Audit - Bauer Entertainment Marketing

• Faith working "early mornings, late nights, and weekends just to keep head above water"

• Operations lacks full-time strategic leadership to optimize systems across company

• Bottleneck in review process (Faith = final eyes on most deliverables before client delivery)

• Onboarding inconsistencies (recent example: forgot kickoff call invite for new client)

• Brian can't fully extract because Faith isn't fully in integrator role

• Company treats operations as "client delivery" instead of "productivity multiplier"

• No senior PM available to take over Cerritos account

• Largest client requires senior-level attention and relationship management

• Transition timeline keeps getting pushed ("next 6 months" for 2+ years)

• Reactive hiring prevents planning for Faith's transition

• Fundamental misunderstanding of what Operations should be: Operations should help drive 2-5x team output and efficiencies, not just deliver client work

• Leadership gap: Operations lacks full-time strategic focus on systems, processes, capacity planning

• Burnout risk: Faith's pace is highly unsustainable (nights/weekends ongoing)

• Growth constraint: Can't scale operations without dedicated Director

• Brian's extraction blocked: He stays involved in ops because Faith is stretched

• Compounding inefficiency: Every team member could be 2-3x more productive if Operations focused on optimization vs. fulfillment

• Successfully transition Cerritos to new PM (measured by client retention + new PM confidence rating)

• Reduce average review cycles from 3-4 to 2 or less

• Implement proactive hiring pipeline (maintain 2-3 warm candidates for PM/Coordinator roles)

• Document 5 cross-account strategy wins (tag which accounts, what was tested, results)

• Reduce Monday-Wednesday reporting time from 3 days to 1 day (via automation)

• Increase PM autonomy score (survey: % of decisions PMs make without Faith approval)

• Launch 1 major process optimization (sales→ops handoff, SOP accessibility, etc.)

• Zero client escalations due to internal team capacity issues

• Concrete, measurable outcomes (not "be more strategic")

• Forces Faith to work on the business, not in it

• Gives you both a shared definition of success

• Week 1-2: Brian commits to promoting/hiring Senior PM in January 2026 (non-negotiable decision)

• Week 3-4: Faith documents Cerritos playbook (client personality, processes, gotchas, relationship history)

• Week 3-4: Identify PM successor (promote internally OR external hire)

• Week 4: Job description finalized, recruiting begins if external hire needed

• Week 5-8: New Senior PM shadows Faith on Cerritos for 4 weeks

• Faith transitions as primary contact…PM increasingly takes lead

• PM attends all Cerritos meetings, learns client communication style

• Faith coaches PM on decision-making, client expectations, team coordination

• Week 9-10: PM owns Cerritos, Faith in support role only

• Week 11-12: Faith fully transitioned to Director-only work

• Faith reclaims 20-25 hours/week for strategic operations work

1. Capacity Planning & Forecasting - Pipeline→hiring triggers, proactive staffing model

2. Process Optimization - Reduce review cycles, eliminate manual reporting, streamline workflows

3. Systems & Automation - Reporting dashboards, knowledge base, proposal automation

4. Team Development - PM coaching, coordinator advancement, performance management

5. Quality Systems - Reduce errors upstream (intern program redesign, QA process improvements)

6. Cross-Team Coordination - Sales→Ops handoffs, resource allocation, bandwidth visibility

• Unlocks Goal #1 (Faith's transition to full Director role)

• Enables Goal #3 (Brian's extraction - can't happen until Faith is freed)

• Addresses 6-month bandwidth crisis (Faith can focus on capacity planning)

• Redefines Operations - From "another client team" to "force multiplier for entire company"

• Faith's director work worth more than account management

• Operations that optimizes systems can 2-5x entire team's output

• Week 1-4: Hire Senior PM (20 hours recruiting/interviewing)

• Week 5-8: Onboard + shadow Faith on Cerritos (40 hours Faith's time)

• Week 9-12: Gradual transition, Faith QA only (20 hours overlap)

• Faith reclaims 20-25 hours/week for director responsibilities

• Onboarding improvements: Consistent process, no details forgotten

• Proactive operations: Faith focuses on capacity planning, process optimization, team development instead of client delivery

• Brian's extraction unlocked: Faith can own ops without him

• Productivity multiplier: Operations that focuses on systems can 2-5x output of every team member

• Direct revenue blocker preventing achievement of $2.5M target (currently $2.1M)

• Sales pipeline stalls at proposal stage, not agreement stage

• Doug spending time on proposals that don’t convert

• Gap between proposal delivery and agreement signing creates decision paralysis

• No structured follow-up sequence (manual, inconsistent follow-up)

• Proposal→Agreement is too big a leap with no intermediate commitment step

• Manual proposal creation takes 45-60 min, delays response time

• Revenue: If conversion improved from 50% to 65%, that's 30% more closed deals = $315K-$630K additional annual revenue at current pipeline volume

• Opportunity: Every percentage point improvement = ~$21K in additional revenue

• Team morale: Doug frustrated by wasted proposal effort on deals that ghost

• 1. Implement a Structured Post-Proposal Nurture Sequence

• Day 1-3: Automated email asking engagement question (not "did you review it?" but "which part resonates most—digital advertising strategy or email marketing approach?")

