We love helping our clients; maybe a little too much.
Our Hatchling program was conceived as way to help a small business, our preferred clientele, through its growing pains and to showcase what Red Hen can do. During the selection process, we really wanted to find a client that could use a variety of the services we offer; the Hens have a diverse array of expertise and no one wanted to be left out.
We have been assessing how Champü operates for the last six weeks: their cash flow, management style, existing marketing strategy, and so much more. As we observed, we came up with a few areas where Champü could make some positive changes. And then we came up with a few more ideas, and a few more after that. Since we wanted to hit the ground running, we tried to implement several of our suggestions at once as quick fixes to problems we found.
And that was where we ran into a problem; we were trying to do a little too much, too fast. We realized that, in our rush to help, Andrea and the rest of Champü were feeling buffeted, and we weren’t making the forward progress for which we’d hoped. So today, the Henpire came together to discuss our Hatchling and the best path forward for everyone.
At the Henpire meeting we itemized our Hatchling’s goals for the year and created a timeline. Then, we created a process chart; we filled a calendar with our newly clarified goals and broke out the steps for each one. Our newfound clarity will give us more time to hone specific strategies for Champü, an opportunity to bring Champü up to speed on the issues that we found, and, most importantly, to get input from our client. When it comes to small business, solutions are really one size fits all.
Here at Red Hen, we knew that good work takes time. More importantly, we’ll be using this as an opportunity to remind ourselves that we can’t allow our excitement about a project to overrule our good sense.
Now that our schedule is hashed out, we’ll be working on several posts in the coming weeks to catch you up on the specifics of our work with Champü.