Pushing For The Breakthrough

 Theodora Project is just a tad more than three years old. We launched our first training in April of 2020, right into the full force of the pandemic lockdown. 

Setting forth in the teeth of the pandemic was both a curse and a blessing. We were cursed in losing a lot of contributions, my being forced to manage from afar in the U.S., losing resources and supporters in Ghana, having to completely change our initial plan. But we were blessed in being forced to adopt to U.S. business, in having virtual work become far more accepted in the U.S., and a big influx of new self-employed people (our target market) into the market. 

When I last updated our progress in March, I commented on:

• Our ongoing work related to the fighting the cultural differences and how that related to building a sustainable success model
• The challenges of putting into place true succession to reduce the reliance on myself.
• The ongoing dichotomy between what the team is mastering, and the things they still need to work on.
• Our drive to get to breakeven

Before we did our spring Spain trip, I recognized I was in need of a break. I made a decision that I was going to let the Ghana team work on its own unless they absolutely needed me. It was a good test. Upon my return to action in June, I found they had accomplished a major breakthrough related to attention to detail. That may not sound like a lot, but for the kind of administrative work these women do, it is really important. And it had been holding us back. This now allowed us to take on a number of client tasks that provided clear cost savings and income generation possibility for clients. 

They had also done some good work on new client on boarding. We'd had a couple of rough initial weeks with some clients. But the team engaged in active communication and problem-solving with the clients and retained them. 

On the not so great side, we were not able to make any progress toward our goal to get to breakeven. We had some new client additions but we also had runoff from some of our old, angel clients (which is to be anticipated).

Since being back and getting back engaged, I feel the overall tenor is positive. Actually more than positive. I think we are getting close to a breakthrough. Why do I feel this way? I'm not exactly sure. It's a feel/intuition type of thing. As a business person who has gone through multiple start-ups and as sports coach, I have observed that progress/improvement is rarely straight line. More typical are long periods where you work your ass off and don't see a whole lot of progress. Then, suddenly, something happens and things click. Your performance suddenly surges. You advance rapidly until you reach the next performance plateau where the cycle starts again. That's the feeling I am getting now.

We've had a number of new business conversions in just the last couple of weeks. We are have a marketing channel we've worked on for years (Rotary) starting to finally show tangible opportunities. We've had a number of referrals from existing clients. Our August billing set a new record. We are in discussions with a couple of business partners that might open still further new business channels.

There is still a ways to go but the momentum is all in a positive direction.