Operations Strategist (Fully Remote)

Logistics Summary

• Location: Remote
• Type: Full-time with flexible EST hours
• Hours: average of 25-35 hrs per week
• Requirement: direct experience building teams and managing operations for small businesses, ideally at the Operations Manager level (or above), or within an agency supporting a variety of business sizes/types
• Compensation: $40-$60/hr
• Position: Operations Strategist

Note: We are also looking for other freelance/part-time roles, so please feel free to apply and let us know how you’d ideally love to contribute your expertise!

Seeking You... If You

• Have a high mental acuity and can easily pick up on new situations and environments
• Are seasoned at working remotely and the project/self-management + communication practices needed for asynchronous team structures
• Are masterful at building out systems and processes, with concise and clear communication / delegation for those executing on the processes
• Believe in an innovative approach to managing/leading a team with progressive principles and a commitment to DEI
• Love engaging with all types of people, especially visionaries/founders of SMBs, and adjusting your communication to meet them where they are
• Geek out on all things operations, supporting and leading teams, and growing small businesses
• Feel an insatiable desire to excel, learn, persevere, optimize, deliver quality, and get results
• Are resourceful, proactive, and a problem solver - heck, you thrive on it!
• Are masterful at context switching and can juggle multiple clients and projects seamlessly and efficiently

Who We Are

Magical Teams is hiring for an Operations Strategist! We are a premium hiring, operations, and management consultancy on a mission to help small businesses build and manage their teams in a more effective, inclusive, and empowering way. We offer custom 1-on-1 “done for you” services that integrate into our clients’ businesses. Our core values are kindness, communication, freedom, shared ownership, and leaning into our optimal zone of discomfort. Our CEO, Christina Salerno, has been building and supporting small businesses for over 15 years and is very passionate about mentoring and developing hidden talent. We are a small team with big hearts and exceptional work ethics. Our clientele are typically: mission driven and impact oriented, women founders or women in leadership, equity-centered and prioritize DEI, and have a high bar for quality + efficiency. We’re looking for someone special to join our team as we’re growing fast and need to expand in order to keep up and optimize our success.

The Role Logistics

We need someone with operations experience to support our clients and team in a variety of areas. Our objective is to find the right people and create the ideal role for them/us so that we’re all doing what we love to do in support of our goals.

We are seeking someone for a full-time, 1099 subcontractor position between $40-60 per hour for an average of 25-35 hours per week. There is a huge potential for growth. The goal for this position is to be a core team member working towards full time hours. Long-term, we also offer potential opportunities for becoming a Senior Strategist, bonuses, and profit-sharing.

• If you are not available full-time, you can still apply and let us know you’re interested in part-time / freelancer opportunities instead!

This is a 100% remote position with flexible hours. We need someone who is available during most EST business hours for collaboration with our team/clients.

We highly encourage candidates who are LGBTQIA2S+, BIPOC, neurodiverse, disabled, from rural areas, and other communities.

Responsibilities And Areas Of Need

Our agency uses a “pod team” structure. Each client is assigned a primary pod that includes a Strategist, Coordinator, and an Admin. For more complex projects or larger budgets, we may also add people to expand capacity or provide subject matter expertise; however we ideally keep the core pod the same long-term for cohesion and consistency.

Our clients have established small businesses and startups, but they are at a growth point and need extra support to up-level. Sometimes they really don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to building/managing a team and they’re looking to us to learn how to do this and get the execution support to set their team up for success. Other times they simply have run out of capacity and know what needs to be done, but they need to outsource it so they can focus on being the visionary / business owner.

We are strategic partners with our clients. They choose us because we’re experts and they value/respect our advice. For larger budgets, we integrate and work within our clients’ businesses, but we are still separate, which allows us more freedom and to manage our work/team. Even if we’re less integrated, we aim to feel like a part of their team. We care about providing a high quality of work, but we also care about ensuring we have a great working relationship for our clients. (More about “working with us”)

Full time Strategists typically are assigned between 4-8 clients. Sometimes this is 1-2 hrs per week of meetings/oversight per client. Sometimes there is also implementation of projects where you would participate in the operations work. You’ll need to be equally comfortable with strategic thinking and getting into the nitty gritty of the execution.

Due to the custom nature of our work, no client / situation / week is the same. For those who love to be challenged, there’s always interesting work to keep you engaged!

