When what you sell changes, delivery has to change too

There’s a reason this moment – where effort stops working the way it used to – often shows up alongside changes in pricing, packaging, or how a firm delivers its work.

Sometimes the shift is obvious.
Sometimes it happens gradually, without a clear “before” and “after.”

A firm moves from:

• one-on-one delivery → staff and contract help

• custom, hourly work → flat-rate monthly offerings

• reactive requests → pre-defined packages

These changes are signs of progress.

But there’s a hidden consequence that doesn’t get talked about very much.

When what you sell changes, the systems that support delivery have to change too.

If they don’t, everything starts to feel harder.

The work itself may not be more complex –
but the way it moves through the business becomes fragmented.

Things that used to live comfortably in your head no longer fit there.
Processes that worked fine when everything was custom start to creak.
You end up acting as the glue between parts that never got connected.

This is often when owners try to compensate with more effort.

More checking.
More remembering.
More hours.
More “I’ll just make sure it gets done.”

And for a while, that can work.

But over time, the strain becomes noticeable – not because you’re doing anything wrong, but because the operating system underneath the business no longer matches the model you’re running.

That mismatch is exhausting.

In the next email, I’ll share the story of how this played out in my business – the moment I realized things were getting bigger (hooray!), but my grip on them was slipping (oh noez!), and how I brought things around.