A director, a CTO and a procurement specialist contacted the same IT team. The marketer reported three potential projects worth 10 million ₸ each and entered 30 million ₸ as future revenue. At the meeting, it became clear that all three were discussing one implementation. The seller had gained more participants in a single purchase; the project value had not changed.
The amounts and results in this lesson's examples are illustrative. In B2B services, advertising brings people into a conversation about work that still needs to be agreed and delivered. The report therefore ties contacts to projects, shows which projects have moved forward and allows for the months it takes to reach a contract. If a deal takes half a year, assess this month's spending alongside qualified opportunities, changes in their stages and subsequent contracts as the buying cycle completes.
Choose work the team can deliver
Consider a small team that connects retail chains' till systems to their CRM. It knows two particular systems and can run two implementations at once. We do not specify product names or capabilities in this example: for a real customer, these must be matched to the team's experience.
“We work with large businesses” does little to qualify demand. The team needs to understand the customer's problem, system compatibility, access to responsible people and whether delivery fits the required period. A chain may be the right size but use an unfamiliar system. A smaller company with a suitable process may be a better candidate.
These conditions form the ICP, or ideal customer profile. Include signs of the problem and delivery requirements: what differs between till and CRM data, who owns the data, which systems are used and who can approve changes. Until that information is available, the assessment remains provisional.
The limit of two concurrent implementations also affects advertising. If the team is busy, new projects can be discussed with a clear future start date. Promising an immediate start to every enquiry creates planning risk: marketing would be making commitments the delivery team has not accounted for.
Offer a first step with a clear deliverable
“End-to-end IT outsourcing” leaves a buyer with many questions. A better offer addresses the problem: investigate why till and CRM data differ and prepare an integration plan. The person knows which question they will discuss and what they will receive from the first stage.
Before starting, agree the assessment scope, required access and customer deliverable. If the first stage is paid, explain its terms and boundaries before it is ordered. Establish the full implementation's timing and cost after sufficient investigation. Committing to them from a single form message is appropriate only when the scope is already known.
A case study should show the original process, constraints, work completed and method used to assess the result. “The integration was configured” tells a future buyer little. Describing which records were compared 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.
Materials for different participants must describe the same scope. The director needs the conditions for the result, the CTO needs technical details and constraints, and procurement needs the contents of the proposal and payment arrangements. If they receive different versions, progress will stall while the work is agreed again.
Define when a sales opportunity exists
Create an opportunity according to a rule established in advance. Our team requires a confirmed problem, an owner on the customer's side and an agreed next step towards buying the project. If someone downloaded a presentation or attended a webinar, you still do not know their problem.
The project record contains the company, participants and roles, problem, basis for the value estimate and next agreement. If the budget is unknown, record it as unknown. The amount a seller hopes to receive does not become the customer's budget. For timing, also distinguish the team's preference from the buyer's confirmation.
A stage changes after the result required by its criteria. A quotation may have been sent but remain undiscussed; an agreed scope already helps move towards a decision. Salesforce's sales pipeline explanation introduces the logic of stages; the team should define names and transitions for its own service around the actual process.
For one project, the director, CTO and procurement specialist remain separate contacts in a shared opportunity. Two independent projects at one company can be counted separately when they involve different problems and purchase decisions. Combining records solely by email domain may hide this distinction.
Keep pipeline value separate from cash received
Imagine three independent projects worth 10 million ₸ each. Their nominal value totals 30 million ₸. For planning, the team assigns win probabilities of 20%, 50% and 80%.
Weighted value is 10 million × 20% + 10 million × 50% + 10 million × 80% = 15 million ₸. It describes a calculation using the assumed probabilities. The company has not received that money, and the calculation does not allocate receipts across months. Each individual deal can turn out differently from the average expectation.
Compare probabilities with the history of similar projects and revisit them as results accumulate. While history is limited, label them as assumptions. Sending a proposal does not justify assigning the same confidence to every deal: customer confirmations and remaining conditions may differ.
A signed contract, revenue from completed work and cash received describe different events. Managing costs also requires delivery dates, payment timing and team expenses. Moving the expected close date every month without a new agreement conceals a delay. Opportunity age and the last confirmed step help expose it.
Calculate spending before payment and project contribution
In a separate campaign, the integrator spent 400,000 ₸ on advertising and received 4 contacts at 100,000 ₸ each. Three are discussing one suitable project and agreed a requirements review. The fourth person only requested material. Under the team's rule, this produced 1 qualified opportunity, so its ad-only cost was 400,000 ₸.
This remains a cost per opportunity; ad-only CAC requires an acquired paying customer. Suppose the project was subsequently bought for 10 million ₸, and the team and subcontractor work needed to deliver it cost 7 million ₸. Project contribution before acquisition costs was 10 million - 7 million = 3 million ₸, or 30% of revenue. After 400,000 ₸ in advertising, 2.6 million ₸ remains before other business expenses.
A full acquisition calculation would also include sales work, proposal preparation and other relevant costs. Calling the 2.6 million ₸ net profit would omit these expenses. Even with a healthy planned contribution, the team may need funds before the customer pays: review the schedule of receipts and payments separately.
When selecting a channel, compare opportunities of similar quality and age, their progress, signed contracts and the results of delivered work. Several cheap contacts without a suitable problem can take more salesperson time than an expensive enquiry for a relevant project. Cost per contact helps diagnose advertising, but a growth budget needs a fuller calculation.
Coordinate marketing and sales
For a narrow list of suitable organisations, a team can plan account-based marketing, or ABM: company research, material addressing its problems and coordinated sales activity. This also costs research and specialist time. A list of well-known companies without an understanding of their needs is not yet an acquisition plan.
Keep the original source of the relationship and later touchpoints in the CRM. Someone may read an article, attend a webinar and then reply to a salesperson. Count the project and its revenue once in the overall report; consider the role of individual materials separately. In social selling, a post introduces readers to a way of investigating a working problem.
Exercise: assemble a report for one project
Take a recent project from your team or an enquiry still under discussion. Connect the contacts to it, describe the criterion for its current stage and record the next agreement. Separately list acquisition spending, estimated contract value, delivery costs and the expected payment sequence. Leave unknowns as questions for the responsible person.
In the campaign example, the report shows 4 contacts, 1 opportunity and 400,000 ₸ in advertising expenses. Three participants help agree one project. The fourth person's material request remains part of content activity until a confirmed problem appears. After the purchase, add the contract, delivery and receipts to the report while retaining the connection to the original campaign.
This review shows where action is needed. If IT is waiting for an integration description, a technical specialist owns the next step. If the project is agreed but the team is busy, the start date needs discussion. The marketer gains a basis for changing content and incoming demand, while the director sees future workload alongside costs and forecast limitations.