Marty GauthierJust Asking

Consulting, then my own business · Code Machine

Serving clients took far too much work

Build the business around work that works.

An agency division was losing money serving its clients. We turned its best working habits into shared procedures and one tool, found roughly 125 accounts bringing in no revenue, and the business was profitable about three months after the acquisition.

How CodeMountain, one of my businesses, got its start.

What changed · After the acquisition

Before: an agency division losing money while serving roughly 500–600 small and medium-sized businesses. The review found roughly 125 accounts bringing in no revenue. After: shared procedures, one tool built around them and that review of the accounts; profitable about three months after the acquisition.

How I measured this 

BeforeA system on every deskThe changeShared proceduresNowOne tool around the work

Concept illustration: every desk with its own system, then shared procedures, then one tool built around the work. Code Machine itself isn’t shown.

01 The friction

The best process was already there. In pieces.

About 12 years ago, I was consulting for an agency serving roughly 500–600 small and medium-sized businesses. Websites, campaigns, improvements and everyday requests. More than 30 account managers were coordinating the work.

The good habits were there. They just weren’t shared.

We sat down with half a dozen to a dozen of them. We looked through their spreadsheets, checklists and Post-its. The most productive managers had useful ways of keeping things moving. Much of that knowledge lived on their own computers, or stuck to the edge of a screen.

We also studied the requests: what clients needed, how they asked for it, and what kept coming back. Before building anything, we needed to understand the people, the work and the clients.

02 The change

Make the good habits available to everyone.

We mapped the recurring requests from client intake through delivery. Then we turned the strongest working practices into shared procedures: the steps to follow for each type of request. Less reinventing the same job, one account manager at a time.

Meanwhile, the large Canadian company that owned the agency was restructuring and wanted to sell that division. My partner and I looked at the numbers. The agency was losing money, but we had already worked out how much of its day-to-day work could be organized differently.

We made an offer. During the negotiations, we built Code Machine: a client and project management tool shaped around those procedures, from incoming requests to delivery. By the time the price and transition were agreed, the software was ready. That became the starting point for CodeMountain.

Before

  1. Each manager’s own spreadsheet
  2. Each manager’s own checklist
  3. Each manager’s own way of delivering

Now

  1. Each request mapped once
  2. One shared procedure
  3. One tool built around the work

03 Simpler work

The workflow stopped depending on whose desk it landed on.

Client management and delivery now followed the same defined steps inside a tool built for that work. The practical knowledge we had found with individual managers became part of how the business operated.

We kept refining the procedures during the transition. We also went through the acquired records account by account. That helped us see the paying portfolio more clearly and renegotiate the remaining acquisition payments.

≈ 125

Found in the account review

accounts bringing in no revenue

Code Machine is still in use more than a decade later. The software lasted because it was built around work we had taken the time to understand.

04 The result

We could see the fix before we bought the business.

How I measured this My recollections from about 12 years ago, not audited figures. The result came from the procedures, the software, the account review and our decisions together, not the software alone.

Sometimes a business doesn’t need more customers. It needs a lighter way to serve the ones it already has.

  1. Profitable

    after the acquisition

    ≈ 3 months

  2. Investment covered

    the profits covered what the acquisition cost

    ≈ 4 months

  3. Transition complete

    procedures refined, accounts reviewed

    ≈ 6 months

A question worth asking before an acquisition.

That experience changed how we look at acquisitions. When a business already has clients, revenue and recurring work but struggles to make a profit, we look closely at the cost of serving those clients. Repeated coordination, manual steps and different ways of handling the same request can leave room for improvement.

Understanding that work can reveal where shared procedures and useful automation would make a difference to the margins. That is what gave us confidence in this acquisition.

The division was already part of its parent’s restructuring when we took it over. Account management changed too: once the non-revenue accounts were set aside and the managers’ best practices became shared procedures, a much smaller group could handle broadly comparable work.

Does the same request get handled a different way on every desk? Let’s talk 

A good question is a place to start

How did this become your full-time job?

The chasing, the checking, the keeping-it-all-in-your-head. Probably not what you had in mind when you started. Let’s see what we can take off your plate.

  1. 1Write a few lines.A few words are enough to start. You don’t need a finished brief.
  2. 2I read it and reply personally by email.
  3. 3We find a time to talk from there.We agree on length and price before starting.

Or find me on LinkedIn 

Let’s talk about your business.

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