This report is a complete, do-it-yourself playbook. Every finding is written so you can act on it with your own team, in your own time, without hiring anyone — including the implementation steps. Your assessment includes a follow-up to help you with implementation. You can also choose to employ Rapid Developments to help with direct implementation.

The purpose of this report is to offer you the opportunity to save costs by following this guide for self-implementation, or to have a full understanding of what would be done during implementation and what your investment is getting you.

Each finding follows the same shape:

• What we found — the observation, in plain terms.
• Why it matters — the cost or risk of leaving it, with an indicative dollar or time impact where we can reasonably estimate one.
• What we recommend — the change.
• How to do it yourself — the practical steps.
• If you'd like us to handle it — the equivalent done-for-you option.

That last line appears throughout so you always know what you could hand over. None of it is required. The report is yours to execute. If at any point you'd rather have it done for you, Section 10 collects those options into a single menu, quoted on the hours each task takes.

An Undertow Assessment is built around watching how the business actually runs, not how it's described in a meeting.

• A pre-assessment conversation — your goals, your pressures, and where you think the problems are. (In this engagement we ran it in reverse, on-site first, to suit your availability — the order is flexible.)
• On-site observation — a working visit. We sit with the team, watch the real workflow (the inbox at 7am, the phones, the run sheet, the quoting), and talk to the people doing the work.
• Who's involved — you, plus whichever of your team touch the areas in scope. Everyone is told plainly that this is about making their work easier, not about their jobs.
• The report — this document: findings, recommendations, a sequenced action plan, and the how-to.
• Follow-up & implementation guidance — time set aside after the report to talk it through and support you getting it underway.

We get more value to you by going deep where we're genuinely useful, and being honest about where we're not.

In scope operations, processes, systems and configuration, lead handling, quoting and conversion, scheduling, marketing effectiveness and attribution, customer retention, team communication, and the efficiency and reporting side of finance.

Deliberately out of scope (and why)

• Financial / investment advice. We address how money moves, is tracked, and is reported — not what to invest in or how to fund it. The only costs we put numbers to are the costs of implementing what we recommend.
• Compliance code interpretation. We don't decipher industry standards or licensing codes on your behalf — you know your trade better than we ever will, and we'd like to keep it that way. What we can do is help build mechanisms and processes so your compliance obligations are captured and trackable.
• Items better suited to a later phase — noted in Section 9 so nothing falls through the cracks.

Northgate is in a great place right now. There are a few key bottlenecks creating compounding time burdens, and that's keeping everyone extremely busy — but there are some very strong, low-impact solutions that can help gain time back for everyone on the team.

You mentioned that your goal isn't growth for your business; you'd prefer the same size, making more money, and without you having to hold everything together. The main points from the on-site assessment should give you some solid steps towards making that a reality over the next 8 weeks.

The main points — quickest wins first

1. The leads you already generate just need a faster callback. Enquiries land through six uncoordinated channels and Kayla re-keys each one by hand. Because she's buried under the phone in peak season, new leads often aren't called back until the same-day window has passed and the customer has already booked someone else. That's work you'd effectively already won, walking out the door — on the order of tens of thousands of dollars of installs in a peak month (the workings are in 6.2), and a faster, more reliable callback is one of the quickest things to put right. (See 6.2.)
2. There's money sitting in the quotes you already send. Brett and Tyler are superb technically; the opportunity is simply to help them guide a customer to a decision, and to follow a quote up, which no one does today. The expensive part is already behind you — you've found the lead and produced the quote — so each extra one you win adds income with almost no cost or extra work behind it. (See 6.4.)
3. You can see what your $54k marketing spend actually brings in. Today the agency reports reach, clicks and a "47 leads" figure that doesn't reconcile with what Kayla actually fields, and no one can yet say which dollar produced which booked job. A small amount of source-tracking closes that gap, so you know your true cost per booked job and can back the campaigns that bring in real work. (See 6.6.)
4. The after-service care that built your loyal customers can be switched back on. The post-install care calls that earned you those ten-year customers have lapsed, and the record of every unit you've installed — the data that would drive proactive service — has never been captured. Putting both back in place turns your existing customers into steadier, counter-seasonal work through the quiet months. (See 6.7.)
5. simPRO is already capable — it just needs setting up. It can already do most of the above — lead capture, an asset register, a quoting template — it was just never configured. This currently has the team working around it by hand and the burden passes down the chain. Most of these wins are quick precisely because you already use the tool that can deliver them. (See 6.3, 6.5.)
6. As these land, you get out of the middle of the day. Right now quoting, escalations, approvals and even routine customer contact all come through you — but when we tested it, very little would actually break if you stepped back for an hour. The urgency can be reduced by creating a few defined systems for your staff to use, instead of having them rely on the knowledge that lives only in your head. As the steps above take hold, your team stops relying on you for routine or administrative decisions, which frees you up for strategy monitoring from an overview perspective. (See 6.1.)

