Fractional COO ServicesBook a call
Mel Ireton, Fractional COO

Executive overview

The second-in-command behind scaling founders.

Fractional COO for founder-led businesses doing $500K+. I take ownership of operations, team accountability, and execution: so the CEO stops managing the business day to day and gets back to leading it.

Operations leadership

Own the day-to-day operations of the business: team accountability, KPI reporting, department alignment, and quarterly execution.

Vision into execution

Translate the founder's vision into a plan, the plan into priorities, and the priorities into things that actually get done.

The CEO's right hand

Prepare decisions, drive the initiatives that matter most this quarter, and make sure Monday's meeting happens by Friday.

Engagement scorecard

Scope. Outcome. Investment.

Most clients begin with a Business Growth Audit, then move into ongoing leadership. Standalone audits and intensives are available when a targeted piece of the business needs attention.

Email Deliverability Audit

For businesses whose sales, nurture, or launch emails are quietly hitting spam, promotions, or nowhere at all. This audit pinpoints why and what to fix first.

Starting at $500

Who this is for: Founders who already have an active list and a regular send cadence, whether that is weekly newsletters, a nurture sequence, or launch emails, but have noticed open rates dropping or revenue from email flattening out. This fits any stage from a few thousand subscribers up to a large, established list.

  • Inbox placement testing across major providers
  • Domain authentication review: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI
  • Sender reputation and blocklist check
  • List hygiene, bounce, and complaint-rate review
  • Content, subject line, and engagement signal review
  • Warm-up and sending pattern assessment
  • Prioritized fix list with what to do this week

Outcome: A clear answer to why your emails are not landing, and a ranked list of fixes so the next campaign you send actually reaches the inbox and drives revenue.

Business Growth Audit

Most common starting point

Starting at $1,500 

Who this is for: Founders who have an established business with consistent revenue, but feel like growth has plateaued or stalled. You know something needs to change, but you are too close to the day-to-day to see what it is. This is built for businesses past the startup phase, typically generating consistent monthly revenue with an existing team or set of contractors.

  • Revenue leak analysis: where money slips through
  • Team efficiency review: who does what, at what cost
  • Systems audit of the tools and processes in play
  • Marketing strategy and funnel review: where leads stall and why
  • Client journey from first touch to renewal
  • AI opportunities to replace manual effort
  • Prioritized, sequenced growth roadmap

Outcome: A clear picture of where money, time, and opportunities are being lost: with a sequenced roadmap to recover them.

Strategic Planning Intensive

Half-day to two-day formats · Many run quarterly

Starting at $1,500 

Who this is for: Founders heading into a new quarter or year who want a real plan instead of a list of ideas in a notebook. This works well for businesses that already have a team in place and need everyone pointed at the same priorities, or for founders who are tired of reacting to whatever feels urgent that week.

  • 90-day plan broken into a custom Project Management Tool with owned, dated priorities
  • Revenue targets with the math behind them
  • Team planning: who owns what this quarter
  • The 2–3 marketing plays that matter, not 12
  • Operational bottlenecks identified and assigned
  • Weekly Custom KPI scorecard your team actually uses

Outcome: A clear execution plan for the next quarter, with owners, deadlines, and a scorecard.

Operations Audit

Built for online businesses

Starting at $2,000 

Who this is for: Founders who are generating leads consistently, whether through ads, content, or referrals, but are not converting or retaining them at the rate they should be. This is built for businesses with an active sales process and a CRM already in use, where something between the first contact and the signed client is malfunctioning.

  • Lead generation: volume, quality, and cost
  • Sales process from inquiry to close
  • CRM setup, hygiene, and pipeline visibility
  • Follow-up systems where prospects go cold
  • Conversion rates at every funnel stage
  • Client retention, churn, and lifetime value

Outcome: A clear picture of where revenue is leaking through your funnel and your CRM, plus a fix it list ranked by what will move the needle the fastest.

