There’s a particular look a founder gets during a handover. Half relief, half suspicion. As if we might, at any moment, put the wrong booklet in the wrong sleeve and undo years of careful work.
Honestly? I’m glad to see it.
When Michelle Squire handed her Masterplan packs over to us, she was meticulous about it; even, by her own admission, a little controlling. Her packs aren’t just paperwork. Each one lands at a specific step of her programme, and her customers notice if something is missing. Her reputation was in every envelope, so she checked, asked questions, and wanted to know exactly how each step would be handled.
Because she put that detail in at the start, there were very few teething problems. That isn’t luck. It’s what fussy founders get in return for being fussy.
Why handovers go wrong in week three
Most handovers don’t go wrong on day one. Everyone is paying attention on day one.
They go wrong a few weeks in, when an assumption nobody wrote down meets a real order. The booklet that “always goes in last”. The customer who gets a handwritten note because they’ve been with you from the start. The product that looks identical to its neighbour on the shelf. These things live in a founder’s head, and a founder’s head is not a process.
Being fussy at the start is how you get them out of your head and onto paper, before they become a complaint.
What to pin down before you hand anything over
- What “right” looks like. Photograph a finished pack, opened and closed. A picture settles questions a paragraph never will.
- The order things go in. It sounds trivial until a customer opens a box and the first thing they see is the returns slip.
- The exceptions. What happens when one component runs out? When an address looks wrong? When a customer skips a step or pauses? Decide now, not on a busy Tuesday in December.
- The trigger. What tells the warehouse that a pack needs to go? If the honest answer is “I do”, that’s the first thing to change.
- Who to ask, and how quickly you’ll hear back. Every handover throws up a question nobody thought of. Knowing exactly where it goes takes most of the worry out of it.
Then, gradually, let go
Fussy at the start doesn’t mean fussy forever. The whole point of the detail is that it moves out of your head and into a system. Check the first few weeks closely. Then check a little less. Then a little less again.
You’ll know it has worked when you realise you haven’t thought about it for a fortnight. For Michelle, it sounded like this:
“Nobody has to go in and say, send this pack. It’s all done through a system.”
That sentence is the reward for every question she asked at the beginning.
A thought for founders still holding on
If you’ve been putting off a handover because nobody will do it quite like you do, try writing down how you do it. Every step, every exception, every little touch.
Even if you never hand it over, you’ll have something your business didn’t have before: a way of working that doesn’t depend on you being in the room.
Thank you, Michelle.
Order fulfilment is what we do. Brand experience is what we deliver. Seven days a week.