Operations advice for Coquitlam businesses that have outgrown the owner's memory

What it is

It's a review of how work actually moves through your business, followed by practical changes. We look at what happens, not what's supposed to happen, and we measure the delays in hours and dollars so you can decide what's worth fixing first.

The areas we look at most often:

• Enquiry handling. Who answers the phone, texts and emails, how fast, and what happens after hours.
• Quoting. How long a quote takes to go out, who writes it, and how often it's followed up.
• Scheduling. How work is booked, how changes are handled, and how often jobs collide.
• Handover. What information reaches the person doing the work, and what gets lost on the way.
• Billing. How quickly invoices go out and how long payment takes.
• The owner's week. Which tasks only the owner can do, and which they do out of habit.

Who it's for

It's for businesses with steady demand that feel stretched. You'll recognise the signs:

• You lose work because quotes go out three days after the visit.
• Customers call twice to ask the same question because nobody called them back.
• You have one or two staff who "just know how things work", and you worry about what happens if they leave.
• You haven't had a full week off since you opened.

It suits service firms, trades, clinics, studios and small retailers alike. The details differ, but the pattern of a business outgrowing its owner's memory is the same.

What's included

1. Walk-through. We trace five to ten recent customers from first contact to final payment, noting every step and every wait.
2. Short interviews. Brief calls with the people who handle enquiries, quotes and scheduling.
3. Bottleneck report. The two or three points that cost the most, each with an estimate of lost revenue or lost hours.
4. Routines and checklists. Plain-language steps for each fix, including who owns it and how quickly it should happen.
5. First-hire sequence. If a hire is part of the answer, which role to fill first, what it owns, and how to tell after 90 days whether it's working.
6. Follow-up check. A call about six weeks later to see what stuck and what needs adjusting.

Timeline

A typical review runs four weeks: one week for the walk-through, one for interviews and analysis, one to draft routines, and one to agree and launch them. The follow-up check comes about six weeks after launch. Larger businesses with several teams may need longer.

How results are measured

We pick measures that matter to cash and to your time, and record a starting figure before any change:

• Quote turnaround, from site visit or enquiry to quote sent.
• Response time to new enquiries during business hours.
• Share of quotes followed up within a set number of days.
• Days to payment after work is finished.
• Owner hours spent on tasks someone else could do.

Here's why the first measure matters so much. If you send 40 quotes a month at an average of $1,500 and win 30% of them, that's $18,000 in sales. If faster, consistent follow-up lifts the win rate to 36%, you add about $3,600 a month without a single extra lead. Those figures are illustrative; your own numbers will come from the walk-through.

Mistakes to avoid

• Buying software to fix a people problem. A new booking system won't help if nobody owns the follow-up.
• Writing a 40-page manual. Nobody reads it. One-page checklists, kept where the work happens, get used.
• Hiring a generalist "to help out". A first hire without a clear area of ownership often ends up doing the owner's errands, and the bottleneck stays.
• Changing everything at once. Fix one bottleneck, let it settle for a few weeks, then move to the next.
• Forgetting the paperwork that comes with staff. Once you employ people in BC, registration with WorkSafeBC and employment obligations come into play. We flag them; your accountant and lawyer handle them.

If you suspect the problem starts with your own calendar, our owner's time audit guide is a good first step you can take alone. For a business that needs someone to run operations day to day rather than advise on them, Coquitlam.Management offers fractional management. Otherwise, see pricing and call, text or email to set up a walk-through, or start with an hourly session.