Your goals not to be the central pathway all major work and decisions depend on; to take a proper break without the phone going off; more income from your business without expanding; and to reduce the off-hours you spend putting out small fires.

What's genuinely working your team. Reviews consistently praise how respectful, clean and thorough your techs are. They're your core asset, and every recommendation here is built to protect that, not disturb it.

6.1  Owner reliance & capacity

What we found Quoting (especially the larger ducted and commercial jobs), customer escalations, supplier issues, scheduling conflicts and payment approvals all come through you. You're also the direct line for long-standing customers, plenty of whom call or text your mobile. When we tested what would actually break if you stepped away for an hour, the honest answer was almost nothing: one genuinely urgent job, and Macca could have handled that. The urgency is mostly habit, and the fact that a lot of the know-how lives only in your head.

Why it matters It caps the business at how much you can personally get through in a day, and it sits underneath several of the other findings here. It's also the main thing standing between you and the business you said you want — the one that runs without you holding it together.

What we recommend Make this the thread running through everything else: each change in this report should take away one more reason the day has to come through you. The distinction that matters is between seeing and doing. You need to be able to see what's happening across the business; you don't need to personally do or approve each thing.

How to do it yourself

1. List every task that currently waits on you for a week. Mark each: must be me / could be someone else with a guide / could be a system.
2. Tackle the "could be a system / someone with a guide" items first — they're addressed throughout this report.
3. Keep the personal customer line you value (it's a genuine asset), but route new enquiries through a managed path (6.2) so it stops being the default catch-all.

If you'd like us to handle it We can run the task-mapping workshop and build the delegation playbook with you.

6.2  Front-of-house & lead handling

What we found Enquiries reach you through at least six uncoordinated doors — the phone, the website form, Facebook DMs and comments, the agency's lead emails, and the customer texts you forward through to the office. Kayla re-keys every one of them into simPRO by hand. In peak season the phone never stops — she's fielding an estimated 50–60 enquiries a week — so new leads often aren't entered or called back until the afternoon or the next day, by which point a share of them have already booked a competitor. She keeps her own private spreadsheet to track the volume, because simPRO was never set up to do it for her.

Why it matters This is where revenue leaks before anyone has had a chance to win it. For home-services enquiries, speed-to-contact is decisive — the first business to call back usually gets the job. Every lead that goes cold on the desk is a job you paid for, in marketing and in Kayla's time, to generate and then lost for the want of a callback.

What we recommend One automated, qualifying intake that funnels every channel into simPRO, with the human callback kept. Manual entry drops to near zero, and "ready now" is sorted from "pricing for later" automatically — so Kayla calls the hot ones back first instead of working through them in the order they happened to land.

How to do it yourself

1. Turn on and configure simPRO's web/lead capture so website and form enquiries create records automatically.
2. Route Facebook and the agency leads into the same intake (native integration or a connector tool).
3. Add a short qualifying step (timeframe, job type) so tyre-kickers are visible but don't crowd out hot leads — a real person still calls back.
4. Add a phone call-queue with a brief helpful message so callers don't hang up believing no one will answer.

If you'd like us to handle it We can configure the intake, wire the channels into simPRO, and set the qualifying logic and call-queue.

