IF YOUR Business feels held together with duct tape...You can’t keep waiting for that mythical “slow week” to get organized.
As a small business owner, you don’t know what you don’t know. But you do know that you want to be marketing more, work on that new offer and also have time to see your friends and the way things are going, the to do list items, hours and energy is not adding up.
Building systems in your business helps you get more done in less time, without compromising the things that make your business special.
Sound familiar?You've built a business that's making money. But it also feels like you’re on a hamster wheel trying to keep up and you want off.
Need a file? You’re the one who knows where it is. Contracts? You review them. Videos? You film them (when you have time). Planning? Yep, that’s you. If you stepped away for two weeks, something would get dropped (and that’s if you were able to step away).
You know there are ways that you could be improving your margins, diversifying revenue streams or just getting your work done more efficiently, but you aren’t sure where to start. The business gurus on the internet suggest 17 different things but every time you open Google, you get overwhelmed with new terminology, options and decision after decision after decision.
You know there’s a better way but maybe you’ve had one of these experiences…
You tried to DIY a solution.
Your saved folder is full of YouTube tutorials and Reels explaining how another business owner used XYZ tool to automate this system or save 20 hours a week. But setting up each individual system felt like it required learning 2 coding languages and integrating 3 softwares and you still had a business to run!
You bought a tool.
You watched the demo, it sounded like exactly what you needed. Months later, you never click the bookmark and your notes app still holds things together.
You hired help.
You have too much to do, so bringing on help is the answer, right? But then once you onboarded the VA, they needed constant direction and their work was never quite right. It started to feel like more work than doing it yourself. Because it was.
You hired a coach.
If you can just figure out the tools and automations, you won’t need to manage a big team. You thought a coach would help you build the strategy. Or maybe it’s your mindset holding you back? The first couple calls felt amazing but pretty soon it felt like you were just adding more and more homework to your to do list to make it all happen.
Here’s the secret - each of these approaches have their own merits. They just only address part of your problem.
A successful system needs strategy (designing it), implementation (building it) and accountability (using and updating it). Without all three and you end up wasting time.
You’re excellent at what you do, that’s what got you here.
That doesn’t mean you also have to become a systems and organization savant.
Which is why we created…
System Sprint
You need an update and fast. We take your most important system from drab to fab in one month and the best part? We do the majority of the design, build and set up so you can stay focused on the work making you money.
What kind of systems can you update in a System Sprint?
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Optimizing Website for Lead Generation
A website is more than just fonts and photos. In one month, we can optimize your website for conversion best practices, improve SEO and connect to any email, CRM, and analytics tools to improve your ability to connect with future clients.
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Streamlining Bookkeeping and Finance Tasks
Most business owners don’t dream of expense receipts and paying exorbitant accounting bills, but gone unchecked, keeping track of expenses, transactions and the nagging worry of an IRS email can balloon over time. We’ll automate what we can and set clear processes and reminders for the rest.
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Automating List Growth
No more dropping everything to reply to an Instagram comment. You stay focused and pre-designed system deliver freebies, collect email addresses and deliver nurture sequences discussing your offers so email can do the selling for you. All while you are cranking through your to do list (or sleeping)!
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SEO Strategy & Optimization
You don’t just update some settings and suddenly start ranking on Google. Good SEO is a combination of technical setup and content creation. We’ll make generating the written content it takes to hit the AI summary on Google take a quarter the time with no guesswork.
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Inquiry to Client Workflow
Taking an interested human from when they discover your business to a paid invoice is one of the most pivotal functions of a business and a seamless experience helps you build credibility even before kickoff. (It also saves you the middle of the night wakeup wondering if you followed up with that lead.)
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Platform Audit & Cleanup
Nobody likes paying for unused subscriptions but sometimes they sneak up on us. We’ll audit what you need vs. what you’re currently using and suggest a move forward plan (to get you functionality you need, eliminate wasted spend or both). From there, we’ll manage the transition of data and setup from old tool to new!
Curious if we can help with a specific system that you don’t see here?
The answer is probably yes, but let’s chat live and we can tell you for sure!
Here’s how it works…
01.
As soon as you sign up, we’ll discuss your current pain points to identify the highest value system to update (if you have something in mind, we’ll start there)!
Within the first week, you’ll have a detailed plan in front of you for what it’ll take to make the fix so you understand any technical, cost or logistical implications for your business. Once approved, we get to work!
02.
While you stay focused on running your biz, we’ll set up, test and tweak your new system, reviewing progress with you via a weekly check-in.
By halfway through, we’ll have something in your hands to start testing (because the sooner you start using it, the sooner you get comfortable). When the inevitable errors or tweaks come up, we’re hands on keyboard to fix them.
