ZALE · Menswear & Media
A pro athlete built a company without losing his week to admin.
How a founder splitting time between the NHL and a growing brand handed the entire day-to-day to a KeyPlayer.
As an NHL athlete who also runs a company, time isn't something I have much of. When I was first introduced to you guys, I wasn't even sure what a VA was. Looking back, I can't believe we ever operated without our KeyPlayers.
25+
hours freed weekly
100%
of day-to-day ops handed off
2 wks
to fully placed
The company
ZALE is a menswear and media company with an ambitious content engine and a growing customer base. Its founder, Akil, was building it while playing professional hockey, which meant constant travel, training, and games.
That left almost no room for the operational work a growing brand generates every single day, and it was all landing on one person.
The challenge
Scheduling, inbox, order coordination, vendor communication, and content logistics were all funneling back to the founder.
With Akil on the road most weeks, things slipped through the cracks and the business could only move as fast as his limited free hours allowed.
What we did
We matched ZALE with a dedicated KeyPlayer, screened and tested, then trained on the business and equipped with an AI workspace built around ZALE’s workflows.
The KeyPlayer took full ownership of the inbox, calendar, order and vendor coordination, and content production logistics, running it all day to day with a client success team behind them.
The results
Akil reclaimed 25+ hours a week and stopped being the bottleneck for his own company.
Operations now run whether or not he is on the road, and the day-to-day simply no longer reaches him.
Within two weeks the KeyPlayer was fully placed and productive, thanks to pre-placement training and the shared workspace.
Roles placed
Want results like ZALE?
Book a call and we will match you with a screened, tested, AI-trained KeyPlayer, guaranteed for life.
More case studies
The company that places support reps needed AI-trained operators of its own.
His phone never stopped ringing. Now it does not reach him.
A growing clinic stopped paying thousands to manage its own website.
An agency scaled its client ops without adding overhead.