6.3  Systems & technology

What we found The tools aren't the problem; it's that they're barely set up, so work simPRO could be doing falls back onto your people instead (techs to the office to Macca to you). simPRO can do far more than you're using it for — the pricebook, lead capture, the asset register, recurring-maintenance scheduling and the customer portal are mostly switched off. It already syncs to Xero for invoicing, but the front end isn't connected, so the web, Facebook and agency leads all get keyed in by hand. Tech use of the mobile app is hit and miss — partly habit, partly genuinely poor signal in roof cavities — so paper dockets carry on and live job status can't be trusted.

Why it matters Every workaround is another round of manual re-entry, and another thing you can't see. Unreliable job status is why Macca spends his mornings ringing around (6.5), and it's why any dashboard you build later will only ever be as honest as what the team actually puts in.

What we recommend Set up what you already own before you buy anything new. Check what simPRO can already do before considering another platform — a separate CRM may well turn out to be unnecessary. Make the asset register an early priority, because it's what powers the retention work in 6.7.

How to set up the asset register (DIY)

1. In simPRO, enable customer Assets and define an asset type for installed units (make/model, install date, warranty expiry, location).
2. Add the capture fields to the tech mobile job form so every install/service records the unit on site.
3. Back-fill key existing customers as service jobs come through — don't try to do it all at once.
4. Set warranty-expiry and service-due reminders off the asset records to drive proactive contact.

Also address

• One live view (a dashboard). Once the data's reliable, bring simPRO, Xero and the ad-platform numbers into a single view of jobs, leads, bookings, cash flow and expenses — for seeing, not approving (6.1, 6.8). It's only ever as good as the live job updates feeding it, so sort tech adoption first.
• Tech adoption. Check the devices and mobile data are up to the job, use simPRO's offline mode for roof-cavity work, and make updating a job in the app the easy option rather than the annoying one.

If you'd like us to handle it We can run the simPRO configuration audit, set up the asset register and reminders, and build the integrated dashboard.

6.4  Quoting & sales conversion

What we found You do the large quotes yourself — the drive time, the confidence in the pricing, and customers wanting to see the boss. Brett and Tyler steer clear of simPRO's quoting, but not out of laziness: the pricebook was never set up, the signal's poor on site, and it's slower than paper, so they scope on paper and hand Kayla a docket to re-type. More important than any of that is what happens in the quote itself — it informs but doesn't progress. The customer gets a thorough education, then gets left to "have a think." No question about budget, timeline or who actually decides, no clear next step, and no follow-up at all once the quote goes out. Nobody knows the close rate.

Why it matters This is the biggest single chance to make more without growing, and it asks for no extra leads and no extra capacity — it's income from quotes you're already producing.

What we recommend Three moves, all working with how your team already operate, not against it.

1. A mobile-friendly quoting template in simPRO that captures the things you check for on the big jobs (roof and manhole access, switchboard load and a possible electrical upgrade, asbestos, duct-run space), with photo prompts, and prices with all your overheads, labour and supplies already built in so the right number doesn't depend on what's in someone's head. Fill it in on site, then review and save the quote with the customer once you're out of the roof. It removes the paper docket — one less re-entry for Kayla — and it quietly carries your pricing know-how, and Brett's, into a form Tyler can lean on when you're not there.
2. One gentle scheduling question on every quote: offer the customer the option to book in straight away. That's not pressure — it just lets a ready customer say "book it" instead of drifting off to "have a think."
3. A follow-up routine that prompts a person rather than firing off automated emails — you've said you'd rather keep the human touch, and we agree. simPRO reminds an estimator; around 30 minutes a day goes on follow-up calls, framed as "just seeing when we can get you on the schedule," not selling. Each call's outcome gets logged (booked / still deciding / lost, with the reason), and over time those notes become the close-rate and lost-reason numbers you don't have today.

How to do it yourself

1. Configure the simPRO pricebook and build the quote template with the site-check fields and photo prompts above.
2. Build your overhead, labour and supply rates into the template pricing.
3. Add the "book now" question to the quote conversation and the follow-up reminder to the workflow.
4. Block 30 minutes daily for follow-up calls; log outcomes.
5. Start the weekly estimator check-ins.