• Day 4-7: Personal Loom video from Doug (90 seconds walking through the 3 things that will move the needle fastest for their specific event)

• Day 8-14: Case study email showing similar client results + soft urgency ("our September calendar has 2 slots remaining")

• Day 15-21: Phone call with permission-based close-out: "Before I take you off our list—is this timing, budget, or something in the proposal that's not aligned?"

• Walk through Week 1 (onboarding), Week 2 (asset gathering), Week 3 (campaign build), Week 4 (launch)

• Make it visual (share ClickUp or Notion timeline or simple roadmap)

• Address lingering concerns in context of "here's exactly how we'd handle that"

• End with: "Does this plan make sense for your timeline? If so, I'll send the agreement today."

• Single document with Strategy (what/why) + Investment + Sign Here section

• Use integrated e-signature tool

• When they're ready, they sign on the spot (eliminates "send me the contract" delay)

• Core sections (always same): Company intro, case studies, process

• Service modules (mix/match): Digital ads, email marketing, social media

• Dynamic elements (auto-populate): Client logo, event type, KPIs

1. Select service modules needed (5 min)

2. Add dynamic elements (10 min)

3. Customize strategy narrative (20 min)

4. Export with e-signature field built in

• Brian's #1 "magic wand" fix

• Removes friction in buying process without requiring ops capacity

• Measurable improvement (track proposal→agreement % weekly)

• Quick to implement (email sequence = 4-6 hours to build in HubSpot)

• Week 1: Design email sequence + strategy call framework (4 hours)

• Week 2: Build in HubSpot + test with 2-3 prospects (4 hours)

• Week 3: Train Riley, document SOP (2 hours)

• 60-day target: Improve conversion from 50% → 60% (10 percentage points)

• 90-day target: Improve conversion to 65%+ (sustained)

• Revenue impact: $157K-$315K additional closed deals in next 6 months

• Time saved: Doug saves 15-20 hours/month on proposals that convert higher

• 40-60 hours per week consumed across team (Alyssa, Faith, PMs, coordinators)

• Strategic thinking blocked until Thursday

• Proactive optimization delayed or skipped

• Team frustration: "supposed to be 1 day, takes 3 days"

• No automated dashboard pulling data from ad platforms

• Manual data entry creates errors requiring multiple review cycles

• Cost concerns have prevented dashboard adoption (Faith: "cost has been limiting factor")

• Reporting process designed for smaller company scale

• Labor cost: 50 hours/week × 48 weeks × $50/hr blended rate = $120,000/year in manual labor

• Opportunity cost: 50 hours/week = 1.25 FTE capacity that could serve 2-3 more clients

• Strategic cost: PMs in "reactive" mode Wed-Fri vs. proactive optimization

• Quality risk: Manual entry errors lead to client trust issues

• Phase 1 (30 days): Pilot automated dashboard with 1-2 clients (Supermetrics + Google Data Studio, AgencyAnalytics, or custom)

• Phase 2 (60-90 days): Roll out to all clients with tiered templates (Tier 1/2/3)

• ROI Calculation: $300/month tool cost vs. $10,000/month labor cost = 33x ROI in Year 1

• Mentioned by 2 of 6 staff interviews as #1 time-saver

• Unlocks 40% of PM capacity for strategic work or new clients

• Reduces review cycles (automated data = fewer errors)

• Creates capacity to scale without hiring

• Week 1-4: Research tools, select vendor, pilot setup with Cerritos (8 hours)

• Week 4-8: Evaluate pilot, build templates for other client tiers (4 hours)

• Week 8-12: Train team, roll out to all clients (4 hours)

• Immediate: 3-day process → 4-hour review process (40 hours/week reclaimed)

• 90-day target: All clients on automated dashboards

• Capacity gain: Equivalent of 1-1.5 FTE = ability to serve 2-3 more clients without hiring

• Quality improvement: Error rate reduction from human data entry elimination

• Ops team unaware of platform changes affecting delivery

• Insufficient time to connect BizDev→PM before client kickoff

• Scope misalignment discovered mid-engagement

• Client expectation issues from day one

• BizDev operates at high-level strategy, Ops handles implementation details

• No complexity scoring system to flag high-touch accounts

• HubSpot used by sales only - Ops never trained on it

• Manual "instruction manual" handoff process, sometimes skipped when busy

• Rework: Scope changes mid-engagement waste 5-10+ hours per account

• Client satisfaction: Expectation misalignment damages retention

• Team friction: Ops feels blindsided, BizDev feels constrained

• Create "Deal Pre-Flight Checklist" in HubSpot (complexity scoring: Low/Medium/High)

