Follow-ups that depend on memory
Contacts and prospects kept in a spreadsheet or an inbox, with the next step in someone’s head. Clear stages and dated follow-up tasks mean nothing waits on memory.
Business automation consultant · Birmingham (remote)
A business automation consultant for Birmingham founders, working remotely.
Birmingham’s professional firms win on relationships. I find the admin that gets in the way of them, and build the systems that take it off your hands.
Anne PeireFounder of 10PM, London
At a glance
- Who
- Anne Peire, founder of 10PM
- Where
- Working remotely with firms in Birmingham and across the UK
- What
- Business process automation for founder-led firms and professional services
- Where it starts
- A free conversation, then a £350 Process Review or a broader Review from £650
Working with Birmingham
A crowded market, where the follow-up is the work
Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK for business, professional and financial services employment, according to TheCityUK. Meet Birmingham counts over 4,400 companies in the sector in Birmingham alone.
In a market that dense, small firms compete on responsiveness: the call returned the same day, the proposal chased on time, the contact who hears from you before they think of someone else. That is exactly the work that slips when the founder is also doing the admin.
I am based in London and I work with Birmingham founders remotely, over video call and inside the tools you already use.
Sources: Invest West Midlands, reporting TheCityUK, September 2023 Meet Birmingham, business, professional and financial services
Where I would start
Three places I would look first in a Birmingham firm
Not a menu. These are the patterns I would check before anything else. The Business Process Review tells us which of them matter in your business, and by how much.
Knowing who owes what
A list every Monday of unpaid invoices, oldest first, with a suggested message in your own words. You decide what gets sent.
The weekly picture for the founder
One report on the numbers you actually check, sent to you every week, instead of asking the team where things stand.
More detail by audience: founders & small teams professional services firms architects consultants agency founders
Also working with founders in: London Manchester Leeds Bristol
The work
What a business automation consultant actually does
The title covers a lot of ground, so here is the specific version.
I look at how your business really runs, not how the process document says it runs. I find the tasks that happen often and need no judgement, put a number on what they cost you over a year, and then build the systems that remove or shrink them.
I do not sell strategy decks or tool recommendations. What I hand over is a working system, tested against your real cases, documented, and operated by your team without me.
The founders I meet are not short of ambition. They are short of the hours that ambition needs.
Evidence
What this has changed
for real businesses
≈12 → <1hours of admin a month, at a payroll firm serving around 200 client companies
Premium Paye
Premium Paye is a payroll firm in France. Its founder reported that combined invoicing, direct debits and onboarding went from around twelve hours in a busy month with new clients to under one hour now. This is cross-sector experience, separate from the local examples above.
Read the case studyBackground
Why I see this pattern quickly
I spent more than fifteen years in B2B technology, including leadership roles at Fountain and Soldo, and time at Verizon after it acquired the company I was with. Before 10PM I also ran my own service business, an after-school nanny agency in London, and automated its hours, invoicing and payments myself.
My framework for the hire-or-automate decision ran as a full-page article in London Business Matters, the magazine of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in the July and August 2026 issue.
In practice
Put the next action on the record
A CRM can create dated follow-up tasks from the stages and rules your team agrees. See how client data and CRM configuration work together. Payment messages remain drafts for your team to check and send.
How it works
From your first question
to a working solution.
We agree the right depth of discovery first. Each paid stage has its own deliverables and fixed fee; you decide whether to continue after it.
First, a free 15-minute conversation to understand the challenge and agree the appropriate next step.
Understand your business
We explore the process, what you want to achieve and how your team prefers to work. I challenge the proposed solution if the underlying problem is different.
You receiveA clear process map, written recommendations and an agreed priority.
Check the tools and feasibility
During separately scoped Process Design, I check the connections, permissions, costs and exceptions that could affect the solution.
You receiveA documented workflow, feasibility findings and the requirements for a reliable build.
Agree the scope and price
Before implementation, we agree what will be built, the timeline, responsibilities and how we will check that it works.
You receiveA written proposal with a fixed build price, acceptance checks and any ongoing costs.
Build and test
I build the agreed solution and test normal cases, exceptions and approvals. Your team reviews it against the checks we agreed.
You receiveA working solution, a demonstration and the agreed checks completed before handover.
Document, train and hand over
I show your team how to use the solution, what to monitor and how to handle exceptions. We clarify ownership and support.
You receivePractical instructions, a walkthrough and clear support terms so your team can run it.
One recurring processFocused Process Review · £350Several connected prioritiesBusiness Process Review · from £650
Discovery, Process Design and implementation each have an agreed scope and fee. You choose the appropriate discovery service; buying both is not required. Testing, documentation and team handover are included in the agreed implementation scope.
Before we talk
Questions founders ask
before hiring anyone.
Something else on your mind?
Email me directly.
Do I need to know what to automate before we talk?
No. Bring a problem, a frustration or a part of the business that takes too much of your attention. Working out which change is worth making is part of my job. Sometimes the answer is to simplify a process before automating anything.
Do I need to be based in Birmingham?
No. The work happens remotely, over video call and inside the systems you already use. I am based in London, and location has not mattered for any client relationship so far.
We already have a CRM. Why do follow-ups still slip?
Because a CRM stores what you type into it. It only starts to follow up for you once the stages are clear and the rules that create the next task are in place. Setting those up, inside the CRM you already pay for, is often quicker than founders expect.
Do you work with firms elsewhere in the West Midlands?
Yes. The work is remote, so Solihull, Coventry or Wolverhampton makes no difference, and the same goes for anywhere else in the UK.
What does the fixed price cover?
Each paid phase has its own agreed scope and fee. The implementation proposal follows Process Design and sets out the build, the testing, the documentation, the timeline and the handover. Software subscriptions and any ongoing support are identified separately. If the scope changes, we agree the extra work and its price before it starts.
Your business
Where is your week going?
Fifteen minutes, no charge, no pitch. Bring one process that annoys you and we will look at it together.
15 minutes · No charge
Prefer to write? anne@10pm.works