If you'd like us to handle it We can configure the pricebook and template, set the follow-up automation, and run the initial estimator coaching sessions.

6.5  Scheduling & dispatch

What we found Macca runs the day from simPRO plus printed run sheets, a whiteboard and his phone — but the real juggling lives in his head. Because the techs don't reliably update job status, he spends his mornings ringing around to find out where everyone actually is. Overruns — often the same on-site surprises a proper quoting template would catch — cascade down the day. There's no slack for emergencies, parts back-orders blindside the run sheet, and because jobs aren't clustered by area, the crews criss-cross the region burning drive time on 80km round trips.

Why it matters It costs you wasted drive time, jobs running late, a flood of "where's my tech?" calls landing back on Kayla's phone, and end-of-day jobs getting rushed. And because none of it is measured, there's no read on how hard your crews are actually being worked — no jobs-per-day, no travel time, no idle time.

What we recommend Most of Macca's pain is downstream of problems already in this report, so the fix is to relieve it through the upstream changes rather than redesigning how he works:

• Get the techs updating job status in the app (6.3) so Macca can see where everyone is instead of ringing around.
• Tighten quoting and scoping (6.4) so fewer jobs overrun.
• Surface parts on-hand and on-order against the booking, so a back-order shows up before a date is promised, not on the morning of.

Plus two light, direct wins:

• A standing emergency slot around three days a week, sized from your own emergency data (more through summer), so routine jobs push easily and a heater-down slots in without blowing up the day. When the slot goes unused, point it at preventative-maintenance visits — revenue and retention — or give Macca the window to check the jobs are being logged properly. Either way, the spare slot earns its keep.
• Region-batching: the crews start from the yard each morning for sign-off, head out on travel-sensible runs, and return central. This is the change that makes Macca's job easier almost immediately — the run sheet becomes orderable, customers get accurate arrival windows, and the driving drops. It also means the whole crew is on-site first thing, which is what makes the five-minute morning check-in (6.9) possible. The techs may grumble for a week, but most would rather be working than driving in circles.

How to do it yourself

1. Make app status updates a daily expectation; pair with the morning huddle so it sticks.
2. Add a recurring emergency block to the schedule; define the "if unused → preventative maintenance" default.
3. Group each day's jobs by area into runs; build run sheets around geography.
4. Add a parts-status check to the booking step.

If you'd like us to handle it We can configure the emergency-slot logic, set up region-batched run sheets, and connect parts status to bookings.

6.6  Marketing & lead attribution

What we found Your agency — Northside Digital, run by Jarrod — is on roughly $4,500 a month (about $54k a year). The monthly report is heavy on reach, impressions, clicks and engagement, leads with a "47 leads" headline, and recommends lifting the budget. Two problems. First, that "47 leads" counts only Jarrod's own tracked channels — a call-tracking number and the website form — so it can't be squared with what Kayla actually fields, which is 50–60 enquiries a week in peak. Second, and bigger: nothing in the report connects a dollar of spend to a booked job or a dollar of revenue. And you don't hold logins to your own website or analytics.

Why it matters A serious annual spend is being renewed on faith. And neither Jarrod's report nor Kayla's spreadsheet can answer the one question that matters — which leads actually came from the paid ads — because Kayla's sheet logs the channel a lead came in through (its "phone" column mixes ad-driven callers, ten-year repeats and referrals), and no one asks "how did you hear about us?" at the point of contact. So the cost per ad-driven lead can't be worked out from anything you have today.

What we recommend Phased, and without putting a good relationship with Jarrod at risk.

