Yerbol, the commercial director, Galym, the CTO, and Samal from procurement work for the same retail chain in Astana. All three sent enquiries to an Almaty integrator. The integrator's marketer saw three potential projects worth 10 million ₸ each and put 30 million ₸ of future revenue in the report. At the first meeting it turned out they were talking about the same implementation. The seller had more people in one purchase, and the project value stayed the same.
The numbers in this lesson are made up. In B2B services, advertising brings people into a conversation about work that still has to be agreed and delivered. So in the report each contact is tied to a project, movement through stages is visible, and months are allowed for reaching a contract. If a deal takes half a year, judge this month's spending together with qualified opportunities, their movement through stages and the contracts that arrive as the cycle completes.
Three contacts discuss one project
| Contact | Project link |
|---|---|
| Commercial director | The same implementation |
| CTO | The same implementation |
| Procurement specialist | The same implementation |
The single project remains worth 10 million ₸. Additional contacts did not increase it.
Choose work the team can deliver
The integrator is a small team that connects websites and tills to CRMs; among tills, it knows two systems. The team can run two implementations at once. We do not name the systems in this example: for a real client you match them against the team's experience.
"We work with large businesses" does little to filter out the wrong enquiries. What matters more to the team is the client's problem, system compatibility, access to the people responsible and whether the work fits the required dates. A large chain may be the right size but run tills the team does not know. A smaller chain with a suitable process can turn out to be the better client.
These signs add up to an ICP, the ideal customer profile. It records the signs of the problem and the delivery conditions: what currently differs between the till and the CRM, who owns the data, which systems are in place and who can approve changes. Until you have that information, any assessment is provisional.
The limit of two implementations at once affects advertising too. If the team is busy, a new project can be discussed with a clear future start date. Promising an immediate start to every enquiry is dangerous: marketing takes on commitments the delivery team does not know about.
Offer a first step with a clear deliverable
An ad for "end-to-end IT outsourcing" leaves the buyer with plenty of questions. It is better to tie the offer to the problem: find out why the till and CRM data differ and prepare an integration plan. Then Yerbol knows what the conversation will be about and what he gets after the first stage.
Before work starts, agree the scope of the assessment, the access required and the deliverable for the client. If the first stage is paid, state its terms and boundaries before it is ordered. Set the timing and cost of the full implementation once the problem has been studied. Fixing them from a single form message is only reasonable when the scope really is known.
A case study shows the starting process, the constraints, the work done and how the result was checked. "The integration was configured" tells a future client very little. Describing which records were matched and who confirmed the result helps discuss a similar problem. Put the client's revenue growth in a case study only if it was measured.
Material for different participants must describe the same scope. Yerbol cares about the conditions for the result, Galym about the design and its limits, Samal about what the proposal includes and how payment works. If each of them gets a different version, the deal stalls while the scope is agreed all over again.
Define when a sales opportunity exists
Create an opportunity by a rule agreed in advance. The integrator needs a confirmed problem, an owner on the client's side and an agreed next step towards buying the project. If someone downloaded a presentation or came to a webinar, you still do not know their problem.
The project record holds the company, the participants and their roles, the problem, the basis of the value estimate and the next agreement. If the budget is unknown, write that it is unknown. The amount the seller would like to get does not become the client's budget. The same goes for timing: the team's wish and the buyer's confirmation are recorded differently.
A stage changes when the result its criterion requires has been reached. A quote that was sent can sit unanswered, while an agreed scope of work already moves things towards a decision. You can see the logic of stages in Salesforce's explanation of the sales pipeline, but the team sets the names and transitions for its own service from its real process.
In one project, Yerbol, Galym and Samal stay three contacts in one opportunity. Two independent projects at the same company can be tracked separately if they have different problems and different purchase decisions. If you merge records by email domain alone, that difference disappears.
Keep pipeline value separate from cash received
Imagine three independent projects worth 10 million ₸ each. At face value that is 30 million ₸. For planning, the team gave them win probabilities of 20%, 50% and 80%.
The weighted value is 10 million × 20% + 10 million × 50% + 10 million × 80% = 15 million ₸. It is a calculation based on assumed probabilities. None of this money has reached the bank account, and the calculation does not spread it across months. Any of the three deals can end differently from the average expectation.
Compare the probabilities with the history of similar projects and revise them as results come in. While the history is short, label them as assumptions. Giving every proposal that was sent the same probability makes no sense: one client has agreed a scope of work, another has only a quote.
A signed contract, revenue for completed work and money received are three different events. To manage costs you need the dates of delivery, of payments and of the team's expenses. If the expected close date moves every month without a new agreement, the delay gets hidden. The opportunity's age and its last confirmed step will show it.
Calculate spending before payment and project contribution
In the campaign that brought in Yerbol, Galym and Samal, the integrator spent 400,000 ₸ on ads and got 4 contacts, 100,000 ₸ each. Three are discussing one suitable project and have agreed a requirements review. The fourth person only asked for material. Under the team's rule that makes 1 qualified opportunity, and its ad-only cost is 400,000 ₸.
That is the cost of an opportunity; ad-only CAC needs an acquired paying client. Suppose the chain later bought the project for 10 million ₸, and the team's and subcontractors' work cost 7 million ₸. The project's contribution before acquisition costs is 10 million - 7 million = 3 million ₸, or 30% of revenue. After 400,000 ₸ of advertising, 2.6 million ₸ is left before the rest of the business's expenses.
A full acquisition calculation also includes sales work, proposal preparation and other related costs. So the 2.6 million ₸ is not net profit. And even with a healthy planned contribution, the team may need money before the client pays: subcontractors are paid as the work goes, while the chain may pay after handover. The schedule of receipts and payments is reviewed separately.
When choosing a channel, compare opportunities that appeared at about the same time and are confirmed to the same degree: how they progress, how many contracts are signed and how the delivered work turned out. Several cheap contacts without a suitable problem can take more of the salesperson's time than one expensive enquiry about the right project. Cost per contact helps diagnose advertising, but a growth budget needs the full calculation.
Coordinate marketing and sales
For a short list of suitable companies you can run targeted work, ABM (account-based marketing): research the company, prepare material for its problems and coordinate the salesperson's actions. For example, list the chains in Almaty and Astana that run the two till systems the team knows. This approach has its own costs: research and specialists' time. A list of well-known brands without an understanding of their problems is not an acquisition plan yet.
The CRM keeps the source of the first contact and every touchpoint after it. Galym might have read the integrator's post on Telegram, attended a webinar and then replied to the salesperson. In the overall report the project and its revenue are counted once, and the role of each piece of content is reviewed separately. In social selling, a post shows the reader how the team works through a real problem.
Exercise: assemble a report for one project
Take a recent project from your team or an enquiry still under discussion. Link the contacts to it, describe the criterion for its current stage and the next agreement. Next to it, list the acquisition spending, the estimated contract value, the delivery costs and the expected payment sequence. Leave anything unknown as an open question for the person responsible.
In the example campaign, the report shows 4 contacts, 1 opportunity and 400,000 ₸ of advertising. Yerbol, Galym and Samal are helping agree one project. The fourth person's request for material stays in content work until a confirmed problem appears. After the purchase you add the contract, delivery and payments to the report and keep the link to the original campaign.
A report like this shows where action is needed. If Galym is waiting for an integration description, the next step belongs to the integrator's technical specialist. If the project is agreed but the team is busy with two implementations, the start date is what needs discussing. The marketer gets grounds to change content and incoming demand, and the integrator's director sees the future workload together with the costs and the limits of the forecast.