01
Read it as a proposal
This is the level of detail you'd get from a paid blueprint engagement, just for a business that isn't yours yet.
02
Argue with it
If a stage or an object looks wrong for your world, that's the conversation we want. It's how the real design starts.
03
Nothing here is fabricated as proof
No invented client names, no invented results. Where we quote numbers, they're from our own CRM practice and labelled as such.
Agency new business, end to end
28-person creative agency · 4 new-business staff
The situation
New business lives in a shared spreadsheet, a shared inbox and three people's heads. Retainers and one-off projects are tracked the same way, so nobody can say what recurring revenue actually is. Referrals, the agency's best source, aren't recorded at all.
The problem underneath
A standard CRM would force pitches and retainers into one "deal" object. That's the reason the last two attempts were abandoned. The model needs to separate winning work from holding a relationship.
The model we'd build
Companies
Standard objectSector · Client status · Owner · Referral source · Lifetime value (calculated)
Pitches
Custom objectBrief received → Qualified → Pitching → Decision → Won / Lost · Fee range · Pitch team · Effort days · Loss reason
Retainers
Custom objectMonthly value · Start / renewal date · Notice period · Scope summary · Health · Renewal owner
Referral sources
Custom objectPerson or company · Relationship owner · Introductions made · Revenue attributed (rolled up)
Automations
- Inbound brief creates a Pitch and assigns by sector
- Won pitch spawns a Retainer with dates pre-filled
- Renewal reminder 90 and 30 days before notice
- Lost pitch prompts a loss-reason note before closing
Reports that follow
- Recurring vs project revenue, split cleanly
- Win rate by sector and by pitch team
- Effort days spent per win: the number nobody had
- Revenue by referral source, finally attributable
What changes day to day
The Monday new-business meeting runs off one view instead of a spreadsheet read aloud. Renewals stop being a surprise. And when someone asks "where does our work come from?", there's an answer with a number on it.
Typical delivery: blueprint 1 week, build 3 weeks, phased go-live by team.
The professional services lifecycle
60-person consultancy · sales + delivery on one record
The situation
Sales tracks opportunities in the CRM. Delivery tracks engagements in a project tool. Finance tracks invoices somewhere else. The same client exists three times, slightly differently, and the handover between sold and delivered is a meeting plus hope.
The problem underneath
Nobody can see the whole client relationship in one place, so renewals and cross-sell are invisible until they've already been missed. The fix is one lifecycle, with delivery reading the same record sales wrote.
The model we'd build
Clients
Standard objectRelationship owner · Sector · Framework or contract vehicle · Total billed (rolled up) · Health
Opportunities
Standard objectEnquiry → Scoping → Proposal → Verbal → Signed · Value · Probability · Required skills · Start month
Engagements
Custom objectLead consultant · Contract dates · Fee and basis · Status · Renewal or extension flag · Satisfaction check
People & roles
Standard objectBuyer · Influencer · Day-to-day contact · Alumni flag, so people are followed when they move firm
Automations
- Signed opportunity creates the Engagement and notifies delivery
- Contract end minus 60 days opens a renewal task
- Satisfaction check triggered at the mid-point, not the end
- Contact leaves the client: alumni flag and a follow-up task
Reports that follow
- Signed and weighted pipeline by start month, a resourcing view
- Revenue by client, not by deal
- Renewal rate and extension value
- Which skills the pipeline is about to demand
What changes day to day
Delivery stops asking "what did we actually sell?". Partners see one client page with every engagement, contact and conversation on it. Resourcing gets a month's warning instead of a week's.
Typical delivery: blueprint 2 weeks, build 4–6 weeks, integration with finance in phase two.
Leaving HubSpot without losing history
40 seats · 6 years of data · mid-quarter cutover
The situation
Six years of records, 180 custom properties, a dozen half-dead workflows and three fields all called something like "status". Everyone agrees it needs to change; nobody wants to be the person who loses the history.
Our position
A migration is the one chance you get to leave the mess behind. Lift-and-shift recreates the problem in a nicer interface. So we migrate deliberately: what moves, what gets fixed on the way, and what stays in a read-only archive.
The migration plan
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WK 1
Audit and decide
Every property ranked: keep, merge, derive or archive. Usually two thirds don't survive, and nobody misses them.
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WK 2
Model in attio, sample-load
Build the target model and load 200 records so the team can look at real data, not a spec.
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WK 3
Sync mail, rebuild the history
Email and calendar sync recovers far more relationship history than a CRM export ever holds. This is the step that changes minds.
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WK 4
Full load, parallel run, cutover
Two weeks of parallel running for the sales team, a frozen archive of the old system, then the licence stops.
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WK 5+
Rebuild what earned its place
Only the workflows and reports people actually used get rebuilt; the rest were noise.
What we protect
- Open pipeline, with owners and next steps intact
- Won and lost history for reporting continuity
- Contact and company records, de-duplicated
- A read-only archive of everything else
Where migrations go wrong
- Moving everything "just in case"
- Cutting over at quarter end
- No parallel run for the sales team
- Rebuilding dead automations out of habit
What changes day to day
The CRM gets faster and simpler at the same time. Reps see nine fields instead of forty. And reporting works, because there's now exactly one field called "status".
Typical delivery: 4–6 weeks including parallel running. Same approach applies to Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho and spreadsheets.
The credentials behind the blueprints.
Blueprints are only worth reading if the people writing them have done this before. Here's what we bring to an attio project.
10+ yrs
Designing CRM for UK SMEs
Across professional services, construction, compliance, renewables, recruitment, membership bodies and more.
150+
Solutions delivered
Including migrations off Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho and a great many spreadsheets.
Big 4
Consulting background, SME pricing
Structured discovery and delivery discipline, without the layers of people you'd pay for elsewhere.
Accredited attio Expert, ICO registered, rated 5 stars on Google. Client references from our CRM practice are available on request, and we'll happily put you in touch before you commit to anything.