• Mandatory Sales→Ops handoff call for Medium/High complexity deals (30 min)

• Build "Ops Capacity Dashboard" visible to Doug (traffic light system: green/yellow/red)

• Define Standard Scope Packages (Tier 1/2/3) with known resource requirements

• Add Sales Engineer Role: Doug operates at high-level strategy; consider adding "Sales Engineer" or cross-training Ops team member to bridge BizDev and technical scoping (understands both what's sold AND how it's delivered)

• Pipeline Visibility for Ops: Give Faith/Ops read-access to HubSpot pipeline with "Prospect Stage" and "Client Stage" visibility so teams can prep and plan accordingly

• Fulfillment Cycle Transparency: Make ad builds, content production, and review cycles visible to everyone (not just siloed in Ops) so BizDev understands delivery timelines when scoping

• Prevents "tapping the brakes" surprises (Doug can see capacity in real-time)

• Reduces scope misalignment incidents from frequent → <2/month

• Makes operational impact visible to sales BEFORE close

• Creates shared language between BizDev and Ops

• Week 1-2: Design complexity checklist + capacity dashboard (4 hours)

• Week 3-4: Implement in HubSpot + Google Sheets/shared space (4 hours)

• Week 5-6: Train team, test on 3-5 deals, refine (3 hours)

• Handoff call completion: 100% for Medium/High complexity deals

• Scope misalignment incidents: Reduce from unknown baseline to <2/month

• "Can we take this client?" questions: From multiple/week → <1/month

• Faith's time saved: 5 hours/month on firefighting misaligned accounts

• 6 months of repeatedly "tapping the brakes" on sales

• Team burnout (August-October: all PMs at 40+ hours)

• Scramble hiring leads to poor culture fits (recent toxic team member example)

• Lost revenue opportunities from constrained sales

• No leading indicators for hiring triggers

• Pipeline visibility doesn't translate to capacity forecasting

• Waiting for revenue to fund hires (lagging indicator)

• No bench of pre-qualified candidates maintained

• Low Quality work from interns

• Lost revenue: "Tapping the brakes" for 6 months = $200K-$400K in declined opportunities

• Burnout risk: Team at 40+ hours unsustainable, increases turnover

• Bad hires: Reactive hiring = 50% longer to find right culture fit

• Establish hiring triggers based on pipeline: "3+ deals in proposal stage (Med/High) = activate hiring"

• Faith maintains "warm candidate pool" of 2-3 people at all times

• Quarterly recruitment sprints (not waiting until desperate)

• Doug shares weekly pipeline forecast with Faith (not just closed deals)

• Retainer Contractor Bench: Build bench of 5-10 contractors on retainer (PMs, coordinators, specialists) for rapid expansion without full-time overhead when big deals close

• Always-On Recruiting: Keep runner-up candidates warm from previous hiring rounds; touch base quarterly vs. restarting entire process

• Add Intern Onboarding “game” + Pilot to strengthen quality and replace interns quickly that don’t fit

• Moves hiring from lagging indicator (overwhelmed) to leading indicator (pipeline signals)

• Eliminates "tapping the brakes" on sales growth

• Improves culture fit (time to evaluate vs. desperation hiring)

• Unlocks Goal #2 (confidence to scale sales without breaking ops)

• Week 1-2: Define hiring triggers with Faith + Doug + Brian (3 hours)

• Week 3-4: Faith builds warm candidate pool process (4 hours)

• Week 5-8: Test triggers, make first proactive hire (10 hours)

• Ongoing: 2-3 hours/month maintaining warm candidate relationships

• Hiring speed: From 6-8 weeks (scramble) → 2-3 weeks (proactive)

• Sales confidence: Doug can sell knowing capacity is expandable

• Team capacity: No more 6-month bandwidth crises

• Revenue unlocked: $200K-$400K in previously declined opportunities over next 12 months

The Core Problem: You're Solving the Wrong Problem

• Business runs 7-8/10 without you overall

• Operations runs 8-9/10 without you

• Sales/BizDev runs lower without you

• Brian stuck in tactical work vs. strategic priorities (strategic planning, acquisitions, leveraged growth)

• Review delays slow sales cycle

• Doug can't operate autonomously on bread-and-butter deals

• Brian working IN the business, not ON it (Goal #3 blocked)

• No defined "Good Enough" quality standard (Brian's standards in his head)

• Trust issue: "When I don't review, I find mistakes"

• No graduated approval authority by deal size

• Sales processes less developed than ops (7-8/10 vs. 8-9/10)

