Scaling Smart: How Present Works Transformed Their Agency with Productive

Before Productive, we used Google Sheets to track and manage projects through Asana, with a bit of Trello for Kanban-style project work. It was fine at first, but as we got bigger, these tools couldn’t keep up with the complexity we were dealing with. We had spreadsheets to manage our finances, but keeping up-to-date with what was happening on the ground was hard. Nothing was automated, so we were constantly updating things manually, which was time-consuming and could easily fall behind reality.

We’d been running on Asana and spreadsheets for a while, and I started thinking it could be much better. We wanted something that could give us a real-time overview of our whole business and serve as a single source of truth. It was getting to the point where we needed an integrated system that would handle everything from daily task management to high-level forecasting.

While exploring options, we came across Productive, and I was immediately drawn to its clean, intuitive interface. It didn’t take much convincing to see that this was the right platform for us.

We’re rolling it out in phases. First, we got the team used to Productive for briefings and project management. I set everyone up, got them communicating through the platform, and started pushing our project briefs through Productive. From there, we moved on to budgeting and resource planning, which is a game changer. Before, we were planning maybe a month ahead; now, we can plan for the entire year.

The next phases will cover invoicing, CRM functionality, and profitability tracking and reporting. We’re currently in phase three, so we still have much to explore.

Definitely. Even in these early stages, it’s already so much easier to track our resources. We can now see exactly how much time we spend on projects versus what we’re billing, which gives us a clearer picture of where we’re over-servicing or undercharging. This insight alone has helped us start having better conversations with clients about project scope and budgeting.

I love the flexibility to customize workflows to fit our needs. We wanted a service desk to handle client requests separately from our main projects, so I created a dedicated “Service Desk” project within Productive. Now, clients can submit requests directly, which are automatically formatted to meet our standards. Our project managers get a Slack notification when a request comes in. This setup keeps everything organized, allows clients to see all their requests in one place, and helps us prioritize with them.

It’s been a huge help, both for us and our clients.

Right now, Productive is giving us the foundation we need to scale. We’re not using it to its full potential yet, but I know this system will grow with us as we grow. The whole team is getting on board, and using Productive for day-to-day tasks is becoming second nature. We’re building something here that will support our ambitions as we expand, and I’m excited to see where it takes us.