Operations Support
The business side of the business, handled by someone who's run it before.
When the business side outgrows you
Every business has a pile of work that isn't the work. Client emails. Vendor contracts. Invoices going out and charges coming in. Schedules, reporting, the spreadsheet somebody built two years ago that everyone still uses and nobody trusts.
None of it is what you got into this for, and all of it has to happen. So it lands on whoever has a free hour, which usually means you, at night.
Sometimes that's the whole problem: there's too much and it's drowning you. But often it's quieter than that. You know what the next step is for the business, you just can't get to it, because the hours that would go toward growth keep going toward the pile instead. If the admin takes ten hours a week, that's ten hours not spent on the work you actually sell. For a lot of owners that's the difference between taking another client and turning one away, or paying a freelancer for work you could have done yourself.
The usual advice is to hire someone. But the job isn't full-time yet, and it's hard to hand off work that only exists in your head. So it stays where it is, and it grows.
Some of this is doing. Some of it is deciding.
Most of what I take on falls into one of two altitudes, and most clients need both.
Getting it done
Client communication, scheduling, vendor contracts, invoicing, tracking what's owed and what's owing, keeping the reporting current. Real work, done reliably, without you checking whether it happened.
Deciding how the work should run
Which of these could be automated. Which subscriptions you're paying for and nobody uses. Whether your vendor rates still make sense or haven't been looked at in three years. Whether the report you build every month is one anyone reads.
If you've been looking for a virtual assistant, the day-to-day work is what you have in mind, and I can do that. But most owners find the real problem is the other half. That's the difference between admin support and operations: one keeps things moving, the other decides how they should move. You don't need someone to keep running a system that isn't working. You need someone who can run it and fix it at the same time.
One Piece Or The Whole Thing
Some clients have the concept and the crew and just need someone running the day. Some want me from the first conversation through the final file. Both work.
Before
Deciding what the shoot needs to produce and why. Shot lists. Sourcing and booking the photographer, videographer, stylist, or whoever else it takes. Locations, permits, schedule, and the logistics of shooting around your actual business. By the time we shoot, everyone knows what we're making and why.
During
I'm there as your producer, talking to the crew so you're not, keeping us on schedule, and watching the details nobody catches until it's too late: what's in the background, whether the light moved, whether we've got the shot we came for. I'm also the person making your people feel comfortable on camera, which matters more than most of the technical decisions. Someone at ease on the day is the difference between usable footage and a long afternoon.
After
Managing the editor through post, running the review rounds, and getting you the final files organized so you can find things later. You see the work at the points where your opinion matters. I handle the rest. Most clients are surprised how little of this lands on them.
What this Usually Includes
Client and customer communication
Vendor contracts, sourcing, and tracking spend
Client-facing documents: proposals, pricing guides, presentations, and contracts
Budget tracking, reporting, and spend audits
Invoicing and accounts follow-up
Scheduling and calendar management
Inbox management and triage
Tracking deadlines, renewals, and recurring obligations
Standardizing how the day-to-day actually gets done
Why me
I spent three and a half years at a marketing and PR agency and finished as Director of Traffic and Operations. Traffic is the job of knowing where every project in the building stands and what has to move next, which meant running operations for a room full of people with competing deadlines.
The rest of that job is most of what's on this page. I ran a client list of my own, which meant everything from the contracts and pricing to the emails and the budget audits with the account team. I tracked vendor charges against project budgets, built the onboarding system we used for new hires, and wrote the SOPs that got everyone working the same way instead of six different ways that caused problems three months later.
What I was actually known for there was being the person people came to when something went sideways. A deadline nobody could hit, a project that had gone quiet, a mess someone needed help untangling before it got worse. That's the part of this that isn't on any task list: knowing what to deal with first, and being useful when the answer isn't obvious yet.
What Comes Next
Systems & Software
Sometimes the real answer is that the tools are wrong. Choosing the right system, building it out, and getting your team using it is its own project.
Who Owns What
If the work keeps landing on whoever's free, the underlying question is who's responsible for each piece. Worth answering on paper.
What's eating your week?
Tell me what keeps landing on your plate that shouldn't. I'll take the parts you dread so you can get back to the work you're actually good at, which is usually the work that pays.