Things were ticking along nicely at Transform Financial Planning: it was on a growth trajectory, had a solid team in place and very happy clients - until one day, suddenly, everything stopped.
It was December 28 2022, three days after Christmas, and a mere four months after first being diagnosed with an illness, that Jenn Baillie, operations director of the small Edinburgh-based firm, died.
Overcome by grief, it did not take long for the firm's owners and sole advisers, Shadi and Angus Kirk, to realise the central role Jenn had played in the running of their business.
"All Angus and I did was see clients," says Shadi. The rest had been handled by Jenn.
On top of the emotional, personal impact of the loss, they were at a loss in terms of how to handle the daily operations of the team.
"This time last year we were in a trance," says Angus. "We treaded water just to get through and we weren't quite sure what route we're going to take.
"We didn't immediately replace her. First, we thought it'd be unfair on the person who's coming in because Jenn was so ingrained in the business.
"Also, we went through this period of mourning," he says. "It was a huge challenge."
From bad to worse
Left to their own devices, and perplexed as to what to do next, Angus and Shadi decided to outsource most admin tasks.
But workload effectively "doubled" for them in the following months, due to a combination of old cracks beginning to show and new processes struggling to bed in.
Angus says one problem was that a couple of the administrative staff did not seem to know what to do after Jenn passed away.
Similarly, an appointed representative the business had taken on three years prior emerged as more of a "burden" than they ever realised.
"It became clear that he just wasn't aligned to the way we are looking to work and he was a burden on admin," Angus says.
The only thing that didn't seem to conspire against them was their clients, who were most understanding of the situation and sympathetic, says Shadi.
But if there was one thing the two business owners were not, it was quitters. And Transform Financial Planning, as its name suggests, was not new to transformation either.
Changes past and changes present
Transform Financial Planning is a small wealth planning business with about 140 clients, many of whom are households with a wealth of more than £500,000, and these days it has a strong focus on life planning and client wellbeing.
The business had only changed its name two years before. It had been called Bridge Investments, as a nod to the Forth Road Bridge which connected the Kirks' former workplaces in Dunfermline and Edinburgh.
Husband and wife Angus and Shadi had met when they were both at Edward Jones, before its takeover by Towry in 2009.
