Handing someone the behind-the-scenes running of your business is a big ask. You’re trusting them with the parts that keep everything upright: the systems, the admin, the tools, the quiet stuff that only becomes visible when it breaks.
So before any of that, it’s fair to ask what actually makes me the right person for it.
Well here’s the honest answer:
1. I’ve run the messy back-office myself, not just advised on it
I haven’t only looked at operations from the outside. I’ve built and run my own businesses: an accessibility consultancy, a content platform I grew to over a thousand subscribers, and years of client work before that doing SEO and digital marketing.
I’ve sampled dozens of back-ends for clients and also at various jobs, big and small, where on most occasions, I’ve seen nothing but lots of unravelling required as soon as I start that job.
That means I’ve personally done the onboarding, the delivery, the implementation, the systemising, the chasing, and the endless “how do I make sure this happens the same way every time” problem. I know what operational chaos feels like from the inside, because I’ve spent years untangling my own and for others.
Case example #1
One of the messiest operations I’ve had to deal with was when an SEO client had a very disconnected integration between the website and various tools such as Google Analytics, Tag Manager and Search Console, as well as not having any accurate data attached to the website apart from using those old-fashioned visit counter, which is very inflated and misleading. Sorting that meant having a better handle on how the business is really performing.
On top of that, this client was also overpaying for the hosting service. The cost was more suitable for an enterprise organisation that has heavy and complex web infrastructure, rather than a small business with a simple WordPress website.
As soon as I got in, I made sure that the website tracking was working correctly, the integration between the website and Google products were working smoothly, and a dashboard was created to monitor important web metrics like conversion and sales. Plus, we moved to another hosting provider for the website that was, not only cheaper by 70%, but also more suited to handle a WordPress site as it was a Managed WordPress Hosting provider.
This meant that the client got a lot more benefits and better quality service at a lower cost.
2. I know the tools, and which one you actually need
Most founders aren’t short of tools. They’re drowning in them: half-using three apps that overlap, still paying for two they’ve forgotten about.
I can’t claim to know and to have used every single tool. Nobody does. It’s impossible. But I know various useful tools, and which one you actually need.
Just some of the tools I have used includes:
- Project/Task Management: Notion, Trello, Asana, ClickUp, Miro
- Content Management System: WordPress, HubSpot, Ghost.org, Sitecore, Webflow
- Analytics: Google Analytics/Data Studio/Search Console, HubSpot Analytics + social media and email marketing specific analytics on their respective platforms
- Automations: Zapier, Google Tag Manager, plus those on email marketing platforms
- Email marketing: MailChimp, Kit.com, MailerLite
- Conversion Rate Optimisation: VWO, Convert.com, Hotjar
- Accessibility: WAVE Evaluation Tool, Deque axe DevTools, VoiceOver, NVDA
But I don’t use all of them at the same time. The aim is to use fewer tools really well instead of having more tools used half-heartedly…or badly.
Not only it’s more productive and efficient, but also a lot cheaper that way too.
Case example #2
Another former client of mine in the ecommerce industry has that “shiny object syndrome”. As in, if there’s a flashy new tool that they came across, they want to sign up for it, thinking that it will revolutionise their business.
And it doesn’t.
There’s only so much you can do when you are using many similar tools at the same time. In this particular example, the client was already using Trello and wanted to add Asana on top of it. My argument would be that you are better off mastering and maximising the use of one tool rather than use more than one half-heartedly.
Thankfully, this message was heard and it ended up being a huge help, as we worked together to create an efficient project management system on Trello combined with Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog method, and it ended up making such a big difference to the business operations while also saving a bit of money from signing up to yet another tool.
And don’t forget that you will also save time and energy trying to learn and master how to use another tool across the company, which in itself will waste them even more money.
3. I turn repetitive work into systems that run themselves
A lot of what eats your week is repetition: the same email, the same follow-up, the same manual step done by hand, the same onboarding, the same invoicing process.
I spent years building marketing automation, the kind that runs on triggers rather than someone remembering to press send. The same thinking applies to your operations.
Find the repetition, understand it properly, then let a system carry it. But in that order. Automating a messy process just helps you do the wrong thing faster, so I tidy it first.
Case example #3
I currently have Notion and Claude integrated together, and every morning, I get an automatic notification telling me of my tasks and priority for the day ahead, and also challenging me to complete them while keeping me accountable.
It’s like a morning stand-up that you tend to see, particularly in tech companies, where you have a daily but very brief meeting to share progress, promote transparency and present any obstacles that require assistance.
