Operations Design & Automation

Stop building around symptoms.
Start with clarity.

I help founders get clarity before anything gets built.

One operational area. Three business days. A clear path forward.

Three ways in.
One constraint.

Every engagement is focused on a single operational area. Not your whole business, just one problem or one initiative. That focus is what makes the output actually useful.

Diagnose

Something is not working

You can feel the drag but cannot quite pin it down. Manual workarounds, reporting gaps, broken handoffs. I map the current state and show you exactly where the problem lives.

  • Manual process analysis
  • Workflow bottleneck mapping
  • Broken onboarding flows
  • Reporting gaps and data issues
See the offer
Design

Something needs building

You have an idea: an AI workflow, a founder dashboard, a CRM rebuild, but you are not ready to hand it to a developer yet. I design the system properly before the build begins.

  • AI workflow architecture
  • Founder and ops dashboards
  • Client portal design
  • CRM structure and automation
See the offer
Build It

Something specific to automate

You have a clear brief and you just need it built. No sprint required. Send through what you need and I will come back with a scope and a quote.

  • Make.com automation builds
  • Data sourcing and enrichment
  • CRM and tool integrations
  • AI-powered workflow automation
Request a quote
Operations Optimisation Sprint

Three days.
One clear answer.

A focused engagement that gives you a current state review, a thorough analysis of the problem or initiative, a future state design, and a roadmap you can hand straight to any implementation team.

3
Business days from kickoff to delivery
1
Operational area, no scope creep
AUD $649
Sprint fee credited to implementation engagements of AUD $1,500 or more
Your time commitment
Kickoff call (you) 60 minutes
Stakeholder interviews Up to 60 minutes each, up to 2 people (where relevant)
Findings walkthrough 30 to 45 minutes

Your total Between 1.5 and 3.5 hours depending on team involvement
Sprint fee credited toward implementation
Continue with Drew Smith for an implementation engagement of AUD $1,500 or more and the full $649 sprint fee comes off your project cost. No repeat discovery costs. We start with full context already in place.

You leave with a document you can act on immediately.

1
You will know exactly what is broken and why
Not a vague sense that things could be better. A mapped current state, annotated with where the friction lives and what is causing it.
2
You will see what good looks like
A future state design showing the workflow, the tools, and everything you are building toward, before anyone writes a line of code.
3
You will have a roadmap any team can execute
Phased, prioritised, with tool recommendations. Hand it to a developer, an agency, or use it yourself. No repeat discovery needed.
4
You will walk through it together
A 30 to 45 minute findings session is included. Every section explained, every question answered, before you take a single next step.
DREW SMITH
Operations Optimisation Sprint
Findings &
Recommendations
Prepared exclusively for Acme Agency
Engagement type
Diagnose
Operational area
Client onboarding process
This document includes
Current state workflow & assessment
Bottleneck analysis & findings
Future state design & workflow
Implementation roadmap with next steps
Visual diagrams & written findings
Findings walkthrough session
The findings document delivered at the end of every sprint

Simple from the start.

Four steps, minimal time from you, a clear deliverable at the end.

1
Book your session
Pick a time via Cal.com and fill in a short intake form about your operational challenge.
2
60-minute kickoff call
We map the problem or initiative together. I ask the questions most people skip before building.
3
Three days of focused work
I review your current state, analyse the problem or design the solution, and build your roadmap.
4
Findings walkthrough
A 30 to 45 minute session walking through everything. Diagrams, recommendations, and clear next steps.
Book a sprint via Cal.com AUD $650 · Full fee credited toward implementation · No repeat discovery costs

You leave with a plan.
What happens next is up to you.

The sprint produces a clear roadmap and implementation brief. Where you take it from there depends on what makes sense for your business.

1

Build it yourself

Take the roadmap and brief to your internal team. Everything is documented clearly enough that any capable operator or developer can pick it up and run.

2

Hand it to an agency

Brief your preferred developer, agency, or automation specialist with a fully scoped document. No ambiguity, no wasted discovery time on their end.

Drew Smith
Operations Design & Automation
20 years in operations Salesforce certified x4 Make.com advanced certified Enterprise to SMB

I have spent 20 years inside operationally complex businesses doing the work most consultants only advise on. Marketing operations, CRM architecture, automation systems, AI workflows. Not in theory but in production, for real teams, with real accountability. For the past several years I have worked independently with founders and growing businesses, bringing that same rigour to a smaller scale.

ADP
Director, Marketing Performance & Analytics
Led a lead management transformation that delivered 25% lead growth across Australia and New Zealand.
Criteo
Senior Manager, Marketing Operations
Managed global lead management and won a Standing Ovation Award for transforming marketing and sales alignment across the business.
Verizon
Regional Marketing Manager, Automation & Analytics
Led APAC marketing automation and built the Salesforce reporting infrastructure used by sales operations across the region.
The pattern I kept seeing was the same: businesses investing in implementation before anyone had properly defined the problem. Wrong tools, wrong order, wasted budget. The Operations Optimisation Sprint exists because diagnosis and design are the work that should happen first, every time. I work with one operational area at a time, produce a clear deliverable, and leave you with something you can act on immediately, whether that is with me or with anyone else.

Thinking first. Then building.

The brief is never the whole story. Here is what happens when you take the time to find out.

4,000+ prospect database built from scratch

Recruitment · Startup

"I need to build our prospect dental clinic database for Australia."

A clear enough brief, but the structure had to come before the sourcing. What workflows would the database need to support? How did records need to be tagged to be useful in the field? What did done actually look like? That thinking determined everything. The scraping and enrichment followed from it.

Consistent 10%+ response rate on warm outreach. The database is now the core operational asset the entire business runs on.

Zero manual quote chasing across a 5-person team

Professional services · 5 staff

"How can I get my team to focus on quotes?"

Before anything was built, three questions needed answering: what does overdue actually mean for this business, who needs to know, and what are they supposed to do about it. Getting those answers took half a day. The build took two. Without the clarity it would have been rebuilt three times.

Each team member now receives a daily email showing their overdue, due-this-week, and due-next-week quotes pulled live from Monday.com. Zero manual chasing.

Five tools replaced by one founder dashboard

Recruitment · Startup

"Where do I start my day?"

The answer was not another tool. It was a single view that pulled together what already existed: pipeline, calendar, revenue. The first conversation mapped what decisions needed to be made each morning and what data each one needed. Then it was built.

One dashboard. One place to start the day. Built and deployed in two weeks.

Client portal rebuilt in two weeks

Marketing agency · Startup

"We need better portals."

The portal was not the sole problem. There was no agreed definition of what a client should experience from signed contract to first delivery. The portal would have been built on top of a broken process. The process came first.

Self-serve kickoff checklists, unified portal, and a standardised deliverables process. Live within two weeks.

Not sure where to start?

Work through the same questions I ask at the start of every engagement. It takes about ten minutes and will give you a clearer picture of what's actually going on before we speak. It will arrive in your inbox immediately after you submit.

Before You Build: Free Diagnostic

A short set of questions that cuts through the noise. Whether you book a sprint or not, you will leave with more clarity than you arrived with.

Take the free diagnostic

Let's talk about what you need.

Whether you know exactly what you want built or you are still figuring out the problem, fill in what you can and I will come back to you within 24 hours.