These Are The Primary Responsibilities Of a Strategist

• Manage client relationships, which may include: determining structures and the best way to work together, setting expectations, clarifying or renegotiating budgets, communicating progress updates, and using de-escalation/conflict resolution tactics (written and verbal) when necessary.
• Facilitate meetings and various group conversations that are efficient and high value with our team and our clients and their teams.
• Oversee the success of the pod team and all projects/tasks. Provide delegation, reviews, feedback, and quality assurance. Ensure everything is on track and step in to get things back on track when needed.
• Confirm and monitor scope, priorities, budget, and set realistic timelines and expectations for the client and pod team.
• Strategize with clients on business goals and challenges in a variety of areas. Identify bottlenecks, provide/get strategic direction, and map out what needs to happen in order to achieve results and growth.
• Meet with clients to draw out their needs, audit their systems/processes/team, and then summarize and translate a way forward into priorities and actionable projects/tasks.
• Provide feedback, advice, training, mentorship, and coaching to clients and their team.
• Execute on more advanced or high-value initiatives and projects when specific expertise is required.
• Get to know the strengths/gaps of the pod team members and mentor them directly or get them support. Be a resource to the pod team, drive creative problem solving, or escalate to other Strategists and Senior Advisors.
• Keep an eye on ROI, recommend projects, and observe/refine the best ways to support clients.

Beyond this, our Strategists have a diverse range of expertise, which could include:

• Metrics, KPIs, data, dashboards, analytics, and determining what numbers to track.
• Processes, workflows, SOPs, documentation, and all that goes into establishing infrastructure for lean small businesses.
• People Operations, HR, payroll, company structures, team building, and culture.
• Sales and marketing and how it works in tandem with operations. Such as: martech, value propositions, pricing / packaging, branding, creative assets, landing pages, social media, client onboarding, customer success, and managing those team members.
• Project management, project briefs, scoping, timelines, planning, and oversight.
• Finance, cash flow, P&L, budgets, business models, revenue streams, and how to make sure a business is profitable and successful.
• Advising clients to identify gaps on their team, clarify who they need to hire, and advise on hiring campaigns for how to hire them. (We have a unique methodology we can teach you!)
• Systems, tech migrations, digital tech tool set up, automations, databases, and nerdy optimizations.
• Distributed, remote work and self-management.
• Leadership development, delegation, empowering teams, and business coaching.
• Strategic planning, goal setting, milestones, annual, quarterly, and monthly.
• DEI principles and best practices.
• Online businesses, course/program development, community building, funnels, and launches.
• Team onboarding, performance reviews, accountability, and team management.

Bonus points if someone has multiple areas of interest. Mega bonus if someone has multiple areas of interest AND experience AND they love what we do AND they can keep up with high performers. We are a team of proudly passionate expert generalists. We celebrate and seek out people for our team who have weird and wild professional backgrounds and career paths.

We believe that a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences enrich our team and allow us to achieve above and beyond our goals. If you do not have experience in all of the areas detailed above, we hope that you will share your unique background with us in your application and how it can be additive to our team.

Skills That Will Enable You To Thrive

• You are quick to pick up new tech and tools. We work in a variety of online tools and are always learning new ones for our clients. You will need to be able to use our core tech tools, including: ClickUp, Google Drive, TMetric, LastPass, Slack, Canva, and more. And, ideally will be able to learn new tech tools in 1-2 hrs.
• You excel at balancing being thorough and efficient in a 100% remote work environment with multiple clients/projects at various stages.
• You are attentive and detail oriented. Special note to see if you’re paying attention. Put the secret code “I have found my peeps” in the 2nd to last application question.
• You are dedicated to high-quality excellence, love to receive and give feedback, and have intentionally developed emotional maturity to not take things personally.
• You appreciate personal development, are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and are passionate about your own growth.
• You developed systems thinking to see the big picture and how the different parts of a complex interconnected system influence each other while also being able to disassemble the whole into smaller chunks and draw useful conclusions.
• You take pride in refining your communication, both written and verbal, and especially the ability to speak client-friendly language that makes them feel safe and supported.
• You have a reliable computer and internet connection and can use video conferencing services such as Zoom.
• You are able to learn quickly, aren’t afraid to ask questions, take initiative, and are proactive with your clear and concise communication.
• You have an internal drive and strong organization and prioritization skills so you can exceed expectations with very limited supervision.

Why It’s Awesome to Join Our Team

• We have a high bar for excellence, execution, efficiency, results, and integrity. If you’re dedicated to detail-oriented quality, you’ll succeed here fast.
• Work virtually from anywhere! Most of what we do doesn’t have set hours, but we do expect everyone to get their work done on time with high quality.
• You’ll work with extraordinary people. Everyone on our team has unique superpowers that are well honed in different areas. If you like working with organized, passionate, responsible, communicative, talented, accountable, creative, generous, fun, and ambitious people… that’s us.
• We care about people, empowerment, inclusion, wellbeing, and we implement this in our services, programs, and internal team. If that’s appealing to you - and you care too - you’ll be able to have a direct meaningful impact!

Magical Teams is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.