Your business runs on knowledge nobody wrote down.
Every process that lives in someone’s head, every record locked in a tool you rent, is growth waiting to stall. MakeWaves builds your company’s knowledge base and cements the operational foundation that makes technology actually work for you. Define how your business runs, own what you build, and get back to the work you started this company to do.
Or call (805) 826-3748 for a 30-minute discovery call.
Your company’s knowledge should compound. Right now it evaporates.
Every time someone leaves, changes roles, or just forgets, a piece of how your business runs goes with them. We capture it once, in a form your people and your AI can both use, and build it so each answer you add makes the next one easier.
A written operating library.
The procedures for each role, written to train against, not to file away.
A Knowledge Vault.
Your company’s knowledge base in one organized home, in files and formats you control. Leadership material can be kept separate from the team’s copy.
An assistant that answers from your own playbook.
It works from your approved documents, and it says so when it does not know.
Operations first.
Technology when the foundation is ready.
Problem You’re Facing
Automation Is Introduced
Most founders come to us nodding at all four of these.
If any of these feel accurate, you’re in the right place.
“My best people are still waiting on me for basic decisions.”
Because the process lives in your head, not on paper. There’s no written standard, so everything routes through you by default.
“We pay monthly for tools that didn’t fix the problem. Now our data lives inside them.”
Software doesn’t fix a broken process. It speeds it up. And when you stop paying, you can lose access to what you built inside it. Find out what would leave with you before you need to know.
“Training someone new means starting from scratch every time.”
If there’s nothing written down, there’s nothing to train against. Every new hire learns from whoever has time to show them, and that person is usually you.
“I know I’m the bottleneck. I just can’t stop long enough to fix it.”
You’re too deep in the daily work to step back and see the system. That’s exactly what an outside perspective is for.
Where most clients start.
Every engagement begins with a clear picture of where you are. From there, we build what your business actually needs, with no assumptions and no one-size-fits-all solutions.
Operational Assessment
A fixed-fee diagnostic engagement. We map your workflows, surface what’s slowing you down, and deliver a prioritized operational roadmap, so you know exactly what to fix and in what order.
Learn more about the Operational AssessmentOperational & AI Readiness Assessment
Our most complete assessment. Everything in the Operational Assessment, plus an honest read on whether your knowledge and data are ready for AI. You leave with the start of your own Knowledge Vault.
Learn more about the Operational & AI Readiness AssessmentFractional Operations & AI Advisory Retainer
Ongoing monthly advisory for businesses that want a committed operational partner. Metric tracking, accountability meetings, 30-day action plans, and direct access to guidance as your business evolves.
Learn more about the Fractional Operations & AI Advisory RetainerYou can’t optimize what you haven’t defined.
Most small businesses don’t have a strategy problem. They have a definition problem. When no one can clearly describe how work moves through the business, inefficiency multiplies and the founder fills every gap personally. We fix the foundation first, so your business can move forward without you holding it together.
Clarify the Process
Map how work actually moves through your business and surface the knowledge that lives in people’s heads.
Structure the Data
Organize your data so it is accurate, consistent and yours, in a form you control rather than a subscription you rent.
Document the Workflow
Write indexed SOPs that define how each role does each task: a training framework and a performance standard, not a reference file.
Train and Align
Train the team against the written standard so the roles the founder always carried finally belong to the people hired for them.
Improve Visibility
Build your Signal Board, the operational scorecard that puts the handful of numbers that matter in front of you every week.
Integrate Automation & AI
Only after steps 1 to 5 are stable, and only where it creates measurable value: an assistant that answers from your own Knowledge Vault.
Operations experience.
Practical results.
Marc Wetherington is the Founder and Principal Consultant at MakeWaves, with over 20 years of hands-on experience leading operations, redesigning workflows, and building the process infrastructure that lets small businesses grow without breaking down.
He has led teams through chaotic growth, rebuilt operational systems from the ground up, and delivered measurable improvements in efficiency, cost control, and team performance across product-based and service-based businesses alike.
Marc founded MakeWaves on a core conviction: you can’t optimize what you haven’t defined, and a business can’t scale if the founder is the only one who knows how it runs.
That’s the short version. The full story is on the About page.
Leadership
Offerings
Businesses
What changes when the foundation is set.
Onboarding stops starting from scratch.
When each role has written procedures, a new hire trains against a standard instead of shadowing whoever has time. The knowledge stops living in one person’s head, and the business stops losing it every time someone leaves.
You stop buying software to fix process.
Define how the work actually moves first, and the tooling question answers itself. Most of the expensive mistakes we see are a subscription bought to paper over a process nobody had written down.
You know how the week went without asking anyone.
A Signal Board, the operational scorecard we build with you, puts the handful of numbers that matter in front of you automatically. Decisions stop waiting on someone assembling a spreadsheet.
Nothing becomes company knowledge until you approve it.
The first handoff is not the finish line. When something in your vault needs a decision, you answer one question at a time. A change goes into your documents only when you approve it. The assistant does not invent your policy.