wide margin teams
Bigger team. Same bottleneck.
The work still waits on the people at the top.
Wide Margin Teams is for agencies, professional firms and B2B companies that sell across Texas or the country. More people and more tools, with the same problem: the work that matters sits in a few leaders' inboxes.
Who this is for
Established companies with 20 to 200 people, where the owner or a small leadership team still approves, answers or touches too much of the work. The test is the same one we use with every client: if the business can't move faster than the people at the top, we can help.
- Marketing and event agencies
- Creative and production studios
- Accounting and advisory firms
- Engineering and architecture firms
- Staffing and recruiting
- B2B service companies
- Distributors
- Multi-location operators
Not a fit if
- You need a large team on site, or a vendor with security certifications like SOC 2.
- You're replacing an ERP across every department. That's a job for a systems integrator.
- You want a slide deck and a recommendation, not working systems.
What we build at this size
Leadership time
- What breaks
- The owner's week goes to email, calendar and approvals. Decisions wait until someone at the top gets to them.
- What we build
- Inbox triage, meeting notes that turn into tasks, follow-ups that send themselves, and clear rules for what needs a leader and what doesn't.
- What changes
- 5 or more hours a week back, starting with the owner.
Sales to delivery
- What breaks
- A deal closes in the CRM, then someone retypes it into a proposal, a contract, a project plan and an invoice.
- What we build
- One path from signed deal to kickoff: the proposal, contract, project setup and first invoice all come from the same record.
- What changes
- No retyping, and new work starts the day it's signed.
Projects and people
- What breaks
- Nobody can see who's overloaded, what's late or which projects are losing money until the final invoice.
- What we build
- Project and capacity tracking your team will actually keep up to date, with time, budget and status in one place.
- What changes
- Problems show up in week 1, not at the end.
Getting paid and the books
- What breaks
- Invoices go out late, collections depend on one person's memory, and the books close weeks after the month ends.
- What we build
- Invoices and reminders tied to project milestones, payments that sync to your accounting, and margin by client and project.
- What changes
- Faster cash, and you know which clients make you money.
Reporting and know-how
- What breaks
- Leadership reports get built by hand in spreadsheets, and how the work gets done lives in a few people's heads.
- What we build
- 1 dashboard leadership trusts, written playbooks, and AI assistants trained on how your company works.
- What changes
- Numbers on Monday without a scramble, and new hires up to speed in weeks, not months.
How a Teams engagement works
A bigger company means more people to hear from, so the work runs in rounds, not a single call. It starts with a free intro call, and you get a fixed scope and price before anything is built.
- Assessment
A series of calls with you, your leadership and the people who do the work. We map your tools, follow how work moves between teams, and find where it stalls.
- Strategy session
One working session with leadership. We walk through what we found, rank the fixes by the hours and dollars each is worth, and agree on what comes first.
- Scoping and build
A fixed scope and price for each phase. We build 1 to 3 workflows at a time in 90-day phases and test them with the people who use them.
- Training workshop
A hands-on workshop for your team, plus written playbooks, so the new way of working sticks after we step back.
Senior help, without a big firm's overhead
Cal has spent 15+ years in product and operations. He helped a Dallas home builder grow into a $100M business with a team of 5, through better processes, tools and automation, and he's built the software other companies run their workflows on. You work with him directly, not a junior team behind a partner.
About CalQuestions leadership teams ask
- How is this different from your work with local businesses?
- The problems are the same, but there are more people involved. Instead of one assessment call with the owner, we talk with leadership and the people who do the work, hold a strategy session, and finish with a training workshop for your team.
- Do you work outside North Texas?
- Yes. Most of the work happens over video calls and shared screens. Cal visits offices in North Texas for the sessions that work best in person, like the strategy session and the training workshop.
- Will you work with our IT team and current vendors?
- Yes. We build on the tools you already pay for when they can do the job, and we document what we build so your team can run it.
- How is this different from a big consulting firm?
- A big firm sends a team, studies the problem and hands you a report. We find the problem and build the fix, with 1 senior person who stays until your team uses it.
- What does it cost?
- It depends on how many teams and people are involved, so we quote it after a free intro call. Each phase gets a fixed scope and price before work starts.
Find out where the work stalls.
Tell us about your company and we'll set up a free intro call. If we're not the right fit, we'll say so.