""When Erin joined, we had one full-time employee, and the idea of scaling the business in any meaningful way wasn't something that I thought about because my pain points were getting people paid, managing all the governance around [running a business], reporting, filing, and then invoicing clients. We've got 10 full-time employees now. Revenue is up roughly 40%, maybe 45%. We probably had 20 clients at that time. We have 35 now. And we think about the business and our opportunities in a far more ambitious way, which is great.""
— Michael Lampe, Founder and CEO
The Challenge
Michael Lampe founded Scient Public Relations to bring together the best communicators in healthcare and help innovative biotech companies tell their stories. But as the firm grew, the operational burden of running a business threatened to overshadow the work itself.
Before partnering with BELAY, Michael was personally managing invoicing, payroll, governance, reporting, and filing — tasks that consumed his attention and left little room to think ambitiously about growth. With only one full-time employee, the very idea of scaling felt out of reach.
"The notion that I'm going to have more people to pay and more clients to invoice, I was just trying to get the work done for the clients and not add to that burden."
BELAY was the first company Michael turned to for support. His Client Success Consultant took a thorough approach from the start, walking him through the full onboarding process to identify exactly where his pain points were — and then finding the right person to address them.
The Solution
BELAY matched Michael with Virtual Assistant Erin Schradin, and the fit was immediately apparent. After an initial conversation, Michael felt confident she would be both a cultural match and a capable contributor to the team.
The impact was felt almost instantly. Michael handed off invoicing first, and Erin overhauled the entire process. Payroll came next, and she handled that with equal competence.
"Within a week I was like, 'Oh, this is going to change my life.' She's just a perfect fit. The first thing I gave her was invoicing, and she fixed the whole process. Then I gave her payroll. I'm like, 'You do this better than me.'"
From there, Erin took on a growing range of responsibilities: calendar management, client budgeting, operational work, project management support, vendor relationships, expenses, and time entries. Her role expanded so significantly that she transitioned from BELAY Virtual Assistant to a full-time Scient employee, becoming Head of Operations with responsibility for finance and HR.
""Now [that] we have employees, somebody's got to develop a performance review process. Somebody's got to develop a competition [and] somebody's got to work with the CFO. Those things weren't even things that anybody was doing. And so now not only is [Erin] taking things off my plate — and our plate[s] — that were stressful things, but she's doing things that we didn't even think we would ever get to need.""
— Michael Lampe, Founder and CEOThe Impact
The transformation at Scient Public Relations has been profound. What started as a one-person operation struggling under administrative weight is now a thriving firm with 10 full-time employees, 35 clients, and revenue up roughly 40–45% — all since Erin joined.
"We've got 10 full-time employees now. Revenue is up roughly 40%, maybe 45%. We probably had 20 clients at that time. We have 35 now. And we think about the business and our opportunities in a far more ambitious way, which is great. It's exciting."
Beyond the numbers, Erin has become a cornerstone of the organization — the person most of the team interacts with on a daily basis. She hasn't just taken stressful tasks off Michael's plate; she's built systems and processes that Scient never had the bandwidth to develop before, including performance review frameworks and HR infrastructure.
"She is such a core to the organization. She's the person that people interact with more than probably anybody else on the team, including myself, just because of everything she's doing on a day-to-day basis. It couldn't have worked out better. It's been such a great fit."