A Company in Chaos is Ready for Systems to Grow
Jadyn DePhi, Birdseye DBM
Snapshot
This company was providing customer service and admin support to lawn and landscape companies. The mission was there, to increase the level of professionalism in an industry notoriously not. But major foundational pieces were not laid before the metaphorical house was built, and a decision needed to be made. Are we going to put in the work to rebuild from the ground up, or keep praying this house doesn’t collapse?
Through Systems, Documentation, Simplification and Delegation; we were able to achieve the client's overall goals of profitability and winning the confidence back from their clients.
Client Introduction
This client was experiencing extreme growth; going from one focused company to provide service to in year one, to over 100+ companies in year three. They were in the midst of some of the hardest growing pains they’ve faced, and needed organization and systems- Quick.
Problem
Quite a few problems that needed to be addressed in order for this company to gain the trust of their clients again, and to scale.
They needed organization. To find any information on a process, a client, or service; there were 6 google drive accounts, 4 softwares, 50 desktops, and 3 communication platforms. We’ll need to simplify this.
They needed better documentation. Let’s say someone does take the quest to search for their answers in this maze… oops! It’s severely outdated. We’ll need to establish a review timeline to ensure the resources for the company are helpful, not detrimental.
They needed better Communication. The information is everywhere, and everyone was expected to know it (I’ve never met so many “Jack”s in my life). Information was passed in a scary game of telephone, over and over and over again. We need to streamline this, and establish an updating process.
They needed Delegation. There was a severe bottleneck- only ONE person was responsible for every task, service, team member, hiring, etc. We need to get broad topics assigned ownership to more than this one person, because this was causing the scariest problem;
They needed to be Profitable! That is correct, they had only achieved ONE profitable month in that entire three years, and it was by $43.50. All of these problems added together have caused such massive inefficiency that profit was nearly impossible. But we are about to change that.
Solution
My client and I agreed this was fundamentally an operational problem, something I have an extensive background in. We worked well together in that I was willing to work with them on a personal level, with a kind but stern approach. I was not there to sugar coat what the problems were, but I would be receptive to reservations and concerns about the process and upholding the systems. These solutions only work if it’s something the client can uphold and nurture past my time with them, therefore it's incredibly important to make it attainable.
Results
This whole process took a total of three months.
We audited the services and tasks done for clients, and established 7 main departments that will specialize and prioritize these tasks. (Think Payroll Department, Google Ads Department, Etc)
All storage areas for information were audited and cleaned of outdated information. This was replaced by SOPs and a playbook for easy reference.
Ownership was given to department leads, to ensure quality of their assigned tasks, training of department members, and keeping accurate SOPs.
This resulted in one of my favorite quotes, “Our team is finishing all the work halfway through the day… what do we do now?”
Scale! With the systems and procedures we put in place together, they were able to increase their client capacity from drowning to DOUBLING their client base, and they could easily grow beyond that with the training and systems put in place.
Conclusion
Change is hard, relinquishing control is hard; but when you do it right with support, systems and documentation, it's worth it. Not only was the company profitable within a month of implementation, the team culture and personal well being of management was vastly improved. We can brute force work to get it done, or you can work smarter.