• Brian's time: 15-20 hours/month on <$20K reviews = $10K-$15K opportunity cost

• Strategic work delayed: AI integration, reporting optimization, acquisitions research on hold

• Doug's development: Can't grow into autonomous Sales Manager or Director

• Scale constraint: Can't 2x sales if Brian must review everything

• Define "Proposal Quality Checklist" (Critical/Important/Preference criteria) or Reverse-Engineer Your Review Process

• Implement Graduated Approval Authority:
• Tier 1: Doug autonomous
• Tier 2: Doug autonomous + 10% spot-check by Brian, reduced to zero over time
• Tier 3: Brian pre-approval required, reduced over time

• Key mindset shift: If Doug checked all Critical and Important items, approve it even if you'd write it differently. Track the outcome. Did the deal close? Did the client have issues?

• Brian Install "Friday Morning Visionary Time" block (9am-12pm, no meetings)

• Directly unlocks Goal #3 (Brian extraction to strategic work)

• Brian reclaims 15-20 hours/month for AI integration, acquisitions, business health

• Doug develops into true Sales Manager (ownership breeds excellence)

• Creates scalability (Doug can review, train future BizDev team)

• Week 1-4: Define quality checklist, Doug shadows Brian reviews (4 hours)

• Week 5-8: Doug leads reviews, Brian QA only (6 hours)

• Week 9-12: Doug autonomous on Tier 1/2, Brian reviews outcomes not inputs (2 hours)

• Brian's review time: From 15-20 hrs/month → 5-7 hrs/month (70% reduction)

• Strategic work time: Brian gains 15-20 hours/month for visionary priorities

• Sales cycle speed: Eliminate 24-48 hour review delays on standard deals

• Doug's autonomy: 80% of deals closed without Brian involvement by Day 90

Brian Coaching Points — The Psychological Shift You Need to Make

1. Perfection is the Enemy of Scale

• Cap Doug's growth (he never learns to trust his judgment)

• Limit deal velocity (proposals wait in your queue)

• Keep you tactical (can't think about AI strategy while editing proposals)

2. Mistakes Are Tuition, Not Failure

3. Your Highest Leverage Is System Design, Not Execution

• 25-50 hours/week consumed in review cycles across team

• Timeline pressure: 48-hour SOP now compressed

• Faith bottlenecked as final reviewer on everything

• Team frustration: "Still finding mistakes by the time it gets to me"

• Unpaid interns lack incentive/capacity for quality (school, part-time jobs)

• Using interns for client-facing work creates quality debt

• No quality checklist before submission (catching typos, not strategy)

• Faith feels she MUST review or mistakes slip through

• Labor cost: 35 hours/week × 48 weeks × $45/hr = $75,600/year in review time

• Capacity cost: 35 hours/week = 0.875 FTE that could do strategic work

• Faith's bottleneck: Can't focus on director work while reviewing everything

• Option A (Recommended): Remove interns from client-facing deliverables
• Interns: Internal projects only (data entry, research, SOP updates)
• Coordinators: Take over first drafts (correct the first time)
• New flow: Coordinator drafts → Specialist approves (2 people, done)

• Option B (If keeping interns): Mandatory QA checklist before submission
• Grammarly check, brand voice verification, placeholder check, link testing
• Reviewer focuses on strategy, not catching typos

• Client Approval Deadlines - Add language to agreements: "Client has 48 hours to provide feedback; delays push delivery timeline accordingly" (reduces pressure to rush reviews)

• Gamified Intern Onboarding - Create Notion-based onboarding game where interns do the work to learn vs. reading 54 SOPs

• Intern Pilot Program - Implement pilot to get confidence in the right hiring and be prepared to let go quickly and replace as needed

• Intern Pilot Program - Test paid intern model with 1-2 interns to measure quality improvement vs. unpaid (may justify investment if reduces review cycles)

• AI Brand Voice Checker - Build custom GPT trained on each client's brand guidelines to auto-check content before human review (catch 80% of errors, humans focus on 20% strategic)

• Each eliminated review cycle = 30-60 min saved per deliverable

• 50 deliverables/week × 1 cycle removed = 25-50 hours/week reclaimed

• Faith freed from tactical QA to strategic director work

• Higher quality output (coordinators own it vs. fixing intern mistakes)

• Week 1: Leadership decision on intern role change (2 hours)

• Week 2-3: Transition intern work to coordinators, adjust workload (8 hours)

• Week 4: Monitor quality, adjust as needed (3 hours)

• Review cycles: From 3-4 rounds → 2 rounds maximum (50% reduction)

• Time reclaimed: 25-50 hours/week = 1-1.5 FTE capacity

• Quality improvement: Fewer client revisions (coordinators more accountable)