03.
You’re not installing some new tool with factory settings or copy+pasting a template from another industry that doesn’t apply to you. By the end of the month, you’ll have a system designed around your business, how you work.
We’ll dedicate time in the final week to ensure you know where all the settings are and what to do if errors pop up. A good system is one you feel confident using long after we’re gone.
What if it’s more complicated than we expect?
Part of why business owners often get stuck trying to fix their scheduling process or content creation system is because once they get under the hood, it’s more complicated than they expect.
So here's our commitment: we're not done until it's operational. If we reach the end of the month and haven't arrived at a working solution, we keep going at no additional cost until we get there. One month is usually enough. If it isn't, we stay.
If it were easy to figure out yourself, you would’ve fixed it already.
Let’s be honest…
Give yourself some credit, my friend. You have a ton of things on your plate and comparing the features, pricing and integrations of 3 different email service providers or contract managers doesn’t rank high on your to do list.
But the longer these things sit, the more bloated and manual running your business gets, which isn’t exactly a direct path to growth, profit and free time, is it?
You know your business better than anyone, but we know systems. We’re able to pull from everything we’ve tried and the pitfalls you don’t see until your in it to save you trial and error, wasted time and the frustration of the 17th error message.
What’s included…
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Whether you have something you’re using now or no system to speak of, we’ll get you to the finish line by the end of the month, without you having to spend your Sunday afternoon clicking between tabs of random tech tools’ pricing pages.
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Each week, we’ll have dedicated time to address the current stage of build. Week 1 it’s reviewing the plan, Week 2 it’s ensuring the foundation is solid, Week 3 is customizing and refining and Week 4 is making sure you’re ready for handoff.
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You have full visibility but very little build responsibility. All we care about is that you get in the tool and test it when we ask so we have time to troubleshoot for the way you work.
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As you start transitioning to your new system, it’s normal for questions, ideas or errors to pop up. Send them over via email and we’ll get an answer, reply or fix back to you within 1 business day.
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Some systems don’t need a full customized revamp. We’re constantly accumulating Claude skills, Notion dashboards and preferred tools to handle a whole host of operational needs that you can take what you want from. Some of these are wroth a couple hundred dollars each for how much time we’ll save you from building from scratch!
ABOUT
Exhale Operations was founded by Samantha Pillsbury, inspired by her experience of running a small business for four years. She scaled it to six figures in 18 months, all while figuring out systems that allowed her to scale the business while still traveling and enjoying her life.
By her third year in business she realized she enjoyed the operations work more than anything else, but that the nerdy automations, dashboards and templates she loved building were her small business peers least favorite part.
And thus… Exhale was born. We support small business owners who want to build nimble, profitable businesses and still enjoy their life outside of work, by helping them build and run systems to get them back time and mental load.
Frequently Asked Questions
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The most common reason systems don't stick isn't the build. It's what happens after. Most projects end at handoff: you get documentation, and then you're on your own. Bottleneck Breakthrough continues for four months after the systems are live, specifically to support you through the part where new habits replace old ones and where things break in real conditions.
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That feeling is usually a sign this is the right time, not the wrong one. The goal of this program isn't to add to your workload. It's to reduce it. The build is structured to fit around a full client load, and what we're building is designed to take things off your plate. The time you put in upfront is the cost of getting time back downstream.
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That's a design requirement, not a concern. Every system is built around what you can actually use and maintain, which means tool selection is based on your comfort level, not on what has the most features. If something feels too complicated, it gets simplified or swapped. If it requires a tech person to maintain after handoff, it's not done yet.
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A VA executes tasks inside whatever process already exists. An OBM manages operations, but that works best when there are already systems worth managing. Bottleneck Breakthrough builds the infrastructure that both of them would need to be effective. It's what comes before the hire, not in place of it.
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If you have one specific system to fix (client onboarding, project management, an inquiry-to-proposal workflow) OR you need to be scrappy and can only address one thing at a time right now, a System Sprint is the right entry point . It's one month, focused, and gives you one fully working system.
Bottleneck Breakthrough tackles not just the independent systems but making sure they all work brilliantly together, so it’s more in depth but also bigger transformation. -
Due to the amount of hands-on support we put into these projects, we want to make sure that we are going to be able to deliver value and guarantee our results. The survey (and call afterward) makes sure that we can say with our full chest that you’ll get the results you want (or direct you to something else if it’s a better fit), before you pay a dime.
Ready to take a night off?
We want to help you spend your time on the work you legitimately enjoy, while still setting your business up for sustainable growth and profit. Giving you the time back to focus on client service, developing new offers or just to have a glass of wine with girlfriends might just be the most important investment you can make in your future.