The Intake
Most of your business lives in your head. Ninety minutes gets it out.
Every fix on this site, the answered calls, the trained assistant, the trained staff, runs on the same input: what you actually do, and the positions you hold that have never been written down. The Intake is where we get them out. It is the first thing we do with every client, and you keep the result whether or not there is a second thing.
Why this is the work, and the software is not
Anyone can wire up an assistant in a weekend. Anyone can hand you a template SOP. Neither survives a real customer, because neither knows the twenty positions you hold: on price, on refunds, on the parent who wants a discount, on the one thing you will not bend on.
The Intake is a structured interview built to get those out of you. Scenarios, not categories. Not what is your refund policy, which gets a shrug, but someone wants a refund three weeks later, politely, no receipt, what do you actually do. That gets the real answer, and the real answer is the asset.
We learned this the expensive way. Our own academy's assistant took months of real conversations and two production mistakes to get right. The Intake exists so the next one takes an afternoon.
What you walk out with
Your policies, written down
The first written policy document your business has ever had, in your words, lightly tidied. Yours to keep, hand to a new starter, or pin behind the desk.
The policy layer for an assistant
If you go on to a front desk build, this is what it runs on: what it may say, what it must never say, and when it hands to a human.
Your FAQ and objection answers
The questions you are sick of answering, answered once, properly, ready for your website.
Staff training scenarios
The moments that would make you wince if a new hire handled them badly become the scenarios your staff practise in Offsider Training.
The start of your systems
Playbooks and checklists come from the same answers. Short enough to be used mid-shift, owned by a named person, reviewed on a date that exists in a calendar.
How it runs
Ninety minutes with the owner, not a staff member, because the positions live with the person who set them. Part of it you fill in beforehand: address, hours, services, the booking link. The rest is the interview.
We do not show you a blank box. You get a list of the things businesses in your trade usually have a position on, and you tick, cross and correct. The crosses matter as much as the ticks. A cafe that does not take bookings is a policy rule.
The last question is the one that matters most: what would you be most embarrassed by if an assistant said it to your customer? That question would have caught both of our own production mistakes before they happened.
The plain terms
- Ninety minutes, with the owner
- You keep the written policy document either way
- If you go on to a build, you do not pay for the extraction twice
- Nothing you tell us is used for anything but your own build
Why systems fail, and what we do differently
Most SOPs die in a folder. They were written in a burst of enthusiasm, describe a business that no longer exists, and nobody has opened them since the week they were saved.
We write systems from what your staff actually do, not what a template says they should do. Short enough to be used mid-shift. Owned by a named person. Reviewed on a date that exists in a calendar, not whenever someone remembers.
Signs you need this first
- Every process lives in one person's head
- New staff take months to be useful
- Things run well only when you are in the building
- You fix the same problem every few weeks
Book the Intake
Fifteen minutes on the phone first, so we know it is the right first step. If your business already has its policies written down and current, we will say so and skip it.
Common questions
Do I need this if I already have SOPs?
Probably a much shorter version of it. If your prices, policies and positions are written down and current, we read them instead of extracting them, and you pay less. Most businesses think they are in that group and are not.
Who writes the document?
We do, from asking, and you correct it. Staff follow systems they helped shape and quietly ignore ones handed down from on high, so the corrections matter more than the first draft.
What if I do not go on to anything else?
Then you have a written policy document you did not have before, and we have had a good conversation. That is a fine outcome for both of us.
Can a staff member do it instead of me?
No. The positions live with the person who set them, and a staff member will guess at half of them. It is ninety minutes, and it is worth your ninety minutes.
Start with a call
Fifteen minutes, straight answers, and a plain quote if we can help. No pitch deck.