive part is the year that follows it.
A firm that picks the wrong core platform doesn’t just lose the subscription. It loses the implementation, the migration, the training, and eighteen months of everyone’s patience, and then it has to make the same decision again, tired.
I’m not going to invent a number for your business. Take the quote already on your desk. My own rule, from running these projects rather than from any published benchmark, is that implementation, migration and training come to roughly two to three times the annual licence, on top of the licence, in year one. Do that multiplication on your own figure, then test it against what the vendor has quoted you. That is the decision you are actually making.
Which makes this the cheap part
$5,000
against a number
you already have.
Whatever your year-one figure comes to, this is a fraction of it, from the one person in the room who takes no money from any vendor.
Engagement
One price. Published, because you shouldn’t have to ask.
A fixed fee for a fixed scope. No hourly billing, no change orders, no discovery-call pricing games. Half on signature, half at the readout. If the assessment isn’t right for you, the fit call will surface that before anyone signs anything.
Priced in your own currency. $5,000 CAD if you’re in Canada, $5,000 USD if you’re in the United States. Flat, not converted, so the number on the proposal is the number on the invoice whatever the exchange rate does between now and then.
The Readout Guarantee
And if it isn’t worth it, you don’t pay.
You’ll leave the executive readout with a clear, independent call on the decision or direction in front of you, a prioritized plan to act on it, and the cost of getting it wrong quantified.
If you don’t, say so at the readout. The half you paid on signature is refunded in full, and the balance is never invoiced.
The Brief is yours on payment. If it wasn’t worth paying for, it isn’t worth keeping, so it doesn’t stay with you either. That keeps the guarantee honest in both directions.
You are the judge of that, not me, and I won’t ask you to justify it. The risk is mine, and I’d rather carry it than ask you to.
I take two a month. If the fit call says Navigator is right for you and the timing works, I will tell you on that call what the next available slot is.
Worth a conversation?
Book a 20-minute fit call Or send me the situation in writing if you’d rather not book anything yet.After the assessment
The roadmap is yours. Whether I’m involved after that is entirely up to you.
Plenty of clients take the Brief and run it themselves, and I’ve priced the assessment so that’s a completely fine outcome. If you’d rather not make the next four decisions alone, there’s one option, not a ladder of them.
Navigator Assessment™
The independent read. Diagnosis, workflow map, what the problem is costing you, and a priority roadmap: what to do first, what to ignore. 7 to 10 days.
Then you’re free to go. No obligation, no next phase, no follow-up sequence.
Navigator Advisory™
Three or six months. I’m in the room for the decisions that follow: vendor selection, the contract, rollout sequencing, and month four, when adoption stalls. It always stalls.
If you’re not at risk of a bad platform decision, don’t buy it. Engaging implementation partners is part of the work, not a separate invoice, which is exactly why I have no reason to introduce you to the wrong one.
Also from Blue Harbour, a shipped product, not a deck
WildEcho
The Shazam for nature. Describe a sound or snap a photo and WildEcho names the creature, then tells you its habits, range, and what’s active near you right now. Built and shipped by Blue Harbour, live on the App Store, free to try.
Questions people ask before the call
The things you would ask in the first five minutes.
Answered here so you do not have to book a call to find out.
What does a Navigator assessment cost?
A fixed fee of $5,000, in your own currency: CAD in Canada, USD in the United States, flat rather than converted. Half on signature, half at the executive readout. There is no hourly billing and no change orders.
How long does it take, and how much of my time?
Seven to ten business days from the discovery session to the readout. About four hours of your leadership’s time in total, mostly in one working session. The analysis is done off your calendar.
What do I actually receive at the end?
The Navigator Executive Brief: a current-state diagnosis, a workflow map, an outcome map putting a number on what today’s friction costs you, a directional solution map, and a priority roadmap with a 30-day action plan. Walked through live with your leadership.
Do you sell or implement software?
No. I don’t sell software and I don’t implement it, so there is no larger project for me to find you. Engaging implementation partners, if you want one, is part of the optional advisory work rather than a separate invoice.
Do you take commissions or referral fees from vendors?
No. No commissions, no reseller margin, and no referral fees from any vendor named in your assessment. The fee comes from you and only from you. That is the entire reason the recommendation is worth having.
Who is Navigator for?
Owner-led businesses. Big enough that the systems matter, small enough that the decision still lands on your desk. Industry matters less than the pattern: a contracting firm, a clinic, a manufacturer and an accounting practice all hit the same problems.
What if the assessment isn’t worth it?
Then you don’t pay. That means the half you paid on signature is refunded in full and the balance is never invoiced. It’s called the Readout Guarantee because that is where you judge it, not me, and I won’t ask you to justify it. The Brief is yours on payment, so if it wasn’t worth paying for it doesn’t stay with you either. You should leave the readout with a clear independent call on the decision in front of you, a prioritized plan, and the cost of getting it wrong quantified.
Who delivers the work?
Trevor Jamieson, personally. Not staffed to a junior consultant and not templated by a bot. One senior person, and the same person from the fit call through to the readout.
Start with clarity
Before you sign for the platform, get a read from someone who isn’t selling one.
A fit call is 20 minutes. If Navigator isn’t right for where your business is, or if your existing IT provider already has this handled, I’ll tell you on that call and we’re done. I’d rather be the person you call in two years.
Two minutes, no calendar slot, and I read every one myself. Or email trevor@blueharboursolutions.com, or connect on LinkedIn.