Processes
Stop solving the same problem over and over.
Most small businesses don't have broken systems. They have systems that grew by accident, one workaround at a time, until nobody remembers why it works this way and everyone just deals with it.
That holds up fine until it doesn't. Usually the breaking point is a new hire, or someone leaving, or a busy season where the thing that only works when you're watching it stops working.
The fix is rarely a bigger system. It's figuring out how the work actually moves through your business, finding what's getting in the way, and rebuilding the specific parts that keep causing problems. Less friction, not more bureaucracy.
Start Here:
Process WalkThrough
I come in and watch how the work actually happens. Not how it's supposed to, but what people really do, including the workarounds nobody mentions anymore because they're just how things are now.
You get a written map of how work moves through your business today, what I found, and the three fixes I'd make first. It's yours either way. Plenty of owners take it and handle some of it themselves. The Walkthrough documents how things work now. Designing something new and building it out is a separate engagement.
If you'd rather I do the rebuilding, the fee comes off what comes next.
$1,400 in person
Kickoff, a day on site, conversations with the people doing the work, the written map, and a walkthrough of what I found. Within 60 miles of Roanoke; travel quoted separately beyond that.
$800 remote
The same deliverable, with the observation happening over calls and screen shares. Best when the work is mostly digital, or when getting me on site isn't practical. Worth knowing the tradeoff: I'm working from what people describe rather than what I see, and the gap between those is usually where the problem is.
Credited in full toward any engagement booked within 60 days.
Larger teams or multiple locations are quoted separately.
I watch how it actually happens
The official process and the real one are almost never the same. So I don't start with how it's supposed to work. I start by sitting with the people doing the job and watching what they actually do, including the parts they've stopped mentioning because it's just how things are now.
That's where the useful stuff is. The step that exists because of a client who left in 2019. The form three people fill out and nobody reads. The handoff that works fine unless one specific person is out, and then it doesn't.
Then we fix what's worth fixing. Not everything imperfect needs solving, and a process nobody follows is worse than the mess you started with. I'd rather hand you three things that stick than fifteen that don't.
What this usually includes
Most engagements start from a Walkthrough, so we begin with a map of how the work moves today.
From there:
Rebuilding the specific steps that keep causing problems
Deciding what's worth fixing and what to leave alone
Building templates, checklists, and simple tools
Setting up handoffs between people and roles
Walking your team through what changed
Staying through the first stretch while it takes hold
Sorting out physical space and digital files when they're getting in the way
Documenting it so it holds after I'm gone
Process Types
Most of this work falls into one of these categories
Process Mapping & Cleanup
Building the process, not just documenting it
Designing how the work should move and then putting it in place. This is the deeper engagement: new processes built from scratch, existing ones rebuilt, and the weeks of work that takes.
SOP Documentation
Writing it down
The process already works. It just lives in someone's head, which means nobody can cover for them and nobody new can be trained. I sit with the people doing the work, write it down, and hand it back in a form you can actually use.
Roles & Reporting Structure
Who owns what
Who owns what, who answers to whom, and where the handoffs land. Most businesses have this figured out in practice and never on paper, which is how two people end up thinking the same thing is theirs.
Hiring & Onboarding Support
Bringing someone new in
Job descriptions, an interview process that tells you something, and a first-thirty-days plan so a new hire isn't left guessing. Most small businesses hire rarely enough that it never gets good.
"She makes complicated things feel remarkably uncomplicated."
Chris Henson
Creative Director
AccessU
How it Usually Starts
You tell me what keeps going wrong, or taking longer than it should, or falling through the same crack. We talk through scope, I give you a clear number before anything begins, and then I dig in.
Some of this is a couple of weeks. Some is longer. Most of it ends with something written down that didn't exist before.
What Keeps Going Wrong?
Tell me what's taking longer than it should or falling through the cracks. We'll figure out what's actually worth fixing.