Independent rollout lead · Multi-unit restaurant & retail · 5–100 units
Nobody owns the opening date.
Your GC owns the build. Your POS vendor owns the install. Your MSP owns the network. The slips live in the seams between them — and nobody owns the seams. I do, for multi-unit restaurant and retail operators, 5–100 units. No vendor pays me.
30 minutes. Nine lines against your next date. You leave with the two or three I'd worry about.
Every door opens on time.
For
Owners, COOs and VPs of Ops at multi-unit restaurant and retail brands, 5–100 units, with openings or a migration on the calendar — and at least one date that moved last year.
Not for
Single-site operators. Brands past 100 units with a rollout PMO. Anyone whose vendors' status reports have never let them down.
Led inside
Shake ShackMacy'sUnder ArmourCarter's | OshKosh
Delivered at
SoFi StadiumGillette StadiumUBS ArenaState Farm ArenaGlobe Life FieldHartsfield-Jackson ATLBrown University
Store cutovers across 2,200 locations for a major retailer.
The receipts
Numbers from programs I've led.
- 0grand-opening technology delays across 30+ QSR and 150+ retail locations
- 20→125expansion — 100+ new-store openings delivered from the IT side
- 3,200+PIN pads installed — full PCI compliance across 800+ stores
- −40%implementation failures via standardized pre-deployment testing
One location doing $1.5M a year loses roughly $30,000 for every week it stays dark — while rent, payroll, and launch marketing burn on schedule. My fee is a fraction of one slipped opening. That's the entire business case.
The method
Nine lines move an opening date.
- Backup circuit
- Merchant IDs
- Offline mode
- Wireless
- Integrations
- Printers
- Rollback
- Day-one funds
- Hypercare
"They told me it's done" counts as in progress. Proof counts as done. Everything I do runs on these nine lines.
They're the same nine the free 30-Day Cutover Checklist calls most-missed. See the checklist
How we work together
Start with a free Walk. Grow only if the findings justify it.
The 9-Line Walk
Free · 30 minutes
The Walk is a sample of the Audit. Mostly questions. I walk the nine lines against your next date and tell you the two or three I'd worry about. No pitch on the call.
Book the WalkThe KeyDate Audit
$12,500 · 2 weeks
I run the nine lines against every location in your wave and come back with proof, a named owner and a written fix on each one — one risk list your team can act on the same day. Fixed scope. Fewer than five material risks found, you don't pay the second half.
KeyDate Governance
$2,500/mo · billed monthly, to opening day
Your team runs the opening. I own the list to opening day — chasing owners, updating dates, flagging what moved — so every open item keeps a name, a date and proof. The natural next step after an Audit.
What a month looks like: a weekly 30-minute review of the list with your seat owners. The list updated and back in your inbox every Friday. A call the day anything moves. And I'm on the phone for cutover weekend.
KeyDate Fractional
$8,000/mo · three-month minimum
I run the opening — the plan, the vendors, the go/no-go, the date — as your rollout lead, 15–20 hours a week. Openings, POS and payments migrations, PCI. Everything in Governance is included. Chain-wide POS, payments and PCI programs are scoped separately, from $30,000.
Which one
- Governance Your team runs the opening; I own the list.
- Fractional I run the opening; I own the date.
Which one depends on who's running the program today and whether it's holding. We settle that at the Audit readout, not before.
Against the $30,000 a dark week costs, Governance is less than one dark day a month. Fractional is about two.
What the Audit covers
The Audit runs the nine lines against every location in your wave and comes back with proof, a named owner and a written fix on each one. Two weeks, fixed scope. One program: one opening wave, one migration, or one market.
Included
- Up to 10 locations in scope
- Up to 5 vendor interviews
- One site walk
- 45 minutes with each of the three named seats
- The risk list — every risk with a named owner and a written mitigation
- Live readout with your team
Beyond that scope
- Each additional location$750
- Each additional vendor interview$1,000
- Each additional site walk$2,500
- Travel outside metro Atlantaat cost
Audits of programs over 30 locations, or of a chain-wide POS, payments, or network migration, are scoped on a call. Pricing effective September 2026.
Also included
- The Vendor Question Pack. Thirty questions to put to your carrier, your POS vendor, your processor, and your installer. Each one shows what a good answer sounds like and what a red flag sounds like. Marked up against your findings, so you know which to ask first.
- The Cutover Day Runbook. Who does what, at what time, and who can call it off. Type in the time your doors open and every step gets a time. It tells you GO or NO-GO, and the last safe minute to roll back.
