Calderbrook Housing Group / BG-Demo – Proposal
Callcompleted
Calderbrook Housing Group · 22 Jul 2024 09:15
Helen Marsden opened on section four figures that do not reconcile, then asked for the £56k all-in to be split into implementation and subscription. She wants a test on three of her figures before signing.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Helen Marsden opened on section four figures that do not reconcile, then asked for the £56k all-in to be split into implementation and subscription. She wants a test on three of her figures before signing.
What happened: Tom Ashdown and Helen met on 22 Jul 2024 to go through the Growth proposal. Helen opened with the repairs and arrears figures in section four, which do not match the housing management system.
Customer view: She wants the brain to settle the numbers, not add a third version. She said she cannot say anything useful to her director without the price split, and her finance team will also review it.
Commercial: Tom quoted £56k all-in, implementation included, and said it is not a yearly number. Growth was set out as eight connectors, 40 users and eight weeks, with five connectors planned at the start.
Watch: An IT colleague has floated an in-house build, which Helen said is not her view. She will not accept lineage on trust, and she called the 16 Aug 2024 close tight but possible.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Growth proposal and price split
Importance
upsell
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tom to send the written proposal with implementation and annual subscription as separate lines.
- Helen to send three section four figures with both repairs completed definitions by the end of the week.
- Tom to book a follow-up early the following week, ideally with Daniel Okafor attending.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Helen will not accept the lineage claim on trust and wants three section four figures tested before signing.
- An IT colleague has floated an in-house build on the existing data platform.
- The director and finance team also sign off, and the annual figure has not yet been given in writing.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Growth with eight connectors and 40 users leaves three spare connectors for other teams later.
- Showing both definitions of repairs completed could settle the board's reconciliation question.
- A clean test on Helen's own figures gives her something concrete to take to her director.
Transcript
Tom AshdownMorning, Helen. Can you hear me alright? I've got a bit of an echo on my side.
Helen MarsdenI can hear you fine. Morning, Tom. Sorry, I'm just finding the right document, give me a second.- Tom AshdownNo bother, take your time. How's your week been? Busy?
- Helen MarsdenBusy. The board pack goes out soon, so everyone is a bit on edge. Which, if you don't mind, is why I'd like to start with something I'm chasing.
- Tom AshdownGo on. That's what we're here for.
- Helen MarsdenIn section four of the draft pack, the repairs completed figure and the arrears position don't match what comes out of the housing management system. These don't reconcile, and the board will ask. I'm not interested in adding a third version of the number, so I need to know that whatever we buy settles it rather than muddying it.
- Tom AshdownRight. Yeah, that's fair, and honestly it's the thing the whole brain is built around. Can I come back to it properly when I get to how it's set up? I don't want to wave it away with one sentence.
- Helen MarsdenPlease do. I just wanted it on the table before we talked about price.
- Tom AshdownNoted. So, how I thought we'd use the half hour. A quick recap of where we got to after the demo, then the scope I'm proposing, then the money, and we'll leave the last bit for what you need from me to take this upstairs. Does that work?
- Helen MarsdenThat works. Though I should say now, I'm not the only one who signs this off. My director will want to see it, and so will our finance team.
- Tom AshdownCourse. That's normal, no drama. We'll make sure you've got what you need for both of them. So, recap. When we went through it on your own data, what you picked out was getting the tenant calls, the repairs tickets, the complaints and the rent arrears into one place that your team could ask questions of. Is that still the heart of it?
- Helen MarsdenIt is. One picture for the board, with the source underneath every number. Calls and complaints are the two nobody has ever managed to line up with arrears, so that's where I'd expect the value to be.
- Tom AshdownGood. So the proposal is the Growth tier. That's built for several teams rather than one, so your BI team, plus income and housing services if they want in. It's up to forty users and eight connectors, and it includes the dashboards builder, so your team can put the board views together themselves rather than coming back to us every time.
- Helen MarsdenEight connectors. How many of those would I actually be using on day one?
- Tom AshdownI'd count five to start: the housing management system, the repairs tickets, the complaints log, the call recorder and the arrears data. That leaves you three spare, which is headroom if another team wants something connected later.
- Helen MarsdenAnd where does all of that sit?
- Tom AshdownInside your own Snowflake account. We build it and run it there, so the data doesn't leave your environment. That matters for you, I'd have thought, with tenant information.
- Helen MarsdenIt does. Our information governance lead will want that in writing, though.
- Tom AshdownLeave that with me. I'll put it in the proposal in plain terms so you can pass it straight across.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. Now, price.
