The number printed on a roofing bundle is a test result, not a forecast. Three people adjacent to your decision can translate it, and they will usually do it for free.
A funeral bill is a stack of separate purchases, and only one of them is non-declinable. Here is how to read the list the way someone who signs it monthly reads it.
A property manager with two matching buildings found one was burning through floor finish twice as fast. The cause was eight feet of missing entry matting, and the bill landed in four other budgets.
Consulting pitches are built to be convincing. Five checks, and the documents behind them, that separate a firm that can do the work from one that can describe it.
Two lawyers can quote the same contingency percentage and hand you checks that differ by thousands, because the number they multiply is not the same number.
A pitch is a rehearsed artifact and tells you almost nothing. Here is the small stack of documents that makes an outside expert's actual work visible within a few weeks.