For UK service agencies 10–35 people 30-day sprint

The operating system your agency never built.

We install the full operating system inside your agency — Notion, SOPs, Make automations — then embed it with your team until it runs on its own. Fixed fee. Fixed timeline. No disruption to live client work.

Book a call See what gets built
The problem

Your agency grew. The ops didn't.

Revenue doubled. Headcount doubled. But delivery still depends on whoever's having a good week, Friday reports still take half a day to compile, and every decision still routes through you. These aren't growing pains — they're ops debt. And it compounds.

01

Delivery inconsistency

Quality depends on the person, not the process. Two clients get two different experiences — one good, one a scramble.

02

Manual reporting

Hours every Friday stitching the same numbers out of four different tools. Time that should be billable or strategic.

03

Broken onboarding

Every new client gets a subtly different experience. Information gets asked twice. Week one looks chaotic to the people paying you.

04

Capacity blindness

You say yes to work without knowing what the team is really committed to. Overcommitment, missed deadlines, compressed margin.

05

Tribal knowledge

Critical information lives in people's heads, not in systems. When someone leaves, their knowledge walks out the door with them.

06

Scope creep

Work starts before scope is locked. Assumptions get made. Margin evaporates in the gap between what was agreed and what gets delivered.

07

Founder bottleneck

Every decision escalates. Every quality check passes through you. The business can't grow because you're the ceiling.

08

Ops debt

Systems that worked at five people break at fifteen. Nothing gets fixed because everyone is too busy delivering to stop and fix the foundation.

What gets built

Four pieces. One system.

Not a Notion template. Not an automation library. A complete operating system, designed around how your agency actually works — services, team, clients — then embedded so the team runs it themselves.

N

Notion OS

Single source of truth. Every project, client, task, and team member — with status, owner, phase, health, and budget tracked live. Updated as work happens, not reconstructed on Friday.

§

SOPs

Every repeatable workflow documented and recorded as Loom videos. Onboarding, handoffs, scope gates, reporting. Searchable. Rewatchable. Followable without asking anyone.

Make automations

The engine. Onboarding fires on contract signature. Reports pull from live data. Overdue tasks surface in Slack. Budget warnings fire before projects go over. Nothing needs a human to trigger it.

Embed & handover

Week four is training. A live project run through the system with everyone in the room. Loom walkthroughs. Proper handover. The system belongs to the team — not to us, and not only to you.

How we're different

Not a template. Not a consultant.

Most agencies try a Notion template first, then hire a Notion consultant when the template gets abandoned, then start looking for someone to run ops for them. We do something different — and it's the "something different" that makes systems still be running at month six.

Notion templates
Notion / Make consultants
Calmly Ops
Scope
Generic databases
One tool, one problem
The full operating system
Customisation
Drop-in, one size
Partial — their specialism only
Built around your services & team
Team embed
None — you figure it out
A handover doc and a goodbye
Week four: live project run with the team
Automations
Not included
Extra scope, extra fee
Make engine built in
SOPs
You write them
Usually out of scope
Documented & recorded as Looms
Timeline
Weeks to never
2–4 months, drifts
30 days, fixed
Still running at 6 months
Abandoned in 3 weeks
Depends on team adoption
Yes — that's the point
Price
£50–£500
Variable scope, variable fee
One fixed fee, agreed upfront
The sprint

30 days. Fixed fee.

A disciplined four-week build. You keep shipping client work. We map, build, and embed in parallel — then step out. By the end of week four, the system runs without us in the room.

Week 01 — Map

Audit

Interview the team. Shadow the workflows. Map every process and bottleneck. Agree the priority stack before a single thing gets built.

Week 02 — Build

Notion & SOPs

The single source of truth gets built. Every repeatable workflow documented and Loom'd. Bespoke to how your agency actually runs.

Week 03 — Build

Automations

Make scenarios wired up. Onboarding, reporting, Slack alerts, budget warnings, invoice chasing. The manual work disappears.

Week 04 — Embed

Handover

Train the team. Run a live project through the system. Record the walkthroughs. Hand it over. The system belongs to the team.

"Systems built in the sprint are still running six months later — when every Notion template you download is abandoned inside three weeks."
Founder of Calmly Ops
— Founder
Who builds this

Built by someone who's hit the same wall.

"I ran two marketing agencies before Calmly Ops. Both grew. Both hit the same wall — delivery that depended on me being in every conversation, systems held together by memory, and Fridays spent rebuilding the same reports. The work was good. The operations weren't. Calmly Ops exists because I built the infrastructure I wish I'd had."
Arun Hoskin
Founder, Calmly Ops
Engagement

Fixed fee. No ambiguity.

