Customer story
ABCD & Company is known for making the impossible look effortless. Timely showed them what that effort was really costing, and helped turn it into double-digit profitability growth.
Meet ABCD & Company
Amber, Brittanye, Corey and Durecia have been inseparable since their freshman year at Howard University. Volunteering together at church after graduation, an older member told them she would never remember all their names, so she’d just call them A, B, C, D.
Years later, sitting around a dining room table trying to name their new business, the lightbulb came on. They already had one.
Founded in 2014, ABCD & Company grew from a management consultancy into a full-service marketing and events agency, producing conferences, festival activations, campaigns and brands for clients across the US.
“Our clients just say, oh, ABCD’s got it. They can do it. They’ll sprinkle the fairy dust and make it all happen. And we do.”
The challenge
As ABCD grew, its time tracking grew up in stages: a manual time form, then spreadsheets, then start/stop timers in their project management tool. None of it kept up with how the agency actually works.
And ABCD’s standard of excellence made the gaps expensive. Teams went above and beyond for every client, and nobody could see what it cost.
“When you’re in a creative field, toggling between projects, clients, meetings and all the things, you don’t have the mental capacity to also say, oh yeah, turn on, turn off.”
Spotting burnout came down to what Jared Wilson, Chief Events & Experiences Officer, calls the eye-level test: who’s still in the office after five, and whose Slack light is still green at the weekend.
“We were giving away our magic. We were literally doing the work and not billing for it in a proper way.”
“The core of it was you just didn’t have the data that allowed you to make actionable insights.”
The solution
Durecia had spotted Timely a year before Jared found it again. After demos and testing (“with everything at ABCD, we do take the time to do the research, the homework,” says Durecia), Corey made it an executive office priority and appointed a champion to own it.
“Every company needs a Timely champion.” Corey Briscoe
Staff heard up front that Timely was for contracts, estimates and project reviews, not for watching individuals. Built-in privacy backed that up: “We can’t see every click you make on your computer, because that’s not the point,” says Sofia.
ABCD works in person, and hallway conversations don’t show up on a screen. So the rule is simple: use your best judgment, log what you remember, and don’t worry if your week isn’t a perfect 40 hours.
When the team said there were too many tags to choose from, Sofia audited and consolidated them. Task lists now follow each client’s scope of work, so logging time is “just three clicks away,” says Obiora Ebo, Associate Director of Integrated Marketing.
Weekly timesheet completion has climbed from 50% to 80%, and the time people spend logging it each week has fallen by up to half.
Before
“When I heard we were using Timely, I was a bit nervous and a bit concerned… I was a little concerned that it might not show my work in the best light.”
After
“The thing with Timely is that it only shows what you want it to show… It takes me less than a minute to complete my hours.”
Josh Hamburger, Senior Content Strategy Manager
Timely’s Memory tracker captures what everyone works on in the background, so filling in a timesheet means reviewing a draft, not reconstructing the week.
“There is absolutely nothing worse than having one of those days that’s just crunched back to back to back… That tool is just a godsend.”
“What time is it? I can’t even remember what the last hour looked like. Timely already has the data there for you.”
“The memory tracker has saved me so much time.”
The results
Each founder runs a different part of ABCD, and each one found something different in their Timely data.
Strategy & research
Comparing time across past projects showed Amber which pricing models work for each service line, and which clients had been getting a very good deal. It’s changing which clients and industries ABCD goes after, and how they advise clients on retainers versus hourly contracts.
“Being able to see how time really moves begins to teach you how money really moves.”
Amber DozierManaging Partner · I discover
Creative
With real numbers on how long routine work takes, Brittanye reorganized the week so her team gets one to two days of meeting-free deep work. The data also showed creatives spending too long on admin, so she’s creating a role to take that work off their plates.
“I have the data points that tell me this type of design should not take eight hours.”
Brittanye BriscoeManaging Partner & Chief Creative Officer · I design
Operations & finance
Corey found clients ABCD was giving far too many hours to, and change orders that never happened. New procedures and tighter statements of work followed, and in the quarter after, profitability rose by double digits. “I 100% believe the core resource for that was Timely.”
“Tools like this catapult you from being good at your product to being good at your business.”
Corey BriscoeManaging Partner & Chief Operating Officer · I champion
Marketing & growth
Durecia works with Corey to build ABCD’s labor categories and rate card from real hours, and uses the data to judge which clients are a true fit. Her next step is sharing the expected effort at kickoff, so no client is surprised by a 1,500-hour project at the end.
“Timely is a tool that allows you to leverage your storytelling in a way that showcases impact with precision.”
Durecia MoorerManaging Partner & Chief Marketing Officer · I amplify
Events
ABCD’s events team produces 15 to 20 events a year, from citywide conventions to CEO retreats, and can spend up to 18 months planning a two-day show. Their mantra is “plan the work, then work the plan.” Timely tells them whether the plan was right.
“Timely for us is the ultimate tracking tool to ensure that our estimates and assumptions are indeed true.”
“People understand numbers. When you give someone ‘this took 25 hours, this similar portion will probably take the same amount of time,’ people are more understanding.”
On site, during 20-hour days, Shakeera admits logging time is “the first thing that goes.” But it does get done, and it shapes the plan for the next event.
The culture
Jared puts attrition across hospitality at around 50%, because people decide the pace isn’t sustainable. ABCD uses Timely to make sure that isn’t their story.
The data showed some managers working nearly double the hours of their teams, which opened up honest conversations about delegation.
“Now I can actually pinpoint not just who’s working those additional hours, but what they’re working on that’s causing them to work more hours.”
With workloads visible, leaders no longer wait for someone to look stretched before stepping in.
“I have seen the team now be able to say, hey, I actually am overwhelmed. Can you help me?”
Deanna’s team aims to pack up at 5pm. When Timely shows a run of late nights, she sends people home early the next day.
“I don’t ever want there to be a case where my team is working above and beyond, and I’m not aware of it.”
“We also have a huge responsibility to protect the people that work here. And that’s something that we never want to lose, no matter how big we grow.”
In their words
“The lifeline that you didn’t know you needed.”
“Timely is the Robin to our Batman.”
“The background music and the shadow that helps to put the focus and the spotlight on us.”
“It has minimal input and maximal output, and it’s 100% worth it.”
“A tool that allows you to see and truly understand how time is being invested across your organization.”
“Timely helps me keep track of my work without adding more work.”
“It records everything you’re doing without you having to manually think about it.”
“Get yourself a Timely so that you can scale and grow faster than you knew you could.”
“We’re using Timely to create the next version of ABCD.”
“There’s not a world. The only time that would happen is if they fired the C in ABCD and went and got someone else.”
Corey Briscoe“Absolutely not. I am the quintessential person who would forget to hit the start or the stop.”
Amber Dozier“Absolutely not. We are growing way too fast for that.”
Shakeera ClaytonOver 5,000 businesses in 160 countries use Timely to track time automatically and run on real data.