This can only work if I am making full use of my Kanban project board and include priorities and due dates for each task.
4. I write things down so the business survives without me
The most fragile businesses are the ones where everything lives in one person’s head. A good standard operating procedure isn’t bureaucracy, it’s insurance. I find this part easy, because I’ve spent years writing technical specifications and acceptance criteria, where the whole job is taking something fuzzy and making it clear enough for someone else to act on without asking.
But it’s not just about writing SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). It can also be where are your written communications held. If it’s in a sporadic sent email or a long thread somewhere, already that’s going to be hold you back.
But if it’s written in a project management system where each projects have their own comment system that revolves around that particular topic, you are on the right track.
It doesn’t matter what you do; writing things down in a structured way can speed up the process.
Case example #4
One day, I foresee myself outsourcing many elements of my content plan and perhaps aspects of my business, particularly if I expand the format and use more platforms to promote them. For that to work, I will need to either hire or outsource this part of the business. And to ensure that it operates smoothly, I will need to make sure that we are on the same page and the best way to do that is to create SOPs.
An example of what that particular SOP will include are the tone of voice, branding colours, timing of social media schedules, SEO considerations, design templates, to name but a few.
This will not only keep things aligned, but save a lot of time in going back and forth checking whether “is this how you want it to be?”.
I measure whether a change actually helped
Plenty of people will reorganise your systems, tell you it feels better, and move on. My background is in marketing, digital experience, conversion optimisation and analytics, which allows me to think more efficiently about what makes an online business tick and how to measure that performance.
Change one thing, measure the effect, keep what works, drop what doesn’t. Applied to your business, it means I can show you a process got faster or a mistake stopped happening, rather than asking you to take it on faith.
Case example #5
In almost all of the positions I have worked at, various metrics were not used properly to monitor the effectiveness of certain digital actions.
It’s not just about tracking metrics but more importantly, understand what metric you should be tracking. In one role, there was no web tracking at all. The online performance tracking was loosely based on a vague metrics on basic analytics that was provided by a CRM.
So amongst the first thing I did when I joined the company was to implement tracking via Google Tag Manager. This quickly got people interested, but they focused on the wrong tracking: the number of people visiting the site.
If we want to focus on what moves the business forward, there are more important metrics to track, like conversions such as number of leads and revenue. And from there, break it down to sources of these conversions in terms of acquisition channels and what content created this conversion.
But looking solely at site views and page views are nice, but not enough.
I take the business side seriously
It would be easy for me to stay in my lane when working with an organisation. I can easily do that by focusing on e.g. the marketing side of the business.
But I believe you miss out on the bigger picture of the business
I spent five years at a regulated professional body, where data handling, governance and getting the details right genuinely mattered. So when I set up your invoicing, separate your business and personal accounts, or flag a compliance gap, it comes from somewhere that treated this as non-negotiable rather than nice-to-have.
I’m not an accountant or a legal expert, and won’t pretend to be, but I’ll make sure the foundations are clean and you’re not storing up problems for later.
Case example #6
At this very same regulated professional body, there was a huge emphasis on making sure that certain content was published at the right time due to legal obligations and public policy. In the past, it was done in a lacklustre way where it was requested via a number of disjointed email chains from different people, making it hard to track the project. And this happens multiple times every quarter or so.
Only after I have created an automated process has this process become more refined. It involved creating a form which must be filled which then creates a spreadsheet that outlines that task, when it is due, who OK’d the project and include the relevant attachments that were required to be uploaded onto the site.
It’s a much smoother process than an email chain, which also created an easy-to-view log of all requests.
7. I speak both languages: business and technical
This is the part that’s genuinely hard to find in one person. Plenty of people can help with the admin. Plenty of others can handle the technical side: the systems, the process, the email setup, the website, the tools underneath it all. Far fewer can do both, and the gap between those two worlds is exactly where small businesses lose time and patience.
You won’t have to translate between your “admin person” and your “tech person”, because you’ll have one of each in the same head. That’s what I do, and it’s what Untangli is built around.
Case study #7
Working closely with a web development agency, there was one project I was a part of which involved creating microsites that are designed to increase leads. I was naturally part of the team to help streamline the process, but also because of my expertise in web experience and having knowledge about front-end development.
The latter was particularly important as I was able to get technical with the web developers within the agency and be able to debug properly by analysing the code. Even though I’m not a developer by any means, I knew enough to contribute heavily; so much so that I was often called the most technical non-technical marketing client by several web developers.
