The Handbook: The Operations Podcast

Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿

So many acronyms, but what do they mean!? 

This one’s for anyone wondering: what’s the difference between a PSA and an ERP? And which one does your business actually need?

Harv breaks down how both systems bring your operations together – but are built for completely different worlds. 

ERPs power product-based businesses with inventory, supply chains, and manufacturing. 

PSAs, like Scoro, are built for service businesses that sell time and expertise.

If you’ve ever been told you “need an ERP” – this one’s worth a listen before you sign anything.

And if you’ve got a question about ops tech, PSAs, or Scoro, drop Harv a message on LinkedIn. He might just turn it into the next Quickie.

AI has stopped being a side project – it’s rewriting the rules of how professional services businesses operate – and – stay competitive.

Luke Alexander, Chief Digital & AI Officer at Four, has led an ambitious AI transformation in his business. From rolling out Microsoft Copilot across 300+ staff to launching client-facing AI services, Luke’s approach to embedding AI is bold, practical, and refreshingly human.

In this episode, Luke and Harv unpack what it really takes to move from AI experiments to AI integration – and the leadership, structure, and mindset that make it work.

Here’s what we dive into:
• How Four operationalized AI across teams (and why fluency beats training)

• The three categories of AI value – assistive, automated, and transformative

• Why senior leadership buy-in is the single biggest success factor

• How to overcome the “AI shame” still holding some teams back

• The impact of AI on agency structures, staffing, and the future of junior roles

If you’re still just experimenting with AI – but haven’t figured out how to truly embed it into the way you operate, this episode shows what that next stage looks like in practice — and what it demands from leadership.

Additional Resources:

👉🏽 Follow Luke on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukealexander/ 

4️⃣ Check out Four’s website: https://www.four.agency/ 

👨🏽 Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ 

📈 Measure your business maturity and find out how to get to the next level: https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity 

📬 Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://www.scoro.com/podcast/#handbook 

➡️ This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system. Sign up for a free trial or a demo at https://scoro.com/demo – and for the VIP treatment, tell them Harv sent you. 

Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿

This one’s for anyone curious about the next big shift in how AI connects with the tools you already use: MCP. Model context protocol.

Harv breaks down what it is (a universal connector for AI), why it matters for ops leaders, and how it could turn your favourite LLM into the control center for your business systems.

He also shares how Scoro’s new MCP server unlocks practical (and pretty mind-blowing) use cases – like summarising client meetings straight into Scoro tasks, or pulling insights across Scoro, Slack, Gmail, and other tools in one prompt.

MCP is brand new, but it’s going to change how we work. Tune in to get ahead of the curve.

Ops isn’t just about keeping the lights on anymore.

As Aušrinė Keršanskaitė, co-founder of Operations Nation, puts it – today’s ops leaders are expected to drive growth, protect culture, and build resilience. And if you’ve ever felt like the “glue” holding everything together without always getting recognition, this one will hit home.

In this episode of The Handbook: The Operations Podcast, Aušrinė joins Harv to talk about the evolution of operations, the community she’s built for ops leaders everywhere, and what it takes to step into leadership with confidence.

Here’s what we get into:

• How so many of us “fall into” operations without a playbook – and how to build one for yourself
• The loneliness of ops roles, and why communities like Operations Nation matter
• Traits that define a brilliant ops leader today – from resilience to influence over execution
• How startups’ scrappy mindset can sharpen your approach to tooling, automation, and scaling
• The real opportunity with AI in ops (hint: it’s not about replacing your team)

Whether you’re a COO, head of ops, or still figuring out your path – this conversation is packed with lessons on how to elevate your role and find support along the way.

Additional Resources:

 👉🏽 Follow Aušrinė on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ausrine/ 

💡 Check out Operations Nation: https://operationsnation.com/ 

📣 Get your tickets for cONference 2025 in London (£30 off with code SCORO): https://luma.com/onconference2025 

📚 The ON COO Course: https://operationsnation.com/resources/coo-resources 

👨🏽 Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ 

📈 Measure your business maturity and find out how to get to the next level: https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity 

📬 Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://www.scoro.com/podcast/#handbook 

➡️ This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system. Sign up for a free trial or a demo at https://scoro.com/demo – and for the VIP treatment, tell them Harv sent you. 

Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿

This one’s for anyone who’s ever looked at their jumble of spreadsheets and apps and thought: “Is this normal?”

Harv explains why the state of your tech stack is actually a mirror of your business maturity – from The Chaotic Era where everything’s buried in spreadsheets and copy-paste is your main 'process', through The Stable Era where processes click into place, and up to The Data-Driven Era where your systems finally give you a clear view of the road ahead.

He also shares the headcount milestone where cracks really start to show if you don’t have a PSA like Scoro in place.

Not sure where you stand? Take Harv’s Business Maturity Quiz (3 minutes, 25 questions) at https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity and see how your setup stacks up.

And if you know someone stuck in spreadsheet purgatory, send this episode their way.

Touch the same piece of information more than twice – fix the workflow. That’s the kind of CFO-meets-COO thinking we get into in this episode of The Handbook, where Harv sits down with Lindsey Head to connect the dots between finance, ops, tech, and people – and what really changes when you standardise how the business runs. 

Lindsey helped scale a PR agency from 5 to 125 people and $750k to $25m in revenue, leading finance, ops, HR, tech, legal and M&A along the way – so she’s seen where the cracks form, and how to close them.

Here’s what we dive into:

• The case for “non-billable” hires early – why dedicated new-business and ops roles pay for themselves, and a simple admin-as-%-of-revenue rule of thumb (aim for ~7–8%).

