ReachDesign

People ask me why the Koha Session starts at $34 instead of a proper consulting rate. 🌱

Here's the honest answer.

The business owners who need this most are usually the ones with the least room in the budget. They're the ones running on fumes, doing admin at 9pm, telling themselves they'll sort it out when things quieten down. Things never quieten down.

If I priced this the way I could, those people would never book. And they're exactly who I built Reach Design for.

Koha means you give what feels right for where you're at. It starts at $34. One hour, kanohi ki te kanohi or on a call, and you leave with actual next steps. Not a proposal. Not a sales pitch.

Some people pay more. Some pay the $34. Both are welcome here.

If that's you, flick me a message. Let's have a kōrero. 😊

"I'm not disorganised. I just can't find anything."

That's what a landscaper told me on our first call, and honestly it's one of the truest things anyone's said to me. 👊

Her quotes lived in three places. Some in her email drafts, some in a notebook in the ute, some in her head. Every time a client rang to confirm a price, she had to go hunting.

We built one quote folder. One naming pattern. Date, client, job type. That's the whole system.

She said the best part wasn't the time saved. It was not feeling stupid on the phone anymore.

Small change. Big difference. That's what I love about this mahi.

Kia ora October 🌱

Clocks have gone forward, the evenings are stretching out, and the Wairarapa is properly green again.

Here's what's coming on the page this month. Quick tips you can use the same day, real stories from real mahi, and a bit of the why behind how I work.

The theme for October is Getting Found. Being visible without burning yourself out doing it. Because most of the business owners I talk to aren't short on skill. They're short on people knowing they exist.

Our next Ara Hui is on that exact kaupapa. Thursday 15 October, 10am to 11:30am on Google Meet. Six seats, $75+GST. Details at reachdesign.nz/services/ara-hui

So tell me. How do most of your new clients find you right now? 👇

Last Monday of September.
I always find this time of year makes people restless in a good way. You start seeing the year properly. What's worked, what you've just been putting up with.

If you're in that spot, here's what I'd say. Don't wait until you've got a plan. Most people who book a Koha Session with me arrive saying "I don't really know what I need, I just know this isn't working." That's a perfectly good place to start. Actually it's the best one.

One hour. Starts at $34. We map what's actually going on and you leave knowing the next step. No pitch, no proposal, no jargon.

Chaos to clarity. That's the whole kaupapa.

Send me a message if you want to have a kōrero before Christmas creeps up. It always does. 😊

Daylight saving kicks in this Sunday. One less hour of sleep, one more hour of light after work. 🌱

Here's a quick one while you're changing the clocks anyway.

Do a double handling audit. For one week, every time you type the same information twice, make a note. Client name into the quote, then into the invoice. Job details into a text, then into the calendar. Address into three different places.

Most people find four or five of these. Each one is small. Together they're eating hours of your week and creating every typo you've ever apologised for.

You don't need software to fix it. You usually just need to decide where the information lives first, once.

Spring clean your workflow, not just the garage. 😉

What's the thing you type over and over? 👇

Tomorrow is Suffrage Day. 19 September 1893, and Aotearoa became the first country in the world where women could vote. 🌱

I think about that a lot, running this business.

Not in a grand way. In a very ordinary way. Because a lot of the wāhine I work with are running businesses that would not have been possible for their nannies, and they're still apologising for taking up space. Still saying "sorry, this is probably a silly question."

It's never a silly question.

If you've been sitting on something, wondering whether your business is "proper enough" to get help with systems, this is your nudge. It is. You are.

We ran the first Ara Hui yesterday. If you missed this one, the next comes round with the cycle: reachdesign.nz/services/ara-hui

Ngā mihi to every wahine who kept going when it would've been easier not to. 💛

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori is on this week. Ake, ake, ake. A forever language. 🌱

Here's a business version of that kaupapa for you.

Your systems have a language too. The names you give your files, your folders, your job numbers, your invoices. Right now that language probably lives in one person's head, which means the business only really works when that person is available.

Write it down. One page. "This is how we name things here."

That's it. That's the whole tip. It takes twenty minutes and it's the difference between a business that runs and a business that runs on you.

Language keeps things alive. Yours does too.

And on that same kaupapa, the first Ara Hui is this Thursday. Setting Up, ninety minutes, six of us: reachdesign.nz/services/ara-hui

What's one thing in your business only you know how to do? 👇

It is Te Wiki o te Reo Māori this week, and the first Ara Hui lands inside it on Thursday.

That was not planned, but I will take it.

Something I want to be clear about, because people ask. Ara is grounded in te ao Māori, it is not decorated with it. That means whanaungatanga before the mahi. We take the time to know who is in the room before we ask anyone to open up. It means manaakitanga in how the session is held, so no one leaves feeling smaller than when they arrived. And it means aroha, which in a business context mostly looks like honesty delivered kindly.

You do not need a word of te reo to be in the room. You do not need to be Māori. You need to be a pakihi owner who is willing to say a true thing out loud.

Thursday 17 September. Setting Up. there are spaces or hōiho left: reachdesign.nz/services/ara-hui

A fair question I have been asked twice this week: who is Ara Hui actually for?

It is for you if you started your pakihi because you have something real to give. You are figuring the rest out as you go. You do not have a team. And every so often you wonder whether you are the only one who finds this as hard as you do.

You are not. That is most of us. We just do not say it in the same rooms.

On the price. $75 plus GST for ninety minutes, and I set it there on purpose. The people who need this the most are usually the ones who cannot justify the expensive version, and I was one of them once. Low cost enough to say yes to. Real enough to actually shift something.

Thursday 17 September, theme Setting Up. There are seats left: reachdesign.nz/services/ara-hui