- The 30-Day Date Check. Thirty days after the readout, we get back on a call and re-score your list. What closed. What stalled. Whether the date still holds.
The Five Risk Guarantee
If the Audit doesn't surface at least five material risks to your opening or cutover date — each with a named owner and a written mitigation — you don't pay the second half.
A material risk is one that, left alone, can push your date, push cost past the approved budget, or break a contract or compliance obligation.
What I need from you
At kickoff you name who holds three seats:
- Operations who answers for the date
- Technology who owns the systems, in-house or your MSP
- Site and contracts your general contractor or construction manager on an opening; whoever holds the vendor agreements on a migration
These are seats, not titles. One person can hold two or three of them. A seat can sit outside your company. A seat can be empty — tell me at kickoff, and that costs you nothing and voids nothing.
Each named person gives me 45 minutes in the first week. At most three conversations, often two. The guarantee is void only if someone you named doesn't give me the 45 minutes.
What happens next
Three steps, no theater.
- The Walk. Half an hour, mostly questions. I walk the nine lines against your next date and you leave with the two or three I'd worry about — whether or not we work together. If I can't help, I'll say so and point you somewhere else.
- The Audit. Two weeks later you hold one list of every risk that can move your date — proof, a named owner and a written fix on each.
- The system. If the findings justify it: with Governance I own the list to opening day; with Fractional I run the opening end to end. We decide that at the readout.
Who you're working with
Deon Coleman
I spent 18+ years running openings and cutovers from inside the brand — Shake Shack, Macy's, Under Armour, Carter's — and on the vendor side of a 2,200-store cutover for a major retailer. Every date I saw move, moved in the seams — where one vendor's "done" met the next vendor's start. The GC owned the build. The POS vendor owned the install. The network vendor owned the circuit. Nobody owned the seams. So I stopped taking status and started walking the lines myself — nine of them, proof on each — and the dates started holding. KeyDate is that, on the operator's side of the table. No vendor pays me.
Certified ScrumMaster. Based in metro Atlanta, working nationally. I don't sell hardware, licenses or installation labor — no commissions, no side deals. My only incentive is your dates holding.
- Led insideShake Shack, Macy's, Under Armour, Carter's | OshKosh
- Delivered atSoFi Stadium, Gillette Stadium, UBS Arena, State Farm Arena, Globe Life Field, Hartsfield-Jackson ATL, Brown University
- AlsoStore cutovers across 2,200 locations for a major retailer
- The systems I've cut overPOS (Aptos, VeriFone, NCR, Epicor), payments and PCI programs, network and cloud voice, device fleets at scale (Intune, Meraki, AirWatch), printers, peripherals, kitchen and back-office hardware
Questions I hear on every first call
Fair questions, straight answers.
We already have a project manager.
Good — most teams do. Your PM is inside the project, which is exactly why they can't see all of it. I'm not replacing them. I'm handing them a list that lets them escalate what they already suspect. If you want me owning that list to opening day, that's Governance.
Will you work with our existing vendors?
Yes. The seams between your vendors are the job. I take no commissions from anyone, so the only side of the table I sit on is yours.
Do you do the physical installs?
No. I lead the program and govern the vendors who do. That independence is the point.
Why not hire a full-time PM?
Because you need this 15–20 hours a week for a couple of quarters, not a $140k salary with benefits. That's what Fractional is. When you do need the hire, I'll help write the job description and hand over everything I've built.
Will this turn into an upsell?
The Audit is fixed scope, two weeks, and it ends with a readout. If the findings justify Governance or Fractional, I'll say so once. If they don't, I'll say that too. The list is yours either way.
We're not in restaurants or retail — can you still help?
Probably. The nine lines hold for any company landing technology across many sites at once — branches, clinics, plants, venues, warehouses. If the problem sounds familiar, book the Walk and I'll tell you whether it transfers.
How does pricing work?
Fixed for the Audit, scoped for everything else, retainers billed monthly in advance. Audit terms: 50% on signature, 50% on delivery, ACH preferred. Scope changes the price; the rate doesn't move. What the Audit covers, and what costs extra, is published above. And if the Audit doesn't surface at least five material risks with owners and mitigations attached, you don't pay the second half.
How do you count locations?
Every site in the program's scope — opening, migrating, or touched by the change. We agree the count in writing before work starts.
What if my scope changes mid-engagement?
I price the change at the published rates and you approve it in writing before I do the work. I don't bill surprises.
Every door opens on time.
If your next two quarters include openings, a POS migration or a PCI deadline, the Walk takes half an hour and costs nothing but honesty.
Not ready for a call? Take the 30-Day Cutover Checklist instead — free, no email.