• Faith's capacity: 10-15 hours/week freed from tactical reviews

• 15-25% of time spent searching vs. doing core work

• New team members overwhelmed during onboarding

• Tribal knowledge remains in people's heads despite documentation

• "SOP of the week" emails ignored by team

• Google Docs format hard to search and navigate

• No single owner maintaining/updating SOPs

• Information scattered across Drive, Slack, ClickUp, HubSpot

• Documentation culture but no knowledge management system

• Search time: 6 team members × 3 hours/week × 48 weeks × $40/hr = $34,560/year

• Onboarding speed: 2-week onboarding could be 1 week with better system

• Decision delays: People wait for answers vs. finding them instantly

• Migrate to centralized knowledge base (Notion, Confluence, or custom)

• Build AI-queryable system ("How do I onboard a festival client?" → instant answer)

• Distributed SOP Ownership Model: Assign SOP ownership to ROLE, not individual person (e.g., "Ad Ops Lead owns all ad-related SOPs") - when role changes hands, SOP ownership transfers automatically

• Implement "search < 30 seconds" standard for any company information

• SOP Maintenance Schedule: Quarterly SOP review sprints where each owner updates their SOPs (built into role expectations, not ad-hoc)

• Reduces search time from 15-25% → 5% (10-20% capacity reclaimed)

• Faster onboarding (2 weeks → 1 week)

• Enables distributed decision-making (people find answers vs. asking)

• Scales knowledge as company grows (AI-powered vs. human memory)

• Week 1-2: Select platform, design structure (6 hours)

• Week 3-8: Migrate 54 SOPs, assign ownership (20 hours)

• Week 9-12: Train team, build search habits, refine (8 hours)

• Search time: From 15-25% → 5% of day (10-20% capacity gain per person)

• Onboarding speed: 2 weeks → 1 week (50% faster ramp time)

• Information accessibility: From 70% → 95%+ (reduce search failures from 10-15% → <2%)

• Interruptions: "Where is X?" questions reduced by 60-70%

• Drift from annual goals without course correction

• Rocks tracked individually, not collectively reviewed

• No celebration of wins or adjustment of priorities mid-year

• Partial EOS adoption (People Analyzer yes, Level 10 meetings no, quarterly planning no)

• Leadership team stretched thin, quarterly planning feels like "extra work"

• No forcing function to step back and assess

• Goal drift: Miss annual targets without knowing why until too late

• Team alignment: Departments working on misaligned priorities

• Missed opportunities: No quarterly recalibration based on market changes

• Implement Quarterly Planning Sessions (1 day offsite or deep focus day)

• Review: Prior quarter performance, wins/losses, lessons learned

• Plan: Next quarter priorities (top 3-5 rocks per department)

• Align: Cross-functional dependencies, resource allocation

• Keeps team aligned to annual vision with quarterly checkpoints

• Creates forcing function for strategic thinking (not just tactical firefighting)

• Surfaces issues early (Q2 vs. Q4 when it's too late)

• Feedback cycles unlocks exponential scaling opportunities

• Goal achievement: Increase annual goal attainment from 60-85% → 90-95%

• Team alignment: Everyone knows top 3-5 priorities each quarter

• Course correction: Catch and fix issues in Q2, not Q4

• C-suite clients frustrated by data overload

• Detail-oriented clients feel under-informed

• Inconsistent client experience across PMs

• Wastes client time (they don't know what to focus on)

• Each PM develops own communication style

• No templates or guidance on executive communication

• Assume all clients want same level of detail

• Client retention risk: Poor communication cited in churn reasons

• PM time waste: Writing custom emails for 30 clients/month = 15 hours

• Brand inconsistency: BEM experience varies by which PM you get

• Create 3 standard templates: Executive Summary (C-suite), Manager's Update (mid-level), Data-Rich Report (detail-oriented)

• Tag clients as "Low/Medium/High detail" preference and show specific to client or show all to client with ability for them to “untoggle” and go into more detail as necessary

• Templates auto-populate based on tag

• Brian hosts "lunch & learn" on executive communication best practices

• Consistent client experience regardless of PM

• Time savings: 15 hours/month → 3 hours/month (12 hours reclaimed)

• Improved client satisfaction from appropriate detail level

• Week 1: Design 3 templates with Faith + Brian (4 hours)

• Week 2: Tag all clients, assign templates (2 hours)

• Week 3: Lunch & learn training session (2 hours)

• PM time saved: 12 hours/month reclaimed from custom email writing

• Client satisfaction: Measurable improvement in "communication" NPS category

• Consistency: 100% of client updates use standardized templates

• Two tabs to understand who's opening/clicking emails

• Manual list building for outreach targets

• Lost lead intelligence (can't automate scoring)

• False positives from antivirus scanning in MailChimp

• Historical decision to use MailChimp (lower cost)