• First, validate — don't cut. Start capturing where leads come from. Have Kayla ask "how did you hear about us?" on as many calls as she can from today, and add a source field in simPRO. Then do a one-off look back over last month's lead log — which ones became customers, and were they already in the system before they called (a repeat) or genuinely new — for a rough first read on the real picture.
• Frame the ask to Jarrod as clarification, not suspicion. You want to see which leads come from Google ads, which from Facebook, and which from organic search, because each one reaches a different kind of customer in a different way — not because anyone's under question. Get that data flowing cleanly into simPRO, and get yourself your own logins.
• Capacity before leads. When the suggestion to raise the budget comes up, the honest first question is "could you handle more leads right now?" — and right now the answer is no, you're turning work away in peak. Sort the day-to-day first, then lift demand. And more demand isn't always more spend; it can be better targeting, a better message, or better timing.
• Reposition, don't replace (yet). You won't be ready to run marketing and the website in-house for a good twelve months. Keep Jarrod, but as a higher-priority, more accountable engagement — and make any renewal conditional on the attribution going live, so next time you're deciding on what actually booked jobs, not on faith.
• The longer game: build up your SEO and add an articles section so organic traffic grows and the paid spend can concentrate where it converts; and use what people click on in the ads to shape Kayla's posts and the retention email (6.7).
• The slow season is the real prize. Anyone can sell cooling in January. Filling the quiet months — heating, maintenance plans, the retention list — is where the steadier margin and cash flow live, and it's a good job to put Jarrod onto.

How to do it yourself

1. Start the "how did you hear about us?" habit today, and add the source field in simPRO.
2. Do the one-off look back over last month's lead log.
3. Email Jarrod asking for source-split reporting, clean data into simPRO, and your own website and analytics logins — framed as bringing him in on what you're building.
4. Hold the budget where it is, and set the capacity-first condition on any increase.

If you'd like us to handle it We can set up source tracking and attribution in simPRO, brief Jarrod, and run the look-back analysis.

6.7  Customer retention & after-service care

What we found You used to call customers about a week after an install to check everything was running well. As you got busier, that quietly fell away — nobody decided to stop, it just drifted. There's no list and no system for it, so now it only happens if someone remembers, which is more or less never. There's no ongoing contact with past customers either, and the record of what you've installed for them — the thing that would let you reach out at the right time — has never been captured.

Why it matters Twelve years of installs is a big pool of future service, maintenance and replacement work. And that after-the-job care is exactly what's earned you the loyal, decade-long customers your business is built on. It's also work that lands in the quieter months (see the slow-season point above).

What we recommend Bring back genuine after-service care — run by the system, delivered by a person.

• The system does the tracking and the reminders so no one slips through; the call itself stays a real person. It has to be genuine — "how's it running, are you happy with it?" — never a service-upsell in disguise. Your customers can smell that a mile off, and the moment the care turns into a sales pitch you lose the very thing you're good at.
• Use the asset register (6.3) to time that contact well — a service due, a warranty about to run out, a unit getting on in years.
• Add a monthly email that's genuinely useful, not promotional: seasonal tips, when to book a service, how to run a unit efficiently, simple things people can do themselves. Kayla is keen and well-suited to own it — it's close to the Facebook posting she already does. The only hard part is keeping it up: better never started than started and dropped after two.

How to do it yourself

1. Set post-install reminders (off the job or asset record) for a care call ~1 week after completion; assign an owner; log the outcome.
2. Switch on asset-based service-due and warranty reminders.
3. Start a simple monthly tips email to past customers; keep it genuinely useful.

If you'd like us to handle it We can set up the care-call workflow, the asset-driven reminders, and the email program.

6.8  Finance — efficiency & visibility

Scope noteThis covers how money is tracked, moved and reported — not investment or funding advice. The only costs we quantify are the costs of implementing this report's recommendations.

What we found Routine operational payments — vehicle rego, parts bills — wait on you, because the card's in your name and you're the only signatory on the account. So Sharon has to track you down to pay things while you're up a roof or out on a quote. The finance side leans heavily on one person.

Why it matters A trusted, capable member of your team is held up on routine payments, and you're an extra gate the money has to pass through on its way out — time lost on both sides.

What we recommend Give Sharon a way to make routine operational payments without waiting on you — for example a separate card with a sensible limit, or a set amount swept across each month. That also keeps your operating costs cleanly separated for BAS and tax, away from wages and supplies. (Settle the exact structure with your accountant — that's their patch, not ours.) The key point is that you don't need to approve each payment; you need to see it, which the dashboard (6.3) gives you. Seeing and approving are not the same thing.