- Tom AshdownYeah. So I'll say up front I don't want to quote the split from memory, I'll confirm everything in writing. But the figure we've put against the deal is £56,000, all-in, implementation included. That's the total for the deal, not a yearly number, and I want to be clear on that because people mix it up.
- Helen MarsdenSo what's the annual figure once the implementation is taken out?
- Tom AshdownThat's what I'll put in the written proposal, broken into the one-off implementation and the annual subscription, so your finance team have both lines. I'd rather give you the right number on paper than a rough one now.
- Helen MarsdenMm. I'd normally say I need the figures in front of me before I take it any further. I can't say anything useful to my director without that split.
- Tom AshdownFair enough, and you'll have it. Honestly, that's the first thing I'll write up after this call.
- Helen MarsdenGood. And the implementation, how long is it?
- Tom AshdownEight weeks for Growth. It's a fixed fee, so it doesn't drift if something takes longer than we'd hoped. Then Daniel Okafor, who'd be your customer success manager, picks up the adoption side, and there are quarterly reviews with him included at this tier.
- Helen MarsdenReviews with whom, from our side?
- Tom AshdownWell, you, I'd hope, and whoever's using it most. Usually it's whoever would otherwise be getting the questions from the board.
- Helen MarsdenThat would be me, then.
- Tom AshdownHa, right. Okay, you asked me to come back to the reconciliation. Let me share my screen, hang on, I'll just find the right window. Can you see that?
- Helen MarsdenNot yet. Oh, there it is. Yes.
- Tom AshdownSo this is the repairs data from the demo. When you ask for repairs completed in a month, the answer comes back with the records underneath it. Click through and you get to the row that came from the housing management system, with the time it was last refreshed against it.
- Helen MarsdenCan you show me the source? Not just the number. I want to see where the arrears figure comes from, the actual record, because that's what I'll be asked in section four.
- Tom AshdownYeah. So if I ask for the arrears position and open it up, here, you can see each line and which system it came from. Same again for the complaints. Nothing is a black box, you can trace every number back to where it lives.
- Helen MarsdenRight. I'm reading it. Give me a minute.
- Helen MarsdenOkay. And if it disagrees with the housing management system? That's my actual problem.
- Tom AshdownThen something between the system and the number is different. A filter, a date cut-off, a definition. It won't fix a source, and I'm not going to tell you it does. What it will do is put the two lines side by side so you can see exactly where they split. Often it's a definition, like whether a job counts as complete when it's closed or when it's signed off.
- Helen MarsdenThat is precisely what I suspect it is. The operations team count completed at sign-off and we count at closure. I've never been able to evidence it, and the board will ask.
- Tom AshdownWell, that's the sort of thing it's good at. You'd see both definitions and the gap between them, and you'd be able to say which one the pack is using and why.
- Helen MarsdenI'm afraid I don't accept that on trust, though. I'd want you to test it on three of the figures from section four before anything is signed. With our definitions, our data.
- Tom AshdownYeah, I'd welcome that. Send me the figures and the definitions as you hold them, and Daniel's side will run them through. You'll see the lineage yourself, not just our word for it.
- Helen MarsdenGood. That's something I can take to my director: a test on our own numbers, not a slide.
- Tom AshdownExactly that. Let me stop sharing, I think you've seen enough of me clicking about.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. Another thing on the board pack. It's built on the month-end position. How current is the data when I come to build it?
- Tom AshdownIt refreshes overnight, and it's complete by 07:00 on working days. So the month-end position would be there on the first working morning. I'll confirm that wording in the proposal as well, I don't want you relying on my memory.
- Helen MarsdenBy seven. So on the first working day I could build from it before the team is even in.
- Tom AshdownThat's the idea, yes. If it's late for any reason, that's something you'd raise with us straight away and we'd look at it.
- Helen MarsdenMm. Right. Can I be straight with you about something else?
- Tom AshdownPlease. Always.
- Helen MarsdenA colleague in IT has floated the idea of building something in house, on the data platform we already have. I'll be honest, it isn't my view, but the question will come up when this goes upstairs, and I'd rather you heard it from me.
- Tom AshdownNo, I appreciate that, and it's a sensible thing for them to ask. No drama from me. I'd never tell someone their own setup couldn't do it.
- Helen MarsdenSo what would you want me to say?
- Tom AshdownHonestly, I'd keep it practical. Ask for a date, ask who looks after it afterwards, and ask what happens when the person who built it moves on. Put that next to eight weeks, a fixed fee and a team on the end of the phone, and let your director weigh it up. That's all I'd say.
- Helen MarsdenThat's reasonable. I'll ask them for exactly that. I'd rather have the comparison in front of the board than an opinion.
