Operational Efficiency Blueprint for founder-led service firms
The Blueprint is a fixed-fee diagnosis and sequenced operating plan. It shows what is slowing work, what to fix first, the tradeoffs in each path, and what outside help is actually needed.
Free call. No prep, no obligation, and no payment to talk.
Focused: $2,500 for one defined bottleneck. Expanded: from $3,500 for multiple connected issues.
If Altvina executes work that directly implements findings and recommendations documented in your Blueprint, 50% of its fee is credited toward that work. The credit does not expire and cannot be used for unrelated scopes.
One decision-ready deliverable
Start with fit
It is designed for a costly or recurring operating problem when the right fix is still unclear.
The deliverable
A written artifact and walkthrough built for decisions and execution, not a deck of observations.
An evidence-based read on what is constraining throughput, quality, or decisions, separated from the visible symptoms.
The highest-value levers ranked by impact and feasibility, including where more spending would not solve the problem.
Clear routes across hiring, redesign, automation, or targeted support, with the compromise each choice carries.
Who decides, who executes, and what must be true before the next step moves forward.
A practical order of operations aligned to your capacity, budget rhythm, dependencies, and risk tolerance.
A plain view of what your team can run, where outside expertise may help, and what support is unnecessary.
The Blueprint remains useful even if Altvina does nothing else.
You own the deliverable. Use it with your team, another provider, Altvina, or no one at all.
The method
Diagnose names the real constraint. Design turns it into a sequenced plan. Deploy adds execution support only if the plan reveals a capability or capacity gap.
Scope and pricing
The rigor stays the same. The scope changes with the number of connected issues.
One defined bottleneck
$2,500 fixed fee
Best for a contained workflow, team, handoff, or recurring decision where the symptoms are visible but the correct next move is not.
Multiple connected issues
From $3,500 fixed fee
Best when the operational drag crosses workflows, functions, tools, or several recurring decision paths.
If Altvina is selected to execute work that directly implements the findings and recommendations documented in that specific Blueprint, 50% of the Blueprint fee is credited toward that work. The credit does not expire and cannot be used for unrelated scopes.
We confirm the right scope and exact fee before you decide. Prefer writing? Tell us what's slowing you down.
Our promise
A fixed fee, set before you pay
We agree the scope and the exact price together on the Fit Call. No hourly creep, no surprise invoice.
The plan is yours to keep
The Blueprint is a deliverable you own and can run with, on your own or with us. There is no obligation to buy anything else.
Half the fee can carry forward
If Altvina executes work that directly implements findings and recommendations documented in your specific Blueprint, 50% of the fee is credited to that work. It does not expire or apply to unrelated scopes.
We'll tell you if you don't need us
If we can't name a constraint worth more than the fee, we'll say so on the call. The Fit Call is free, and there's no payment to talk.
See the proof
Choose the illustrative business closest to yours. Each sample follows the same five-part structure as a paid Blueprint, including account-level calculations, priorities, decision tradeoffs, and an honest view of where not to spend.
These are composite examples created to demonstrate the method, not client claims or promised results.
Pick the business closest to yours
Each is an illustrative composite, not a real client. Same rigor we bring to a real Blueprint.
Operational Efficiency Blueprint
Sample deliverable
Illustrative sample. A composite grounded in patterns we see often, not a real client. Every figure is modeled from the composite's own records, not a measured result from any business.
Executive summary
Meridian came to us a week from signing two hires, a salesperson and an operations manager, about $150,000 a year, to win and run more big contracts. The owner was certain the problem was growth: the pipeline of large recurring accounts felt too thin to keep everyone busy. We asked to see the numbers behind the plan before anyone agreed it was a growth problem.
We rebuilt twelve months of finished work account by account, counting the hours that never make it onto an invoice: crew time, paid drive time between stops, the supervisor's windshield hours, and the after-hours callbacks nobody bills. The story inverted. The three largest, most-protected anchor accounts, the ones used as references and staffed around, run at a combined loss of about $60,500 a year once true hours are counted. The book of small one-off and post-construction jobs everyone treats as filler is what quietly funds them. This is not a thin-pipeline problem. It is a 'we cannot see which work makes money' problem, and Meridian was one signature from spending $150,000 to win more of the work that loses it.
Our recommendation: fix what the book earns before adding people. Re-price or renegotiate the three losing anchors, change how every new account is quoted so it can never silently go underwater again, fix the 58-day collection lag that is masking the bleed in the bank balance, then re-decide the hires from clean numbers. On these figures that recovers most of the leak inside a quarter and keeps the $150,000 in your pocket until the work actually earns it.
This Blueprint cost $2,500. The hire it asks you to pause is sixty times that, every year, pointed at the wrong problem.
What we cannot promise
We cannot promise your biggest anchor renews at a price that works, that conversation is yours and it may go badly; what we can hand you is the floor below which keeping each account costs you money, and the order to walk in.
The brief
A family-run commercial cleaning and building-maintenance company, about 30 people, roughly $4M a year, eight years in business. Revenue has climbed every year but the bank balance has not, and the owner was a week from hiring a salesperson and an operations manager, about $150,000 a year combined, to win and run more big recurring contracts. They came to Altvina to pressure-test that plan before signing the offer letters. We asked one thing first: show us, account by account, which work actually makes money. Nobody had ever counted it that way.
How we looked
The owner was sure the problem was a thin pipeline of big accounts. Before agreeing, we did the one thing the business had never done: we pulled twelve months of completed work and rebuilt what each recurring account truly cost to serve, not what the proposal assumed. That means counting the hours that never reach an invoice, crew labor at the real loaded rate, paid drive time between stops, the supervisor's windshield and re-clean time, and the after-hours callbacks the dispatcher handles as a favor. Then we ranked every account by real profit, coldly, no matter how prized the logo is.