How to do it yourself

1. With your accountant, set up a limited operational payment method for Sharon.
2. Make sure those transactions feed the dashboard, so you can see them without being the gate they wait behind.

If you'd like us to handle it We can set up the reporting/visibility side and the dashboard feed (your accountant handles the financial structure).

6.9  People & communication

What we found Your team quietly absorb problems so they never reach you — which is admirable, and it's also why you can't see trouble coming. There's no regular point where everyone gets on the same page; coordination happens reactively, over the phone, mid-fire.

Why it matters Things that could be sorted at the source surface late instead, as fires. A bit of shared visibility and early word is the difference between running the day and chasing it.

What we recommend Two things, kept deliberately simple.

1. A daily five-minute stand-up

At a whiteboard, five minutes or less — "five minutes or less, or you're doing it wrong." Three questions each: what did you get done yesterday (done means done), what are you doing today, what's blocking you. New work goes up as a post-it on a backlog; people move their own notes as they pick them up, get into them, and finish. Everyone can see everything.

• Sizing work, without the jargon. Use a quick rough scale so people land on effort fast — "is that a one, a three or an eight?" Ask "is it a 7 or an 8" and they'll deliberate for days; ask "a 3 or a 5" and they'll agree almost instantly, unless one of them knows something the others don't — and surfacing that is the whole point. Use an analogy if it's easier: car-load or truck? A favour worth a beer, a six-pack, or a carton? If something rates "a bottle of scotch," it's too big — break it up.
• The payoff is everyone seeing the same picture: the techs see how their work lands on Macca; Brett and Tyler see how busy Kayla is; Kayla can flag when a marketing push is about to bring a spike of enquiries; and you or Sharon can flag a wave of work coming so supplies get ordered early — which is the back-order problem solved at the source.
• Keep it open, brief and broad-strokes — not a round of detailed status reports.
• For the field team: start the techs from the yard each morning (this also feeds the region-batching in 6.5) so they're at the board. If that's genuinely unworkable, run it on a video call with cameras on and everyone standing — no one stands for more than five minutes, which keeps it short.

2. Weekly development check-ins

For Tyler (6.4), pitched to him — which also keep transferring your pricing and judgement into the template.

How to do it yourself

1. Put up a whiteboard; define the three questions and the post-it backlog convention.
2. Run it at the same time daily; protect the five-minute limit.
3. Add the relative-sizing scale.
4. Start the weekly estimator check-in.

If you'd like us to handle it We can facilitate the first fortnight of stand-ups and set up the board and backlog conventions.

Sequenced so the foundations settle before more is added, so your team is never fighting new fires while the plan rolls out. At a glance, the first eight weeks lay out like this (illustrative timing):

Phase 1 — Recover time and capacity (the foundations)

Goal: win back time, and stop losing the leads and quotes you already have.

Phase 2 — Make it visible & reliable

Goal: you can see the business without holding it together; scheduling eases.

Phase 3 — Once the foundations hold

Goal: grow value from a stable base — only after capacity allows.

• Estimator development cadence embedded; close-rate tracked and improving (6.4).
• Marketing re-evaluated on attribution; budget decisions made on which campaigns book jobs; SEO/content begun; slow-season program (6.6).
• Begin prep to bring web/marketing in-house on a slow timeline; confirm asset ownership (domain, ad accounts, pixel, GBP) before any handover (6.6).
• Address the noted key-person/succession risk (Section 9).

The point of all this is that the improvement is visible and provable — not just a feeling that things are running a bit smoother. That starts with capturing a few rough baselines now, before anything changes. Several of these are currently "unknown," which is itself one of the findings:

• Quote close-rate (install and service) — currently untracked.
• True weekly lead volume by source — from the new source field and the look-back pass.
• Time spent on duplicate data entry per week.
• Average lead response time (enquiry to callback).
• Drive time and jobs-per-day per crew.
• Cost per ad-driven booked job.

The time this puts back in your week

The clearest early win is your own time. Below is an illustrative picture of the hours that run through you each week but don't need to, and how that should fall as Phase 1 and Phase 2 land. These are worked examples to show the shape of the change — your real figures come from the baselines above.