- Tom AshdownGood. And if it helps, I'm happy to talk to your colleague in IT directly, if you'd like. Only if you want.
- Helen MarsdenLet me think about that. I don't want to go over anyone's head, it's got to come through the right route. I'll tell you.
- Tom AshdownOf course. Your call, entirely.
- Helen MarsdenNow, users. You said up to forty. At the moment I'd expect my team and perhaps a handful from the services side to start. Is it easy to add people later?
- Tom AshdownEasy enough. Forty is the included number at Growth, and if you went beyond it we'd talk about adding another block of users rather than moving you up a tier. I'd only suggest a bigger step if you were bringing the whole organisation in, and I don't think that's where you are.
- Helen MarsdenNo, not at this stage. The board wants confidence in the numbers first. Everything else comes after.
- Tom AshdownThat makes sense to me. Start narrow, get the board pack right, and let the other teams come to it once they've seen it working.
- Helen MarsdenYes. And on timing, what are you working to? Your side, I mean.
- Tom AshdownWe'd pencilled in closing by Friday 16 August 2024. That was a target we talked about earlier. Is that still realistic from where you sit?
- Helen MarsdenIt's tight, but it's possible. It depends on the written proposal reaching me in good time and the test on the three figures coming back clean. I wouldn't promise it today.
- Tom AshdownNo, I'd rather you didn't. Let's work backwards from it, though. If I get you the written proposal quickly, and you send me those figures, we can see where we are.
- Helen MarsdenThat's sensible. And my director will want to know the terms. Payment, in particular. I'm not the person to say, but the finance team will ask the moment they see it.
- Tom AshdownYeah, they will. It'll all be in the proposal: what's invoiced when, and the terms. I won't try to recite it from memory on a call, I'd only get something slightly wrong, and you'd spot it.
- Helen MarsdenI would, yes.
- Tom AshdownHa. So that's why I'm not going to.
- Helen MarsdenOne more thing. When the brain gives a different answer from the housing management system, who tells the team which one is right? Is that me, or is that you?
- Tom AshdownThat's you. Well, your team. We show the gap and where it comes from, but the definition is yours, because it's your organisation's number and your board that reads it. We help you get it written down and applied the same way every time.
- Helen MarsdenGood. That's the right answer. I'd have been worried if you'd said otherwise.
- Tom AshdownWell, I'd have been worried about myself. Right, let me read it back so we're on the same page. Is that all right?
- Helen MarsdenPlease.
- Tom AshdownI send you the written proposal for Growth: scope, eight connectors, forty users, eight weeks, with the one-off implementation and the annual subscription as separate lines, the nightly refresh wording, and the note on your data staying inside your Snowflake account. You send me three figures from section four with the definitions you use. Daniel's side runs them and we show you the lineage. Have I missed anything?
- Helen MarsdenThat's it, I think. I'd add the definitions for repairs completed, both of them, the sign-off one and the closure one, so there's no ambiguity about what I'm testing.
- Tom AshdownPerfect, that helps us. And I'll get something in the diary now, a short follow-up early next week to go through the results together. Would that suit you?
- Helen MarsdenEarly next week should be fine. Not first thing on Monday, I've a standing meeting.
- Tom AshdownLeave that with me, I'll send something over for the afternoon and you can move it if it clashes.
- Helen MarsdenThank you. I'll get the figures across to you by the end of the week. I might need to chase someone for the definitions, so bear with me.
- Tom AshdownNo bother at all. And Helen, for what it's worth, I'd rather the test went badly in front of you now than in front of the board later. If it shows something we need to sort, we sort it.
- Helen MarsdenI appreciate that. It's what I'd want to hear.
- Tom AshdownAnything else you want to ask while I've got you? I've a few minutes yet.
- Helen MarsdenJust the practical one. Who would be my day to day contact during the implementation? Is it you, or Daniel?
- Tom AshdownI stay your contact on the commercial side until it's signed, and I'll stay in the loop after. Day to day on the build and adoption it's Daniel. I'll introduce you properly once we've got the proposal across, so you're not meeting him cold.
- Helen MarsdenThat's helpful. I'd like him on the follow-up call, if he can make it, since he'd be the one running the test.
- Tom AshdownGood idea. I'll ask him.
- Helen MarsdenThen I think that's everything from me for now. I'm glad we dealt with section four first. I'd have been distracted otherwise.
- Tom AshdownHa, you were quite direct about it, I'll give you that. Right, I'll let you get back to your board pack. Proposal to you shortly, then the follow-up in the diary.
- Helen MarsdenThank you, Tom. Speak early next week.
- Tom AshdownCheers, Helen. Have a good rest of the week. Bye for now.
- Helen MarsdenGoodbye.
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