I help you free up your time and get your business organised.
Give me thirty days. If you’re not convinced we’re on the right path, ask for your money back and you get it.
The first call is free. Tell me what’s bugging you about the business and I’ll tell you whether I can help.
Mark Roddy · Founder
Sound familiar
You’ve started to think this is just how it runs
It’s harder than it should be and you can’t point at why. Nothing is on fire. It just takes everything you have to keep it moving.
There’s a list of things you stopped doing. Not because they stopped mattering, but because there was never a week with room in it.
You’re making it up as you go and you know it. The business got bigger than the way you run it.
The part you’ve stopped seeing is that the business works. People are paying you. Something in there is genuinely good, and it’s buried under the way you’re running it.
Why systems
Low-value work out, high-value work in
A big chunk of what people do in a small business can be automated, or half automated, with better systems. Get the low-value work off your team so they can spend their time on what actually makes you money.
Off your team’s plate
Invoicing, timesheets, chasing payments, data entry. A system does them the same way every time, so nobody is tied up in them. The business gets easier to run. Your staff feel that, and so do your customers.
And the numbers follow
Taking the admin off someone doesn’t mean they work less. It means their time goes into selling, or hiring, or the customer in front of them.
How it works
I stay until it works
I work across strategy, tech, operations and finance. I find the thing costing you most, then build the fix and stay while it beds in. It’s broad, whatever needs doing.
- 01
Diagnose
We start with what’s bugging you. The real bottleneck usually sits a layer or two underneath, in sales, operations or finances. We find it together and fix that one first.
- 02
Build
One thing at a time, and the first one is small enough to be working in weeks. Rebuilding everything at once means a year of work with nothing to show for it. A small fix that’s live and already saving you time beats a perfect plan that isn’t.
- 03
Compound
I stay on. What we fix in month one makes something possible in month four you couldn’t have done before, and that makes something possible in month six. The gains stack instead of resetting. It also starts going the other way, where you work out what I’m good for and start bringing me things.
Real work
Three businesses, before and after
Before
Payroll and invoicing ate the best part of a day, every week. Timesheets came in on paper and someone had to go and chase them. Every new client made it worse.
What we built
Hours go in once, on a phone, and come out the other end as payroll and invoices. The chasing runs itself.
What changed
- 1 hourpayroll and invoicing, down from the best part of a day
- ~70 days a yearof admin back, redirected into recruiting and sales
- 40%revenue uplift, on track for next financial year
Could this work in your business?
“I have gained an entire day each week to focus on growing the business, knowing operations are running properly.”
Hamish Street · Managing Director, Lion LabourWho you get
Someone who gets inside the business
Fifteen years across finance and technology. Time at CBA, then startups, then head of strategy at a business that went from nothing to a hundred million dollar valuation.
I can sit in your P&L in the morning and be building the fix that afternoon.
I also built Heather, an AI that does the grinding work behind me: cleaning data, drafting builds, holding every detail of your business so nothing gets re-explained. It means I move faster than one person should be able to.
There’s more on how Heather and I split the work. Read about that →
Notes
Written from inside the work
Write-ups as things ship: what the problem was, what we did, what it changed. New ones land as they go out.
Pricing
One price, two ways to pay
You’re paying for what gets built and what it changes. Inside the first month I work out how the business actually runs, build the first fix, and show you the plan for the rest of it.
Working together
The whole business, every week$3,000a month, plus GST$30,000for the year, paid up frontSaves you $6,000I work on the business with you. I’m on the inside every week, taking the low-value work off you and your team so your time goes where it should.
- One month. I get inside the business and show you something built and working
- Several things moving at once across strategy, tech, operations and finance
- No timesheets, no hourly rate
Ask for your money back any time before day thirty and you get it.
Bigger or messier businesses cost more and I’ll give you the number on the first call. If you only want one thing built, I’ll quote that on its own.
Fair questions
The things owners actually ask
What’s the catch with the first month?
There isn’t one. You pay like any other client. If you’re not convinced by day thirty, ask for your money back and I send it back. After that the guarantee is done and we’re just working together.
Why do I pay at all if you’re guaranteeing it?
Because free work doesn’t get taken seriously, by either of us. If you’ve paid, you turn up to the meetings and the work actually happens. That’s most of whether this works.
How do we know you can help?
Honestly, you don’t yet. That’s what the first month is for. I’m after the clients where I can already see what I would change, and roughly what it’s worth. If that’s not you, I’ll say so on the first call. If it is, and you’re still not convinced at day thirty, ask for your money back and go.
We bought software for this and it didn’t fix it.
That’s usually how it goes, and I say that as someone who rolled out software for a living. Software gets dropped on top of a process nobody has looked at in years, and the process was the problem. I go at the process first, then work out what should run it. Sometimes that’s software you already pay for. Sometimes it’s a spreadsheet.
How does one person do all of this?
It isn’t one person. I’ve spent about a year building Heather, an AI that does the grinding work behind me: cleaning data, drafting builds, holding every detail of your business so nothing gets re-explained. I do the part that needs someone in the room. You deal with me.
I’m not comfortable with an AI in our data.
Fair enough, and it comes up less than you would think. Most of what I build doesn’t need your real data to build it: names stripped, dummy records, then it goes live in your accounts. Where it does need access, it’s access you give and can take back. And if you’re still not comfortable, I’m not going to talk you into it.
What happens if we stop?
Everything is built in your accounts, in tools you own. If we stop, it all keeps working and it’s all yours. No lock-in, no hostage systems.
Tell me what is bugging you
A thirty-minute call. No deck, no pitch. You talk about the business, I tell you straight what I would fix first and whether I’m the right person to take it on. If I am, you’ve got thirty days to decide whether I was worth it.
Prefer email? mark.roddy@xplained.com.au goes straight to me. I read everything.