• HubSpot email marketing is additional expense

• No cost-benefit analysis of time savings vs. tool cost

• Doug's time: 5-10 hours/month building manual lead lists

• Missed opportunities: Warm leads not identified automatically

• Efficiency: Sales team spends time on wrong prospects

• Migrate to HubSpot email marketing to consolidate tools or sync Hubspot to Mailchimp

• Implement automated lead scoring (engagement-based)

• Train BizDev team on HubSpot sequences and automation

• Doug's #1 wish list item: "Would make my job 10x easier"

• Time savings justifies cost ($300/month vs. 10 hours/month saved = Increased ROI)

• Better lead intelligence = higher conversion rates

• Week 1-2: Evaluate HubSpot email marketing, get approval (3 hours)

• Week 3-4: Migrate sequences, templates, lists (8 hours)

• Week 5-6: Train team, set up automation (4 hours)

• Time saved: Doug and sales team saves 5-10 hours/month on manual lead list building

• Lead quality: Automated scoring identifies warm prospects without manual work

• Conversion improvement: 5-10% increase in outreach→call rate from better targeting

• Creative requests backlogged

• Can't execute creative-based targeting strategies

• Reliant on client-provided assets (often inadequate)

• Video editor at capacity, no ability to scale

• No bench of on-call creatives (video, design, motion graphics)

• Assuming all creative must be full-time employees

• Cost concerns about retainer agreements

• Revenue opportunities: Can't pitch creative-forward campaigns to clients

• Client satisfaction: Slow turnaround on creative requests

• Competitive disadvantage: Other agencies offer faster creative execution

• Build bench of 5-10 on-call creatives (video editors, graphic designers, motion graphics, copywriters)

• Retainer or project-based agreements (not full-time hires)

• Tiered creative packages clients can add on

• Alyssa's top 3 wish list item

• Unlocks creative-based targeting opportunities (higher client LTV)

• Scalable model (pay for what you use vs. full-time overhead)

• Week 1-2: Identify 5-10 freelance creatives, negotiate rates (4 hours)

• Week 3-4: Test on 2-3 projects, evaluate quality (3 hours)

• Week 5-8: Build process for creative requests, train team (3 hours)

• Capacity: From 1 video editor → 3-5 on-demand video editors

• Turnaround time: Creative requests from 2-3 weeks → 5-7 days

• Revenue: Ability to upsell creative packages to 30-50% of clients

• Doug frustrated by lack of clarity on compensation

• Riley potentially unmotivated (salary vs. commission)

• Future BizDev hires won't have clear incentive structure

• Perception of unfairness if rules unclear

• Commission structure evolved organically, not designed systematically

• Renewals vs. new clients vs. upsells treated inconsistently

• No documentation of commission rules

• Motivation: Sales team doesn't know what to prioritize

• Retention risk: Doug cited as "most frustrating part" of role

• Hiring constraint: Can't scale BizDev team without clear comp model

• Document commission structure: New clients (X%), Renewals (Y%), Upsells (Z%)

• Move Riley to base + commission model (align incentives)

• Doug's #1 frustration - directly impacts his satisfaction

• Enables scaling BizDev team (clear comp model for future hires)

• Aligns incentives (Riley motivated to close, not just assist)

• Week 1: Brian decides commission structure (2 hours)

• Week 2: Document rules (2 hours)

• Week 3: Roll out to Doug + Riley, adjust Riley comp (2 hours)

• Clarity: 100% objective commission rules, no ambiguity

• Riley's motivation: Incentivized to close deals, not just support

• Doug's satisfaction: #1 frustration eliminated

• Deep work happens 2-7pm after exhausting meetings

• Faith working nights/weekends to compensate

• Some 1-on-1s become "How's the client? Good. Any issues? Nope." (wasted 30 min)

• Default to synchronous communication (meetings) vs. asynchronous (Slack, docs)

• Bi-weekly 1-on-1s focused on status updates vs. development

• No "meeting-free" blocks for deep work

• Faith's productivity: 50+% of days consumed by meetings = 20 hours/week

• Burnout risk: Unsustainable pace (nights/weekends to compensate)

• Replace bi-weekly 1-on-1s with monthly (performance/development focus only)

• Implement "Office Hours" (Faith available Tue 2-3pm for questions)

• Async stand-up updates in Slack (Monday AM: Wins/Blockers/Help needed)

• Move to transparent contextual communication for 1-3x performance gains - See Company OS below

• Faith reclaims 15+ hours/month from meeting reduction

• More effective 1-on-1s (development vs. status updates)

• Reduces meeting fatigue

• Meeting time: From 5 hours/month per PM → 1.25 hours/month (75% reduction)

• Faith's capacity: 15+ hours/month reclaimed for strategic work

• Same strategies tested multiple times across accounts

• New PMs start from scratch vs. learning from veterans

• Competitive intelligence not shared across team

• No "Strategy Library" or shared knowledge repository

• Campaign summaries client-facing (don't capture nitty-gritty learnings)