What we found (the part that flips the story)
The three largest, most-protected anchor accounts, the ones on the website, the ones crews were hired around, lose money once true hours are counted. It is not even across them: the medical office park is roughly break-even, but the regional bank branches and the distribution warehouse bleed about $33,900 and $29,700 a year. The small post-construction and one-off jobs everyone calls 'filler' carry a 24 percent margin and were quietly funding the anchors. Meridian does not have a growth problem. It has a 'we cannot see which work makes money' problem, and was about to spend $150,000 to win more anchors exactly like the ones losing it.
Recurring book, real profit by account (trailing 12 months)
Regional bank, 9 branches
Distribution warehouse
Medical office park
Mid-size recurring (11 accts)
One-off & post-construction
Reconstructed from Meridian's own job records and payroll, not industry averages. 'Real cost' includes unbilled drive, supervisor, and callback hours. Rounded to the nearest hundred.
Real margin by account type, trailing 12 months
The two losing anchors sit below the line. The work treated as least important is the most profitable.
Show our work: the worst account, line by line
Take the bank, 9 branches, billed at $17,900 a month. The bid assumed a 2.5-hour clean per branch, five nights. The crew clock and the route sheet say the real average is 3.1 hours once two older branches that always run long are counted. That gap is about 67 unbilled crew hours a month. Add the supervisor's 11 hours a month driving the route to re-check the two problem branches, and the after-hours alarm-reset callbacks, 4 to 6 a month at roughly an hour each, billed to no one. Loaded at Meridian's own labor rate, those unbilled hours run about $2,825 a month. That is why an account that 'looks like' $17,900 of revenue actually costs about $20,725 to serve. You are paying roughly $2,825 a month to keep this logo. We rebuilt every other account the same way, from your hours, not from estimates, which is why we believe the rest of the table.
The collection lag hiding it
58
days
Average time from work done to cash in the bank on the three anchors, against 30-day terms
28
days late
How far past terms the anchors run, so the bleed never shows up as a cash crunch on time
$94k
tied up
Roughly what is sitting in receivables past terms on the anchors at any given moment
Why it stayed hidden
These accounts were bid years ago from a rate sheet, won, and never re-costed, while the work quietly crept: a branch remodel that added square footage, a warehouse that started running a second shift, alarm callbacks that became routine. They are also the accounts the family defends hardest. The owner's brother runs the bank route and is proud of it; the warehouse was the win that 'put us on the map.' And the 58-day collection lag means the loss never arrives as a missed payroll, it arrives as a line of credit that keeps creeping up for reasons nobody can name. Nothing in the system showed the leak, and the people closest to it had reasons not to look.
Why an owner cannot catch this from the inside
This is a position problem, not a competence problem. Seeing it needs three things an owner running the day rarely has at once: the outside eye that knows exactly where margin hides in route-based cleaning work, the distance to call your proudest account unprofitable to your own brother's face, and the hours to rebuild a year of job costs and rank them without flinching. Altvina pairs a vetted operator who ran bidding and margin inside a multi-route janitorial firm with the systems and data lens needed to do the counting and say what it means. That judgment is what the diagnosis buys, not a spreadsheet you could have downloaded.
What we assumed (and would confirm)
We used Meridian's loaded labor rate as given. If the workers' comp class code or the real overtime load on the night crews is heavier than payroll showed, the anchor losses are larger, not smaller. We flag it because the re-pricing conversation should start from a number you have nailed down, and we would lock that down before the first call to the bank.
Section 1 of 5
How we worked
We rebuilt the composite’s real numbers from its own records, ranked the work by true profit, sequenced the fixes, and framed the decision. Diagnose, Design, Deploy. Every figure traces back to the business’s own records, no outside benchmarks or industry averages assumed.
What your Blueprint includes
This is one business’s blind spot. The method is the same. The answer is always different.
A Fit Call is 20 minutes, no payment, no slides: an honest read on where your margin is hiding and a straight recommendation, a Focused Blueprint, an Expanded one, or you do not need us yet. Sometimes that last one is the answer, and we will say so.
See what your numbers would say in 20 minutes.
No payment to talk. If we are not the right move, we will tell you.
Your Blueprint will use your operating evidence, constraints, and economics.
The purpose is not to manufacture a larger project. It is to give you a credible decision map, including when a hire, tool, vendor, or Altvina engagement is unnecessary.
Map my bottleneckHow Altvina delivers
Altvina is accountable for the engagement. Vetted independent operators may diagnose, design, or execute where their discipline expertise fits the work. The company stays close to every project.
One accountable company owns the scope, quality bar, communication, and outcome of the engagement.
We match vetted operators to the work instead of forcing every problem through one generalist lens.
Altvina only accepts work it can support closely. Growth never takes priority over delivery quality.
Execution support is never required. If the Blueprint shows that your team can run the plan, that is a successful outcome. If a gap remains, support is scoped to a documented recommendation and a clear finish line.
Common questions
No. You own the Blueprint and can execute it internally, use another provider, ask Altvina to help, or decide not to proceed.
Only work that directly implements findings and recommendations documented in that specific Blueprint. It never expires and cannot be moved to an unrelated scope.
Altvina remains accountable and may involve vetted independent operators with the discipline expertise the work requires. We only accept work we can support closely.
Focused covers one defined bottleneck. Expanded covers multiple connected issues. We confirm scope and the exact fixed fee together on the Fit Call.
One clear next step
In 20 minutes, we can confirm whether the Blueprint fits your situation, choose the right footprint, and set the exact fee before you make a decision.
No payment to talk. No prep, no obligation.
Prefer to start in writing? Tell us what's slowing you down.