Two ways to work together. Both scoped, priced, and timelined upfront — on a call, against the specific shape of your agency. 50% on start. 50% on completion. No deposit, no start.

02 — Ongoing

Retainer

Monthly
optional after sprint · two tiers

The system keeps getting more capable as the agency grows and changes. Light-touch maintenance or active stewardship — whichever fits.

  • Invoice chasing & renewals
  • Pipeline & won-deal triggers
  • NPS sequences
  • Continuous improvement
Fit

Who this is for (and who it isn't).

The sprint is built for one specific profile. If you're outside it, we'll say so and point you somewhere better. Honest fit is how systems end up actually running six months later.

Built for you if

  • You run a UK service agency (PR, branding, digital, creative, marketing, content, social)
  • You have a team of 10–35 people delivering client work
  • You're still pulled into day-to-day delivery and can't step back
  • Quality depends on who's running the project that week
  • You take work home weekends and can't holiday without things slipping
  • You know what the agency does — you just need the delivery infrastructure to catch up

Not built for you if

  • You're a solo freelancer or a team under 10 people
  • You're a 35+ person agency — you need a different conversation
  • You're pre-product-market-fit and still figuring out what you sell
  • You want a Notion template dropped in and left
  • You want someone to run your ops for you forever
  • You're not willing to give the team four weeks of focused attention
Questions

Before you book the call.

Will this disrupt live client work?

No. The sprint is designed to run alongside delivery. Week one is interviews and shadowing — 3–4 hours of team time total. Weeks two and three are primarily our build work. Week four is the embed, which needs focused team participation but uses a live project so it's productive time, not training theatre.

What does this cost?

One fixed fee, agreed on the first call. We scope it against the specific size and shape of your agency — your team, your services, your client types — so the number is real, not a guess. No variable scope, no hourly creep, no surprise invoice at the end. The fee you agree before we start is the fee you pay. Half on start, half on completion.

Who actually does the work?

I do. The sprint isn't handed to a junior or a subcontractor — the interviews, the build, the embed, the handover are all delivered directly by me. You're working with the person who designed the method and who ran two agencies before this. At this stage of Calmly Ops, that's deliberate: every sprint is mine, end to end.

What if my team resists using the system?

This is why week four exists. Handover is not a PDF and a goodbye — it's a live project run through the system with everyone in the room, recorded walkthroughs, and iteration based on what the team actually hits. Systems get abandoned when they're imposed. This one gets used because the team helped shape it.

Is this just a Notion template?

No. Templates are generic and get abandoned within three weeks. The build is bespoke to how your specific agency operates — your services, your team structure, your client types. It's closer to hiring an ops director for a month than buying a template.

How is this different from hiring an ops person?

An ops hire takes months to recruit, costs £50k+ a year, and still has to build the system from scratch once they arrive — usually while also fighting the day-to-day fires. The sprint installs the working system in 30 days. If you do hire an ops person later, they inherit something that already runs, instead of starting from a blank Notion page. The sprint isn't a replacement for ops leadership — it's the infrastructure that makes ops leadership actually work.

Do I need Make or Notion already?

Notion, yes — we'll audit your existing setup in week one and build on it. Make, no — we'll set it up as part of the sprint. Licence costs are your own, but we'll right-size them so you're not overpaying.

What happens after the 30 days if something breaks?

The sprint includes 30 days of post-handover support — so the month after the build, if something needs adjusting or the team hits a snag, that's covered. You're not handed the system and left at the door on day 30. Beyond that window, the optional retainer exists for agencies that want ongoing changes and availability — but the system is built to keep running on its own whether or not you take it.

Is the retainer required?

No. The sprint is complete on its own — you can finish week four and never speak to us again and the system will keep running. The retainer is for agencies that want the system to keep getting more capable as they grow, or want us available when something breaks or needs changing.

What happens on the first call?

30 minutes. We'll ask about where the agency is, where the ops are breaking, what you've already tried. If there's a fit, we'll send a written scope within 48 hours. If there isn't, we'll tell you — and often point you somewhere more useful.

Free diagnostic

Not ready to book? Score your ops instead.

The Agency Ops Audit — a 12-point self-assessment based on the exact framework we use in week one of the sprint. Five minutes. Scored instantly. You'll know where the ops are leaking money, which problems are urgent, and whether a sprint would actually help.

Take the audit
Next step

Book the call.

30 minutes. We'll figure out if there's a fit. No pitch deck, no hard sell. If there isn't a fit, we'll tell you — and usually point you somewhere more useful.

Email arun@calmlyops.com
Based in United Kingdom
Response time Within 24 hours, weekdays