• Culture of doing vs. deploying shared insights

• Efficiency loss: Retest strategies instead of leveraging proven playbooks

• New PM ramp time: Learn by trial and error vs. standing on shoulders

• Build Strategy Library in Notion (organize by client type, service, campaign type)

• End-of-campaign: PM spends 15 min documenting what worked/didn't

• Assign to appropriate role (owns organizing insights)

• Faster campaign strategy development (hours vs. days)

• Higher win rate from proven tactics

• New PM ramp time reduced

• Strategy development speed: From days → hours (leverage proven playbooks)

• Win rate improvement: 5-10% higher campaign performance from collective intelligence

• New PM ramp: From 3 months → 2 months (learn from library)

• Strategic priorities (AI, acquisitions, retention systems) remain on "someday" list

• Brian's highest-value work postponed for tactical reviews

• Company misses opportunities (AI integration, M&A, innovation)

• No protected time block on calendar

• Tactical work fills available time (Parkinson's Law)

• Guilt about "not being available" to team

• Opportunity cost: Strategic work worth 10x Brian's hourly rate

• Competitive risk: Falling behind on AI adoption and modern Ops as hub business growth

• Growth constraint: Can't explore M&A if no time to research

• Install "Weekly Visionary Time" block (9am-12pm, no meetings, no Slack)

• Weekly focus Blocks: Business Health / AI Integration / Retention & Team / Strategic Opportunities

• Faith and team know: Do NOT interrupt unless emergency

• Goal #3 enabler: Brian can't be visionary without time for vision

• 12 hours/month = 144 hours/year of strategic thinking

• Demonstrates to team that strategic work is priority

• Strategic work time: From 2-4 hours/month → 15-20 hours/month

• AI integration: Progress from "someday" → implemented in 90 days

• Business health: Dashboard built and reviewed monthly

• Trust erosion (Brian can't fully delegate if details missed)

• Client perception (small mistakes look unprofessional)

• Doug/Riley development limited by inability to send without review

• No pre-send checklist or AI agent

• Speed prioritized over accuracy

• Lack of consequences for repeated mistakes

• Brian can't extract: Trust issue prevents delegation

• Client perception: Small mistakes damage premium positioning

• Implement "Pre-Send Checklist" for all client-facing communications

• AI Agent check, placeholder verification, link testing, tone appropriateness

• Builds trust for Brian to delegate

• Professional client experience

• Develops team attention to detail muscle

• Error rate: Reduce attention to detail mistakes by 70-80%

• Trust: Brian comfortable delegating without review

• Client perception: Zero mistakes in client-facing communications

• Faith spends 30-60 min per new client on administrative task setup

• Prone to forgetting steps (recent example: kickoff call invite not sent)

• Inconsistent onboarding experience across clients

• No standardization for recurring campaign types (festival launch, venue season, etc.)

• No automation between HubSpot (deal closes) → ClickUp (tasks created)

• Reliance on Faith's memory for all onboarding steps

• Each client treated as unique vs. leveraging templates for similar types

• Faith's time: 30-60 min × 2-3 new clients/month = 10-20 hours/month wasted on admin

• Onboarding quality: Forgotten steps damage first impression

• Scalability constraint: Can't onboard multiple clients simultaneously without Faith bottleneck

• Zapier Automation: Client signs agreement in HubSpot → Zapier triggers → ClickUp space auto-created from template

• Template Library: Build 3-5 ClickUp templates for common client types (Festival, Venue, Performing Arts, Artist, Corporate Event)

• Auto-Assignment: Tasks auto-assigned based on service package (Tier 1/2/3 from Issue #4)

• Slack Notification: Team auto-notified when new client workspace created

• (Or implement in Company OS for more leveraged productivity wtih AI - see below)

• Faith reclaims 10-20 hours/month from manual task creation

• Consistent onboarding experience (zero forgotten steps)

• Scales to handle multiple simultaneous client onboardings

• Frees Faith for strategic director work vs. administrative setup

• Week 1: Design ClickUp templates for each client type (3 hours)

• Week 2: Build Zapier automation + test with dummy clients (3 hours)

• Week 3: Train team on new process, document SOP (2 hours)

• Time saved: 30-60 min → 5 min per new client (Faith just reviews auto-created workspace)

• Onboarding consistency: 100% of steps completed every time

• Scalability: Can onboard 5 clients in same day without Faith bottleneck

• Lost revenue from qualified leads that want to work with BEM but have smaller budgets

• Missed opportunity to build relationships with potential future larger clients

• Competitors capturing these smaller engagements

• No service tier designed for small deals

• Operations can't absorb <$10K deals without hurting margins

• BizDev has no alternative to offer besides "We're not a fit"

