small businesses start out small. sometimes they don't stay that way. that's the good news. the bad news is that sometimes systems which are perfectly reasonable for keeping track of things when they're small don't translate so well as the business scales up.such was the case this week at a one-gal-show in san francisco. this small company has been doing great with one large client and several smaller accounts. all of that changed recently when the owner landed two large, ongoing clients to add to her list. others followed and it looks like 2008 will bring more of the same.
we spent lots of time talking with the client to learn about what her work is like, what her process is for each client and how things have worked thus far with her organizational systems. she loved that we pushed her to really think about her work, right down to the nitty gritty and consider if what she was doing really helped her bottom line. "that's a great question," she kept saying.
in the end, we were able to put together a system that works well for her now and will accommodate all the growth that lies ahead. she's poised now for business to quadruple before she'll need to have us back . . . and, thanks to the spruce simplicity, she'll be able to manage it all without hiring an assistant!