8. I have the holistic view of all things digital and business
I take pride in having such a broad experience within the business, digital and tech industries combined. It allows me to have a bigger appreciation, understanding and knowledge of what makes a business tick, especially from a digital and processes perspective.
Having that range of skills is becoming more in demand than ever before as it allows to have better birds-eye view of the entire business and spot the bottleneck and barrier from afar.
David Epstein, the bestselling author of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World has said:
“When you have a broader toolbox, you’re able to identify the deeper structure of a problem before you just dive in and try to execute.”
Case study #8
When I worked with a regulated professional body, the brief was essentially: improve digital performance. What that actually meant was less obvious, so I had to get my hands really dirty.
A narrow specialist would have picked their lane and stayed in it. An SEO consultant would have gone straight to rankings. A developer would have looked at site speed. A UX designer would have tackled the layouts.
But the real problem wasn’t sitting neatly in any one of those places. It only became visible when I looked across all of them at once.
The analytics weren’t tracking the right things, which meant nobody actually knew where users were dropping off.
The content was aimed at the wrong stage of the journey at the wrong people.
There was enough accumulated technical friction to push people away before they ever got close to converting.
And there was no budget and desire to make drastic changes to the user journey and design. So this required a variety of skills to close some gaps
Working across the analytics, the content, the UX, the technical infrastructure, and the compliance constraints simultaneously was what allowed me to find the actual problem rather than the most visible one, all while dealing with an internal cybersecurity project too. In one particular project, the conversion rate went from 3.23% to 10.13%, larglely because of the ability to have a holistic view of the digital operations.
9. More than a VA, less than a big agency
Most people looking for operational help land in one of two places. They bring in a Virtual Assistant and spend half their time managing them, explaining what needs doing, chasing updates, and still carrying all the decisions themselves. Or they hire an agency, get something built, and find themselves holding a system they don’t fully understand and a retainer they can’t justify once the project ends. And the agency are nowhere to be found to help the.
Both have their place. But neither of them is what most solo founders and small business owners actually need.
A VA executes what you specify. Which means you need to know what to specify, how it should be done, and when to ask for it. If you already knew all of that, you probably wouldn’t be drowning in the first place.
An agency delivers a solution. A good one will do it well. But their job ends at the handover. What happens after, whether it gets maintained, updated, or quietly ignored because nobody has the time, is entirely your problem.
I sit between those two things. I work out what needs doing, build the foundations properly, and stay involved to keep them maintained. You don’t manage me, and you don’t inherit something you can’t run. The operational side of your business gets sorted and stays sorted.
Case study #9
I’ve managed agencies from the client side, and I’ve worked at plus ran an agency managing clients, so I know exactly what that handover looks like in practice.
They come in, scope the work, build the thing. If they’re good, they build it well. Then they hand it over with a brief onboarding document and the relationship ends. What happens after, the maintenance, the iteration, the small updates that keep everything working, either falls back to you or it simply doesn’t happen.
At one organisation I worked at, I inherited several agency-delivered digital projects. Each one had been built properly. None of them had been meaningfully touched since. The tracking was drifting. The content was stale. The tools underneath had moved on and nobody had kept up. Not because the agency did a bad job. Because staying was never part of their job (and for some agencies, neither is writing proper handover it seems).
That gap is exactly where Untangli sits. Not the build, and not the endless task queue. The sustained operational layer that keeps what’s been built actually working.
10. I untangle for a living
Thanks to my expertise of untangling my daughter’s very curly hair, I have experience of keeping things smooth and staying on top of it. That way, it won’t go out of place (both the hair and your business).
Now can you see where I got the inspiration for the brand name ‘Untangli’ from? 😉
But in all seriousness, keeping things running smoothly is only the start of why I love doing this. I also love freeing up business owners’ time to allow them to spend more time working on their business and doing the things they actually love, which will then allow them to scale and grow too.
That’s what I love doing. Letting you do the things that you love. If that’s what you want, I think we will be the right fit for each other.
And that’s the honest version of who I am
Not a VA, not an assistant, not a developer, not a legal or accountant expert, and not some corporate consultant with a slide deck.
No, I’m someone who has run the messy version of this, knows the tools and the systems, understands the tech sitting underneath, and can quietly get it sorted so you can get back to the work you actually started the business to do.
If that sounds like something you need, get in touch.
Ready to get it sorted?
Start with a discovery call. You show me the mess, I tell you what it’d take to untangle it. No obligation.