That's an illustrative ~12 hours a week coming off your plate — roughly the difference between quoting at 9pm at the kitchen table and actually being off the tools.

Where those hours go — now, and after

The same hours, broken down by where they're spent. Phase 1 takes the load off intake, quoting and payments; Phase 2 clears most of the scheduling and firefighting. (Illustrative.)

What those hours become

The point isn't just "less work." It's that you stop spending your week reacting — chasing, approving, firefighting — and start spending a chunk of it running the business properly. So it's worth putting some of those freed hours straight back to work, on the things only the owner can do:

Even after putting nearly six hours a week into oversight, the daily rhythm and strategy, you still have around six hours genuinely back. And the research-and-strategy time is the one that compounds: it's where you start spotting the next improvement yourself, so the business keeps getting better without waiting on anyone. Put a rough hourly value on your own time, add the work recovered in 6.2 and 6.4, and the assessment tends to pay for itself inside the first few months — but the bigger return is a business that no longer needs you in the middle of it.

Your week: before and after

The same stretch of your week, before and after. Today it's all reactive. Afterwards, most of it is either genuinely yours again or spent running the business rather than rescuing it.

The numbers you'll watch (your 30 minutes a day)

That oversight time only works if there's something concrete to look at. The baselines above become your weekly watchlist — the handful of numbers that tell you the business is healthy without you having to chase anyone:

• Quote close-rate, and quotes still open for follow-up.
• Lead response time, and leads by source (so you can see what marketing is actually booking).
• Jobs-per-day and drive time per crew.
• Cash position and money owed.
• The team pulse — happiness, stress, and how early problems are surfacing.

Once the dashboard (6.3) is live, most of these are on one screen, so the 30 minutes is genuinely a glance and a decision, not a data-entry job.

From unknown to visible

Several of the most important numbers in your business are simply unknown today. That isn't a criticism — it's one of the first things the systems put right. The shift looks like this:

Proving the gains — measure again at two weeks

You don't have to wait months to know it's working. Once the marketing data is clarified (6.6) and the new systems have been running for about two weeks, we re-measure against the pre-assessment baseline and look at the change across three things:

• Income — quotes converting, jobs booked from leads that used to go cold, and work picked up in the slow season.
• Savings, in time and dollars — hours back in your week and your team's, less double-handling, less wasted drive time, fewer jobs lost to back-orders.
• Staff sentiment — how your team are actually feeling: happier, less stressed, and talking to each other earlier. A short, honest pulse-check before and after tells you whether the load has genuinely come off your people — which is the thing that makes the rest of it stick.

An illustrative team pulse — a short, honest 1–5 check before, and again at two weeks — might look like this:

Re-measure again at a check-in a few months in, and each quarter after that. The point of the dashboard (6.3) is that most of these numbers start showing up on their own once the data's flowing, so measuring the change stops being a job and just becomes something you can see.

Flagged here so nothing is lost, even though it sits outside a first-pass assessment:

• Key-person / succession risk (6.3) — system-admin access and process knowledge concentrated in single individuals. Worth a dedicated piece of work to document, back up and de-risk.
• Deep financial structure — beyond efficiency and reporting, financial/investment decisions are for you and your accountant.
• Compliance code interpretation — your specialty, not ours; we can build mechanisms to support your obligations, but we don't interpret the standards on your behalf.
• Reviews & Google Business Profile — a genuine lead and trust lever, but it sits past the marketing decisions above. First step is simply to get the current state (include it in the agency email) and review it: if your reviews are excellent, surface them as website trust signals and use them to validate the genuine-care message in advertising; if any need attention, prioritise that. Recommendations to follow in a later phase.

Everything in this report is written for you to execute in-house. If you'd rather have any of it done for you, these are the pieces we can take on. Each is quoted on the hours the work requires — you pick what you want.

1. Read through with your team and decide which Phase 1 items to start first.
2. Capture the baselines in Section 8 before changing anything.
3. Send the marketing agency the clarification email (source-split, clean data into simPRO, your own logins).
4. Decide what — if anything — you'd like us to implement for you (Section 10).
5. Book the follow-up session included with your assessment to talk it through.