Orchestrator Job Position
Ownership
As an Orchestrator, you will grow ACThoughtful Consulting by getting clients closer to their growth & simplification goals. Our Orchestration clients come to us needing to save time and know their business will run and scale even when they aren’t in every detail. We need to get work out of their heads and into systems their teams can own and execute. Your role in that is to:
- Facilitate and customize the processes and systems the client needs to delegate their work
- Listen to the client’s needs (not wants) and help them prioritize what to streamline
- Help identify, onboard, transition, and collaborate with the team members that carry the torch on the processes you design
- Teach a client what and how to delegate and guide them down their path of saving time
- Be their “go to” for finding and implementing solutions to problems and identifying opportunities to simplify and increase profitability and sales
- Clearly and consistently communicate what to expect, and what you need to be successful
- Temporarily execute the processes so you build a workable system and can find the right candidate for the job
Results
You’ll know you’re successful when
- Time, scope and budgets are tracked and communicated
- Burn rate on clients is consistent each week
- Hours report is received prior to their invoice being sent
- No surprises: Credits/Overages (or) missed scope items that weren’t communicated
- Status reports are sent weekly with what happened, what’s in flight, and what’s next
- Project plans are maintained and there is no past due work
- Clients are delighted and find value in your work
- Clients keep their month-to-month engagements going on long past the first committed phase of work (usually 3-6 months) because you’re recommending and working through new systems and processes
- Your fractional COO is able to step back and bill less hours over time
- You are the go-to for the client
- You are able to keep moving forward
- You never keep execution of a function (bookkeeping, email, scheduling, pipeline coordination, etc.) for longer than 2 months (if they need to hire) and 1 month (if we are developing/confirming internal staff).
- Clients get the results they need from your work
- Your clients save time, grow their team, and maintain healthy margins every month
- The process library is improving with every client
- Our internal assets get better with each client we implement
Work
A day in your work life may look like:
- Planning & Coordinating:
- Monitor your burn and priorities on each client monthly and weekly
- Communicate progress, needs, next steps to the client and Fractional COO weekly
- Communicate monthly hours burn, highlights, and next month’s plan before invoicing
- Maintain the client plan on a project management system
- Stay connected and communicate with the client regularly.
- Client Working Sessions:
- Set the agenda for weekly meetings, and conduct working sessions with your clients to keep the priorities for the month moving forward
- Researching, getting approval, and implementing solutions for clients:
- Get access to client systems
- Research, recommend, and implement solutions to make their lives easier
- That could mean: Automation, filters, reports, custom fields or workflow, new systems
- Coordinate and get support from the Fractional COO assigned to your accounts
- Tailoring Library Templates:
- Work from standard templates
- Tailor templates to the clients to meet their needs and save time
- Pitch improvements to the practice lead based on improvements you make for clients
- Serving ACThoughtful as a client:
- This role may serve as ACThoughtful’s Internal Orchestrator, designing and improving processes, automating, or supporting the CEO. By implementing it internally, we work out the kinks first.
- Participating in a proposal review meeting:
- The Sales & Strategy Consultant will lead a review of the roadmap before closing
- You will build the relationship and instilling confidence in your ability to deliver
- Orchestration Kick-Off:
- 1:1 session with the business owner to guide through setup decisions
- Doing the work:
- On “Your First VA” you’ll triage email and manage their schedule until you hire
- On “Your First Bookkeeper” you’ll set-up and clean up their books and maintenance processes so it’s ready for a bookkeeper
- On Ecosystem Orchestration you may play roles for 1-2 months while they are defined (example, Pipeline manager following up and reporting on sales activity)
Recipe
You’ll need these skills and experiences to deliver on this outcome
- Systems thinking (both technical and process!) with an eye for details: You see how puzzles can connect to work more cleanly and where the breakdowns will (or are) occurring. You know how to quickly vet out possibilities (automation, technical, or process) to see if it will work in the real world and raise the flag or ask questions if it won’t.
- You LOVE variety: You like to work on different types of things at the same time. We are a small company so it’s all hands on deck, and the Orchestrator role is not the same from client to client. As we find people’s strengths & goals, we shape assignments around that.
- Be organized and concrete (Create order out of chaos): Our clients and internal team members need a clear (and documented) path forward at the end of each session (or) at minimum weekly.
- You are a time management machine: There is only so many hours in the day. You know how to use them, prioritize them, and block them. You have excellent follow-through and know how to communicate when stuff goes awry so there is never surprises.
- You love working yourself out of a job: You are going to get asked to do a lot of things. You should definitely NOT do them all 🙂 You are the kind of person who loves to get in, get dirty, get something going, document it, then move onto the next thing. Trust, me there’s a LOT of next things that need to get done!
- You ask and inform vs. Assume: This position has a lot of details that if done incorrectly can cause our clients to grab back onto their biz vs. trusting and releasing. You should be hard-wired to double check something that look wonky (because they probably are!).
- Have empathy and respect confidentiality: This is our client’s livelihood. We need to treat every encounter with that level of importance and understand what stories are our clients and not ours.
Optional Systems Experience (Plus)
With every hire we look to add specific skills to the team, here are the current ones in high demand, please tell us if you have them or other systems experience in these categories on your cover letter!
- Finance & HR Systems: Quickbooks / Gusto / LivePlan / G Sheets / Wave
- Data & Automation Systems: Zapier / Airtable
- Website Systems: WordPress / SquareSpace / Wix
- Marketing Systems: Mailchimp
- Productivity Systems: G Suite and MS 365 / Outlook
- PM Systems: Click-Up / Monday.com / Asana
- CRMS: HubSpot / Zoho
- Process Mapping: Miro / Google Drawings
Industry jobs this feels like
Similar industry jobs that might make you a good fit for this role include:
- Process Analyst
- Business Analyst
- Project Coordinator
- Operations Coordinator
- Systems Analyst
- Bookkeeper
- Financial Analyst
Position Details
- 100% Remote: We have team members (contractors and employees) from Texas, to Arizona, to Alaska and Minnesota. We believe that people should be able to live their best lives while working
- Compensation: Base + commission ($25 per hour + 10% of all revenue generated and worked)
- Growth Path: Lead Orchestrator is the next position up currently. After that, you can move to the Fractional COO practice. If there’s a niche role available for you based on your unique skills and our needs, we can create that too! This is the beautiful of being small and scrappy!
- Hours: This position starts at 10-20 hours per week (we can work out the details together) but has the potential to grow to full time if the fit is good, you want the hours, and the client work and revenue levels support it.
- Flexible Schedule: The people that thrive here are self-directed, proactive in their work work, and communicate well with others, understanding the ripple affects of flexibility on the clients and people around them. They have a bleeding heart for people and value work that matters, but know what they need to be successful in work and in life. You set your own schedule as long as you can be available during business hours in your client’s time zones for scheduled working sessions and are responsive to communications. And if life happens or you want to lie on the beach on a Wednesday afternoon? We trust you to manage it in a way that honors your clients, colleagues, the business and yourself and loved ones.
- Home and Work Integration: We believe that kids and pets and life bring something to our work and our work must serve them, so sometimes they join our calls with clients. And that’s ok. We believe it adds a dose of humanity and connectivity for our customers.
Interested in applying? Send your resume to Courtney Edwards at courtney@acthoughtful.com