free
Update Check
In seven minutes you know where your company’s bottleneck is and where it makes sense to start.
Strategy Lab for a company that runs even when you’re not there
Clients who choose you for what you do best, and a company that keeps running when you’re away. You get there by writing down how things get done at your company, so a new hire learns a procedure instead of having it explained every time, and by sharing decisions with your team, with a dashboard. It’s built on your company’s real work.
What changes at your company
The work you’ll see happening, one piece at a time.
The way you really work, written down
How a quote goes out, with the steps only you know today, written down in the words of the people who do it.
Leads stop slipping away
A list of who to call back and when, call scripts your team has tested, quotes that go out sooner.
Clients see why they should choose you
One sentence that says what you do best and for whom, tested on real quotes and on the phone. A discount goes back to being your call.
You and your team share the work
With a clear way to decide and a dashboard, so “can we do this?” stops landing only on your desk.
You can be away for two weeks
New people read the procedures, managers have the numbers, and the company keeps going.
Start from the step you need
Every step leaves you with something, even if you stop there.
Update Next
You get one piece of your company unstuck at a time: every three weeks you work on it with Davide, and what works is written down in a playbook.
Update System
You can be away for two weeks and the company keeps going, because the things only you knew have become written procedures.
If you’ve tried before
You hired an experienced manager, and six months later it wasn’t working the way you’d hoped. You wrote procedures nobody reads.
It happens when a company has grown past the point where you do everything yourself, and there’s no written way of working underneath yet. You build one now, inside the real work, with the people you have.
The 12 solutions, three per Lab
If what you need sits in another Lab, start here.
Frequently asked questions
Marketing first, or organisation first?
It depends on where the company gets stuck. If clients come in and the company can’t run without you, organisation first. If the company runs and clients choose on price, marketing first.
How much of my time does it take?
A lot at the start, because the things only you know have to be written down. Then less and less, as the work passes to the people who take it on.
How do you answer “you’re more expensive”?
With a positioning clients recognise before they look at the price: what you do best, for whom, and how it shows.
Does it work for a generational handover?
Yes. Whoever comes in inherits written procedures and people who make decisions, instead of inheriting one person’s head.
A checklist to go through at your own pace: would the company hold up for thirty days without you? Email it to me
Would the company hold up for thirty days without you? The checklist_
Twelve checks on decisions, procedures, delegation, clients and quotes. Tick the ones that are true for you today.
Where should we send the checklist?
It appears below, and we email it to you too, so you can find it on Monday.
Here it is
We've emailed it to you as well.
The email didn’t go out: the checklist is below, save it or print it.
Your details didn’t reach us, and we won’t pretend they did: if you’d like us to get back to you, write to info@updatelabs.it.
- 01
Day-to-day decisions are taken by someone who isn't you.
If every "can we do this?" goes through you, you're the bottleneck, not the market.
- 02
The three most important processes are written down the way they're actually done.
The procedures in the quality manual and the ones on a Monday morning rarely match.
- 03
A new person can work out how to write a quote without asking you.
It's the simplest test of how much knowledge is on paper and how much is in people's heads.
- 04
You know who covers for whom if a key person is away for two weeks.
A company that depends on one person carries a risk that shows up in no balance sheet.
- 05
Two or three people own a piece of the company, with a dashboard.
Delegating without numbers is hoping; delegating with a dashboard is organising.
- 06
In the last six months you took five days off in a row without stepping in.
It's the most honest measure of how well the company runs without you.
- 07
Salespeople use the CRM to decide, not to file.
A CRM full of data nobody reads is an archive, and that's where opportunities get lost.
- 08
You can say in one sentence why a client chooses you over a competitor.
If the sentence doesn't exist, price chooses for you.
- 09
Quotes go out within two days of the request.
Response time is the first positioning a client sees.
- 10
Meetings end with who does what by when.
Meetings without written decisions repeat themselves the following week.
- 11
A new hire learns a procedure instead of having it told to them.
Every time it's told, it's told a little differently.
- 12
There's a date, every quarter, when you look at the numbers with your managers.
Without a fixed date, numbers get looked at when there's a problem, which is late.
If more than three boxes are empty, take the Update Check: it tells you which one to start with.