• Systems thinking > shiny tools – map the ideal information flow first, then pick tech to automate it. If you’re touching the same data repeatedly, the process is broken.

• Change management that actually works – phase rollouts, involve users early, test, train, and measure adoption before you “go live.”

• Multi-entity without the migraines – standardise what you can across entities, respect local nuance (currency, tax, PTO), and use partners/EORs when expanding fast.

• Run the business by the numbers – utilisation, gross margin by client, and labour % tell the truth; AI can accelerate FP&A and reporting, but you still sanity-check the outputs.

If you’re feeling buried under tools, processes, and hiring questions, Lindsey’s final nudge is simple: pause, map “how it’s going” vs “how it should go,” and focus this quarter on the single change that unlocks the most leverage.

Additional Resources:

 👉🏽 Follow Lindsey Head on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseylhead/ 

💡 Check out Pulse Business Group: https://pulsebusinessgroup.com/  

👨🏽 Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ 

📈 Measure your business maturity and find out how to get to the next level: https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity 

📬 Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://www.scoro.com/podcast/#handbook 

➡️ This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system. Sign up for a free trial or a demo at https://scoro.com/demo – and for the VIP treatment, tell them Harv sent you. 

Ops Quickies – we're back with another snackable episode. 🍿

This one’s for anyone who’s ever wondered: Is my business actually set up to scale – or are we just surviving?

Harv breaks down:

👉🏽 Why business maturity matters

👉🏽 What it really means (hint: it’s not about headcount or revenue)

👉🏽 Why most service businesses get stuck at the early stages

👉🏽 And how you can quickly benchmark where you stand today...

Harv's launched a business maturity quiz to help you see where your business sits across people, process, tech, data, and growth, and what to focus on next.

It's only 25 questions and takes just 3 minutes. You get your results – and actions on where to focus to level up. 

So which era is your business in – The Chaotic Era? The Glimmers of Growth Era? The Stable Era? The Data Driven Era? Or The Innovation Era? 

👉 Take the quiz here: https://bit.ly/assess-business-maturity

Shout out to PSA platform Scoro for supporting this initiative! 

Check out scoro.com and if you sign up for a demo – tell them Harv sent you! 

When businesses talk about “productizing,” they often picture cookie-cutter scopes and rigid templates. But according to Brian Kessman, that’s missing the point.

Brian is the founder of Lodestar Consulting, and he’s spent 25 years helping agencies and consultancies scale without burning out teams or eroding margins. His approach isn’t about productizing services – it’s about productizing value.

In this episode of The Handbook: The Operations Podcast, Brian and Harv dig into what that really means, and how it can transform both your client relationships and your bottom line.

Here’s what we cover:

• The difference between productizing services (deliverables) vs. productizing value (outcomes)
• Why improving operations alone won’t fix a business model that’s not designed to scale
• How to spot patterns in your expertise and codify them into structured solutions
• Why productization doesn’t kill creativity – it actually creates more space for it
• Smarter ways to think about pricing, from fixed fees to value-based models

Brian also shares case studies from consultancies and agencies that have reframed their offers around outcomes – unlocking higher margins, more predictable delivery, and stronger authority with clients.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between reinventing the wheel on every project or being forced into commoditized work, this episode is for you.

Additional Resources:

 👉🏽 Follow Brian Kessman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briankessman/ 

💡 Check out Lodestar Agency Consulting: https://www.lodestaragencyconsulting.com/ 

👨🏽 Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ 

📈 Measure your business maturity and find out how to get to the next level: https://www.scoro.com/business-maturity-quiz/ 

📬 Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://www.scoro.com/podcast/#handbook 

➡️ This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system. Sign up for a free trial or a demo at https://scoro.com/demo – and for the VIP treatment, tell them Harv sent you. 

Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿

This one’s for anyone who’s ever asked: How is a PSA actually different from a project management tool? And does it even matter?

Spoiler: it does.

Harv breaks down how project management platforms and PSAs serve very different purposes – and why the difference becomes more obvious (and more valuable) as your business grows.

If you've got a question about ops tech, PSAs, or Scoro, drop Harv a message on LinkedIn. He might just turn it into the next Quickie.

And if you know someone stuck in spreadsheet purgatory or drowning in tools – send this episode their way.

From the outside, M&A can seem like a clean transaction – a new parent company, a logo change, a cheerful announcement.

But inside? The reality is messier. Integration. Culture clashes. Reporting headaches. And a long list of decisions that determine whether the deal actually works.

Dom Hawes has lived both sides. After his own agency was acquired (badly), he went on to build Selbey Anderson – a marketing services group backed by private equity, designed from day one to scale through M&A.

In just 30 months, he led the acquisition of 11 agencies, growing the group to £22M in revenue. In this episode, he pulls back the curtain on how that actually happens – and what too many people get wrong.

Here’s what we dive into:

• Why leadership – not just profit – is the #1 factor Dom looks for in an acquisition
• The red flags that make him walk away (including founders who say “I’m not a numbers person”)
• What makes integration hard – and how to avoid derailing morale
• The systems decision Dom regrets – and how it made integration and reporting harder later on
• How to be “sale-ready” in today’s tougher market

Whether you’re looking to sell or simply sharpen up your ops, this one’s a must-listen.

Additional Resources:

Follow Dom Hawes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominichawes/ 

Check out Selby Anderson: https://selbeyanderson.com/ 

Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ 

Get the key takeaways from the podcast in your inbox. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter: https://www.scoro.com/podcast/#handbook 

This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system.