AI Implementation Audit

A review of your current workflows to identify exactly where AI and automation can save time, cut costs, or remove bottlenecks for your team.

$$ custom

Who this is for: Founders with a team or contractors already doing repetitive, manual work, who suspect there is a faster or cheaper way but do not have the time or technical background to find it themselves. Or, Founders who want to add to their functionality without the overhead of paying another team member. This fits growing businesses looking to scale output without scaling headcount at the same rate.

  • Repetitive tasks mapped across the business
  • Team workflows: handoffs, bottlenecks, double-handling
  • Client onboarding from signed contract to kickoff
  • CRM automations that should fire without a human
  • Reporting dashboards instead of spreadsheets
  • Tool-specific, prioritized AI recommendations

Outcome: A prioritized list of AI implementation opportunities, with the reasoning and expected return behind each one, so you can build a roadmap instead of guessing where to start.

Fractional COO Leadership Retainer

Flagship retainer · This is ongoing operational leadership for founders who need a partner managing cross-functional processes day to day, not just another consultant handing you a report.

$3,500 – $12,000 / month

Who this is for: Founders who have outgrown doing it all themselves. You have a team, multiple revenue streams or offers, and a business that is too complex for a one-time audit to fix. You are ready to hand off the operational layer of the business to someone who can own it, so you can spend your time on strategic priorities instead of being pulled into every decision. For founders doing $500K+ who need a true second-in-command on the leadership team: accountable for results, not hours.

  • Weekly or biweekly strategy sessions with you as CEO, so priorities stay aligned across marketing, sales, operations, and fulfillment
  • Team management and accountability systems, including KPI dashboards and performance check-ins
  • Hiring support, from job descriptions to interview process to onboarding
  • Sales funnel oversight, tracking conversion at every stage and flagging where deals stall
  • Operations management, including documented SOPs that remove you as the single point of failure
  • AI and automation implementation to take manual work off your team's plate
  • Marketing and launch strategy insight.

Outcome: The CEO stops managing the business day to day and gets the calendar back for strategy, sales, and the work only they can do.

Launch Management and Strategy Strategy

For experts running 5 and 6-figure launches who want strategy, team, and numbers built before the cart opens. Led by someone who has run past million-dollar launches led end-to-end.

$3,000 – $15,000 per launch

Who this is for: Course creators, coaches, and consultants who have already validated their offer and run at least one launch, but are ready to optimize the strategy and the process.

  • Launch strategy: offer, timeline, and promotional plan
  • Revenue forecasting with conversion math behind it
  • Team planning: who does what, by when
  • Live KPI dashboards while the launch runs
  • Post-launch analysis: what worked, what didn't, what's next

Outcome: A launch that runs on a plan instead of adrenaline. Your team knows their role, your numbers are tracked in real time, and you are not the one holding every piece together during cart open.

Mel on a leadership call

How engagements run

Dedicated executive capacity.

I take a limited number of leadership engagements on at a time, so every company gets full leadership-team presence and a partner accountable for results: not hours.

  • · Founder-led companies, $500K+ annual revenue
  • · A team the founder is currently managing directly
  • · Leadership engagements run a minimum of two quarters
  • · Serving clients across Canada, United States & United Kingdom

What clients say

Her intelligence, accountability, and no-nonsense (but genuinely compassionate) approach gave me the structure I needed to move forward.
Dr. Jada MacLeod · The Healing House
Professional, efficient, and an outstanding support in shaping our business strategy. A very smart investment.
Vanessa McCormish · Proactive Athletic Therapy
It's hard to put into a box what she has done for Wanderlust as she has dug in as though it was her own business managing my team, my back end, and my launches, which have not wavered even through economic turmoil. I went through multiple OBMs before Mel stepped in and none of them had the high-level thinking, experience or abilities that she has displayed in her time with me. She is always on top of marketing trends, always growing and always looking for ways to improve my business.
Dr. Sheri Rosenthal · Wanderlust Entrepreneur
Mel Ireton

Ready to stop running the day to day?

Book a leadership call to talk through where the business is now, what's holding it back, and which engagement fits. No pitch decks: just an operator's read on your business.