It takes a lot to get a business off the ground.

To make it sustainable? That’s for the pros.

I've watched business evolution from a lot of angles: as the kid helping out with client calls and payroll for my mom’s business, as a founder of my own small business building a brand for eight years, and as an operator inside some of the biggest advertising agencies in the world.

In each of these environments, I saw how some systems and processes would buckle under pressure, and others would allow the work to hum, even at high velocity, even with people taking vacations, with the ease felt throughout.

Working closely with individuals and personalities in each of these environments — from microscopic to global — I learned how intercepting an issue at the place where it snags is the key to making the fix stick. Building someone a template doesn’t work if they process information by writing. Fixing a team’s out of office system won’t help if there’s no leadership buy-in and the roll-out is half-hearted. You have to build for the people doing the work.

That’s my specialty.

I’m not precious about my tactics. I only care that I leave a business better and more sustainable than I found it, for the boss and for the people it employs. Good businesses deserve to stay in business. Good ideas deserve to grow. And good bosses deserve time to step away with their mind at ease.

These are achievable goals.

I built Magdalena Method because I love working with people who are building things that matter to them — and because I've spent enough time inside enough organizations to know what it takes to make them work well. Not in theory, but in the particular, specific, sometimes unglamorous way that things actually get done.

If you’re leading a business that could use some help to meet your goals, reach out. I’d love to hear about what’s on your plate.

-Magdalena Santos