Koined Digital case study: how a social media and content agency stopped running through the founders

This social media agency case study shows how Get Your Ops Together (GYOT) built the operations behind Koined Digital, the content creation, social media management and branding agency run by Shannelle and Omari Harris. Most agency owners we work with are frustrated by the same things: content plans and approvals stuck with them, team members asking the same questions, and every new hire needing to be trained by hand. Koined was dealing with all three. The short answer to what changed is that we built all six of the core systems the agency runs on, including a lead capture, proposal, contract and invoice flow in Dubsado, separate ClickUp spaces for each service, a client review flow in Frame.io, a reorganized Slack and ClickUp, and detailed SOPs, so client work could keep moving without waiting on Shannelle and Omari.

Koined Digital at a glance

What was slowing Koined Digital down?

Koined had retainer clients, which are clients who pay a set monthly fee for ongoing work, a podcast in production and a committed team. What hadn't kept up was the back end, meaning the tools, rules and routines that keep client work moving behind the scenes. Content plans sat until Shannelle or Omari could review them, edits waited on their approval, and client questions waited too, so one busy day for Shannelle and Omari slowed down everyone else.

Each service also ran a little differently. There was no standard path from a new inquiry to finished work, tasks and conversations were spread across tools, client feedback had no fixed home, and new team members learned the job by shadowing Shannelle and Omari. This is common when an agency grows faster than the systems behind it.

What are the six core systems, and why did Koined need all of them?

From working with creative agencies, our belief is that almost all of the work in an agency falls into one of six areas, so we treat six core systems as the foundation every agency is built on. A system is simply a repeatable way of getting something done that doesn't depend on one person remembering it. The six are lead inquiry, client onboarding, delivery, offboarding, team management and data tracking. The first four follow the client journey, every step a client goes through with your agency from inquiry to the end of the project, and the last two keep the team and decisions running behind the scenes. At Koined, every one of those areas leaned on Shannelle and Omari, so we built all six. This post focuses on the parts that changed day-to-day work the most. For a full explanation, read the systems every creative agency needs to scale without burnout.

How did we set up lead inquiry and onboarding in Dubsado?

The client journey starts when someone submits an inquiry to work with you, so that's where the build starts too. Koined uses Dubsado, a client management tool for forms, proposals, contracts and invoices. We set up a lead capture form that collects the details the team needs before a discovery call (the first sales conversation with a prospective client), so nobody walks into that call unprepared. From there, the proposal, contract and invoice go out in one consistent flow, built from a reusable proposal template instead of a fresh document every time.

Onboarding is everything that makes a new client feel welcome and confident they chose the right agency, from the first welcome message to gathering what the team needs to begin. Koined's onboarding workflow now collects each client's brand assets as part of the process, so logos, fonts, colors and brand files arrive before the work starts instead of being chased in messages later. If you want to build your own version, read what a client onboarding system actually includes.

How did we set up ClickUp for a social media agency?

Once a client is onboarded, the work itself needs a home. ClickUp is the project management tool where Koined's tasks, deadlines and project details live, and it organizes work into Spaces, which are the top-level sections of a workspace. We gave each service its own Space, one for the social media retainer, one for the content retainer and one for branding, because each service has different steps, and mixing them makes it hard to see what's happening.

Inside each Space, project templates mean every new client starts from the same structure instead of a blank list. Content follows one planning flow from idea to scheduling, moving through clear statuses, which are the labels that show what stage a piece of work is in: Idea, In Planning, In Editing, Internal Review, Client Review, Finalized and, for social clients, Scheduled. Every task has an owner and a due date, and each team member has a personal view of all the work assigned to them across clients, so nobody has to ask what's next.

How should a content agency handle client review and approvals?

Review is where agencies tend to lose the most time. At Koined, each social client gets a monthly content plan built in Canva, and clients review that plan in Frame.io, a creative review tool, before anything goes into production. Finished edits are reviewed in Frame.io too, so feedback lives in one place and there's always one final version.

Clients never need a ClickUp login. Each client's plan sits in a Google Sheet linked inside their ClickUp list, and when the work reaches the Client Review status, the client gets a link to comment directly in that sheet. For the full method, read how to map client delivery so projects stop waiting on you.

What Slack rules actually help a small agency team?

Slack is the team chat app Koined uses, and it needed the same kind of structure as ClickUp. We reorganized both tools together so each had a clear job: tasks live in ClickUp, and conversation lives in Slack. Slack got purpose-built channels for areas like operations, admin and marketing, plus channels for clients and projects.

The rules are simple. Work conversations happen in the right channel and in a thread, and direct messages stay for personal matters. Any request for a login, an asset or an approval becomes a ClickUp task with an owner, instead of a message someone has to remember. After the reorganization and a ClickUp training session, the team agreed the new Slack and ClickUp setup felt much more streamlined and clear.

How do detailed SOPs make hiring easier?

Systems only hold if the team can follow them without asking, which is where SOPs come in. An SOP, or standard operating procedure, is a written step-by-step guide for doing a recurring task the same way every time. We wrote detailed SOPs for content scheduling, community engagement and caption writing, and trained the team on how to use them.

That changed how Koined brings in new people. New editors and social media team members now join with access to ClickUp and Slack, the client preferences, and the SOPs for their role, instead of learning everything by shadowing Shannelle and Omari. If you're documenting your own processes, the free Social Media Agency SOP Starter Kit and Content and Video Agency SOP Starter Kit in our Template Shop each include policies, an SOP template, an industry SOP vault and an AI SOP builder. For more on growing a team, read what team management should look like in a 4-person agency.

What changed for Koined Digital?

We don't publish numbers a client hasn't shared, so here is how Koined runs now. Every service has a documented path from inquiry to delivery across Dubsado and ClickUp. Clients review content in one place, and Canva plans are approved before production begins. Each team member can see their own work, Shannelle and Omari can check progress without sending status messages, and new hires step into systems that already exist. Most importantly, Shannelle and Omari are back in their CEO roles, focused on running the agency instead of managing every task inside it.

For more examples like this one, browse our client stories.

Which GYOT offer fits if this sounds like your agency?

If you're not sure where your agency still depends on you, start with the free Baggage Check, a self-assessment that shows where the business still leans on you and what to hand off first.

If you want your systems built for you around how your agency already works, that's what Ops Concierge, our done-for-you system build, is for. For an operations partner embedded month to month, as Koined had, look at the Residents' Lounge. RESORT Mode is our group program for creatives who want to scale to $30k+ months without the burnout. You get all the systems your agency needs, grow as a founder, and get real-time coaching as you scale.

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Ready to stop being the person your agency waits on?

Take the free Baggage Check to see what to hand off first, or book a consultation to talk through whether Ops Concierge, the Residents' Lounge or RESORT Mode fits your agency.