Run with the team you have, not the team you wish you had.

Most owners don’t have a people problem.
They have an operations problem.

I build systems that give trades and light-manufacturing shops their time back, wired into the tools you already run, so the office work your crew never has time for starts getting done on its own.

Let’s talk randy@operantgroup.co

What would you do with the hours your crew loses to the office instead of the trade?

That’s the drag I clear.
What I see in the field

The same handful of things show up in almost every shop I walk into.

01 · Phones
Calls that go to voicemail

A good lead calls, nobody can get to the phone, and they move on to whoever picked up. You never even knew it happened.

02 · Quotes
Estimates that go cold

The quote goes out and then it sits. Nobody follows up, and a job you already bid walks out the door for want of one phone call.

03 · Knowledge
It all lives in someone’s head

The pricing, the job history, the way things get done. It works fine until that person is out sick or quits, and then it does not.

04 · Numbers
Books you see too late

By the time you find out a job lost money, the job is already finished. The numbers show up a month after you could have done anything about them.

How I work

I build systems you own.
Not dependencies.

I use AI where it earns its place, not because it’s new.

Every engagement ends with your team running something they actually understand, without me in the middle of it.

I listen first

Before I build anything, I spend real time in your operation, learning how the work actually flows. Most consultants skip this part. I don’t.

I build into what you already use

Your CRM, your QuickBooks, your phone, your calendar. The system sits on top of the tools you already run, so your team keeps working the way they know. No rip and replace.

I document it and hand it off

Every system gets documented and your team gets trained. The goal is a business that runs cleaner without adding me to the list of things you depend on.

We measure it

We agree on what better looks like up front, then I make sure the system is delivering it and document the result as the proof of work.

Who is behind this

An operator who learned AI.
Not a tech consultant
who learned the trades.

Randy Kleabir. Twenty years bringing order to warehouses and job sites, including twelve at Gordon Food Service, where I took a struggling warehouse to the best in the company and then spent years installing those systems across the country and into Canada. The kind of work where a broken process costs real money by Tuesday.

I’ve already built the thing I’m describing here: a working dashboard, a voice agent that answers calls, a morning brief that tells an owner exactly what needs attention. AI is what finally made it possible to do this for a business your size, at a price that makes sense. Most AI consultants treat a trades business as a technology problem. It’s really an operations problem, and understanding how the work actually flows before touching anything is what makes the difference.

A live Operant operations dashboard showing quotes at risk, revenue at risk, average job margin, lost calls, a 10-day weather forecast, and a morning schedule brief.

A real screenshot, not a rendering — pulled live from the tools a shop already runs.

operari
Latin, verb · origin of the name

From the root that means to work, to produce, to make things function. Not to theorize, not to consult from a distance. To actually do the work that makes something run.

Get started

Ready to find out what’s actually slowing you down?

A direct conversation. No intake forms, no sales process. Just an honest look at what’s costing you hours and whether I’m the right person to fix it.

randy@operantgroup.co
Who this is for

Owners of trades and light-manufacturing shops who can feel that things could run better but are too buried in the day to day to fix it. If you’re proud of your crew and tired of the office being the thing that holds the business back, we’re going to get along.

Who this isn’t for

Anyone looking to be sold software. Teams that want a quick fix without changing how they work. If what you want is a tech vendor, I’m not your guy.

Where things stand

I’m taking on a small number of founding clients right now and working with them closely to get it right. You get direct access to the person doing the work, not a project manager relaying messages. If the fit is right, we move fast.