Marketing Agency · Atlanta, GA
Building the operating backbone behind 400% growth
Full-time Operating Partner + Investor · 2025–Present
400%
Sales growth in 9 months
$1.38M
Run rate (from $334K)
~20% reduction
Avg. days to collect payment (48→39)
The Situation
Two years in, the agency had proven the concept. The founder could sell, deliver, and build client relationships — and she was doing all three. But she was also running payroll, chasing invoices, managing contracts, and duct-taping together systems that were never meant to scale. Growth was happening despite the infrastructure, not because of it.
What Was Broken
- No financial controls, forecasting, or cash visibility — the business ran on instinct
- Contracts were informal and slow, creating legal exposure and scope creep
- No pipeline structure — deals lived in the founder's head
- Every operational task defaulted back to the founder
- No retention mechanism — churn risk was invisible until it wasn't
What We Did
Came in as a full-time operating partner with a single brief: build the foundation so the founder could stop running the business and start growing it.
On the financial side, that meant implementing cash management, invoicing, A/R, forecasting, and an annual planning process. The average time to collect payment from customers dropped from 48 to 39 days. A monthly creator payout process handling ~$100K/month was built from scratch and made repeatable. A formal sales pipeline cadence covering $175–225K/month in active deal value replaced the founder's mental model.
On systems, we integrated HubSpot, DocuSign, Asana, and QuickBooks into a connected operating stack. Built proprietary back-office tools using AI-assisted development. Voice-of-customer insights shaped customer-facing tools designed to increase stickiness and deliver more value between engagements.
Contracts were overhauled — 100% of talent and brand agreements moved onto new templates, cutting turnaround from roughly a week to under 24 hours while tightening scope control and reducing legal exposure.
Beyond systems and finance, the role extended into territory most advisors don't touch: co-leading a brand repositioning, building the new website, and serving as the primary lead on a contractor dispute that is on track to save the agency $30K+ in direct costs and sidestep an estimated $15K in legal fees.
The Shift
- ~400% sales growth over 9 months ($334K → $1.38M run rate)
- Average time to collect payment from customers reduced from 48 to 39 days
- Pipeline formalized at $175–225K/month in active deal value
- 100% contract compliance across talent and brand relationships
- Founder's time reclaimed for sales and product — the work that compounds
Why It Mattered
The agency didn't need a consultant with a slide deck. It needed someone who would sit inside the business, own hard problems, and build things that would still be running after they left. Most advisors hand off a strategy and move on. This engagement went the other direction — deeper into execution, ownership, and outcomes.
The transition to a fractional relationship — and an equity stake — reflects what happens when that model works: the engagement earns its own permanence.
"For the first time, I could just focus on the work I enjoy the most because Lawrence handled the rest."
SmallPond VentureCo. · smallpondventureco.com · Atlanta, Georgia
"Every engagement ends with a plan you can execute — not a presentation you have to figure out how to implement. (Or we will implement for you.)"