Today
The business ran out of one inbox. Now it has a record.
TrumanMade builds custom furniture in a studio on the West Side of Santa Cruz. For seventeen years every inquiry, quote and designer conversation lived in email, and the only complete record was the owner's memory.
Today every job, quote, designer and note sits in one place he can reach from his phone. A short brief arrives each weekday morning. It tells him what is on, what is waiting on him, and what has gone quiet.
How the work went
The same six steps we follow with every business.
- 1Analyze
We started with a long conversation in the shop about how the work moves, from the first email to the finished piece going out the door. Then we read six months of his own email to find every job, quote and conversation that was live.
- 2Plan
The plan put first things first. One place to hold the work came first, because nothing else could be trusted without it. Then the Google listing, so people who looked him up could reach him. Then a new website. Then tracking each job from first inquiry to delivery.
- 3Approve
He confirmed his current work piece by piece before it was loaded, so the new record opened with his real jobs in it. Nothing went live without his yes. That included the wording on his Google listing and the prices on his website.
- 4Build
We built the record of his work, wrote the Google listing, and built the website. Every address from the old website was pointed at the right page on the new one, so nobody who had a link saved reached a dead end.
- 5Go live
The record of his work went live first. The Google listing followed the next day. It now shows the right name, a number people can tap to call, the hours the shop keeps, and fifteen kinds of work described the way he would describe them. The new website went live at trumanmade.com. His email was never interrupted.
Live - 6Improve
A week into real use we sat down with him and fixed what was not working. Reminders were going to the wrong calendar on his phone, and that was corrected the same day. Now, when someone writes in through the website, he is told at once and a drafted reply is waiting for him to check and send.
Tracking each job from first inquiry to delivery is being built now.
Still improving
What changed for the owner
He builds furniture. The record keeps itself.
He no longer searches his inbox to find out where a job stands. He reads the morning brief, makes the decisions that are his, and goes to the bench.