Role: Project Manager +
Operations Consultant
Operations and project management practices to scale a video marketing startup.
Video marketing agency, Pennant Video, needed foundational tools and processes to accelerate growth and define their agency culture.
Pennant’s founder outlined several goals at the start of our three-month engagement. He aimed to free up his bandwidth to sell and ultimately land more projects, publicly launch the brand, and build digital infrastructure to support a growing roster of remote creative collaborators and clients. Together, we elevated a few key initiatives:
Standardize foundational tools and organizational processes to sell and deliver work more efficiently.
Create consistent team workflows and streamlined client experiences.
Launch the brand’s online presence with a website, social media, and email campaign.
Gather and report on project data to understand the profitability of different services and forecast potential hiring plans.
Processes that empower team and client experience are co-created and easily maintained.
From lead generation and qualification through sales and delivery, I designed a framework for collaboratively documenting and discussing the process behind each of Pennant’s key services. I held sessions with the team where we stepped through previous projects and mapped metadata like roles, phases, deliverables, and notes on tools and documentation. The project lifecycle maps facilitate iterative reviews and optimizations for each service as the team grows.
After the sessions I aggregated a table of tools, their users and use cases, and associated costs. I proposed some cuts and additions to streamline team and client experience and to eliminate redundant expenses. With this newly established set of tools, I also began to organize operational data–naming conventions for service types, project types, clients, industries, and budgets, with an aim to standardize use across internal systems (e.g. NetHunt CRM, Google Drive, QuickBooks, Slack, etc.)
A key addition to Pennant’s tool stack was a new project management tool, Assemble, built specifically for video production studios. I developed templates and standard operating procedures for using the tool across service types with content geared toward employees, clients, and freelance collaborators. I created a system for reviewing tool use cases and updating documentation as the team scales to facilitate adoption.
Planning and prioritization ensure big internal initiatives are impactful but not disruptive.
After about 6 weeks of dedicated project management and operations support, I switched gears to spearhead Pennant’s digital brand launch. I worked closely with Pennant’s founder and a freelance brand designer to plan and execute a 3 week sprint where we would collaborate with other freelance specialists to:
Launch a website featuring original art, targeted messaging, and a lead generation form integrated with Pennant’s CRM system.
Design and write content for an email campaign, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube as well as document processes for continued content creation across platforms.
Develop brand guidelines and branded templates for estimates, pitches, and contracts.
I organized these efforts by holding weekly virtual touchpoints with key team members where we reviewed a backlog, defined upcoming work, shared progress and tackled challenges. It’s still early days for Pennant but this digital brand launch is already supporting a healthy pipeline.
Gathering and reviewing project data reinforces team and client experience.
Following the brand launch we honed in on our goal to aggregate and report on operations data to understand project profitability for key services. I met with Pennant’s founder and stakeholders to review core financial reporting for the agency and newly compiled project data. With consistent terminology and frameworks used across Pennant’s CRM, project management tool, and financial systems, we were able to review metrics like team capacity, utilization, and average billable rate across projects and services.
As I wrapped up my time with Pennant the team was tracking 5x monthly sales over 3 months. Focusing on the functions of the business independently and as a whole gave Pennant the tools and perspective to scale profitable project processes, build authentic, repeatable client experiences, and forecast staffing and collaboration plans for 2024.