• Opportunity cost: 5-10 small deals/year × $5K average = $25K-$50K revenue left on table

• Relationship cost: Potential future clients go to competitors

• Option A (Referral Partnership): Partner with 2-3 smaller agencies for <$10K deals; negotiate 10-15% referral fee for qualified leads sent their way

• Option B (Amplify Audit Upsell): Position $995 Amplify Audit as solution for smaller budgets, focus on converting to larger engagements later

• Option C (Small Deal Service Tier): Create $5K-$10K "Amplify Lite" package (audit + 30-day implementation sprint, coordinator-led, PM oversight only)

• Captures revenue currently lost

• Builds pipeline for future larger engagements

• Strengthens industry relationships through partnerships

• Revenue capture: $25K-$50K/year from previously declined opportunities

• Pipeline building: Small deals become larger clients over time

• Current: Manual reporting Mon-Wed, disparate scorecards, 70% info accessible

• Required: Real-time dashboard, 95%+ info accessible, automated KPI tracking

• Why Critical: Can't scale what you can't measure efficiently

• Investment: Reporting automation software + data warehouse

• Current: Scattered Google Docs, 10-15% search failure, SOP ownership unclear

• Required: Searchable, AI-queryable knowledge base, <30 sec to find any answer

• Why Critical: Onboarding speed, reduced interruptions, distributed decision-making

• Investment: Knowledge base platform (Notion, not currently another option)

• Current: Reactive hiring, 6 months of "tapping the brakes"

• Required: Pipeline → capacity forecast, 90-day hiring lead time, bench of candidates

• Why Critical: Sales can't be constrained by ops capacity

• Investment: Capacity planning + always-on recruitment process

• Current: Sometimes rushed, scope misalignment, ops unaware of commitments

• Required: Mandatory pre-kickoff call, scope documented in shared system, 0 surprises

• Why Critical: Client satisfaction, reduced rework, team alignment

• Investment: Process design + CRM integration + Shared workspace for ops visibility

• Current: Redundant review cycles (PM→Coordinator→Specialist), unclear autonomy

• Required: Clear decision matrix, coordinators empowered, specialists in QA role only

• Why Critical: Speed of execution, team empowerment, reduced bottlenecks

• Investment: Documentation + training on decision authority

• Current: Manual proposal creation, hand-updating logos/testimonials

• Required: Proposal building with templated library, auto-populated from CRM, AI powered

• Why Critical: BizDev will need to optimize as business grows as well as increase prospecting

• Investment: Proposal building workflow using AI (Notion AI with instructions and template library)

• Current: 1 video editor on retainer (tapped out), limited content creation capacity

• Required: 5-10 on-call creatives (video, design, copy), rapid expansion capability

• Why Critical: Capture creative-based targeting opportunities without full-time overhead

• Investment: Retainer agreements + project management for external creatives

The Scale Readiness Test (Self-Assessment)

1. Can Faith run operations for 30 days without Brian? (Target: Yes, 9/10 confidence)

2. Can we onboard 3 new clients in the same week without quality issues? (Target: Yes)

3. Can Doug approve $50K+ deals without Brian review? (Target: Yes, with trust)

4. Do we know our capacity 90 days out based on current pipeline? (Target: Yes, dashboard live)

5. Can a new PM find process workflow, library, or any SOP answer in under 2 minutes? (Target: Yes, knowledge base)

6. Have we eliminated Mon-Wed manual reporting? (Target: Yes, automated dashboards)

7. Do sales and ops use the same system to track scope/commitments? (Target: Yes)

8. Can we hire a qualified candidates (PM, Interns, etc) within 30 days when needed? (Target: Yes, pipeline active)

• 0-3 Yes: Not ready to scale - focus on Foundation Strengthening (90 days)

• 4-6 Yes: Approaching readiness - finish Scaling Enablers (180 days)

• 7-8 Yes: Ready to scale - execute growth plan with confidence

The $5M Operating Model

• Tier 1 Clients ($500K+): Senior PM + dedicated coordinator + specialist oversight

• Tier 2 Clients ($200K-$500K): Mid-level PM + shared coordinator + specialist QA

• Tier 3 Clients ($50K-$200K): Coordinator-led + PM oversight + specialist spot-check

• Leadership: Brian (Visionary), Faith (Integrator), Doug (Sales Director)

• BizDev: 1 Sales Manager (Doug) + 2-3 BizDev Coordinators + Sales Engineer role (new)

• Operations: Faith + 3-4 Senior PMs + 8-10 Account Coordinators + 2-3 Specialists (Ad Ops, Content, Creative)

• Support: IT, HR, Accounting (as needed)

• 10-15 major clients at $300K-$750K each (none >$750K = 15% cap)

• 20-30 mid-tier clients at $50K-$200K each

• Minimal small clients (<$50K) - refer out or Amplify Audit only