Penvarra Digital / BG-Demo – Discovery
Callcompleted
Penvarra Digital · 21 Aug 2023 09:00
Toby Lister described account managers pulling data from several systems and people no longer asking questions. He agreed to a demo on Penvarra Digital's own data and suggested Steve from client services attend.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Toby Lister described account managers pulling data from several systems and people no longer asking questions. He agreed to a demo on Penvarra Digital's own data and suggested Steve from client services attend.
What happened: Tom Ashdown ran a discovery call with Toby Lister on 21 Aug 2023. Toby described data spread across HubSpot, Google Workspace, Salesforce and custom tools.
Customer view: Answers can take hours, or days at a weekend, and Toby said people have started to just not ask. He wants a single view of a client covering performance, spend, ROI and engagement.
Commercial: Penvarra is only just getting Snowflake into the organisation, which matters for a brain built inside the customer's own account. Toby agreed to a demo, and named Steve as the day-to-day user.
Watch: No tier, price or timeline was discussed, and Toby is the only customer voice. The evidence does not show who would sign.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Discovery: fragmented client data
Importance
neutral
Sentiment
positive
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Tom Ashdown to send reading material and book the demo for the following month.
- Toby Lister to bring Steve from client services to the demo.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Snowflake is only just arriving, so readiness for a build inside it is unclear.
- Only Toby was on the call, and the evidence does not show who decides or signs.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A demo on Penvarra's own data is agreed, with Steve from client services invited.
- Toby wants wider use by account managers if it works, which points to growth beyond analysts.
Transcript
Tom AshdownMorning, Toby. Thanks for making time. How's your week been?
Toby ListerNot too bad, thanks. Busy, but that's the usual. Ready when you are.- Tom AshdownBrilliant. So I'm really keen to understand what you're doing with data at Penvarra. I know you're a digital marketing agency, which means you're probably tracking campaigns, client performance, all sorts. But where are the pain points right now?
- Toby ListerYeah, that's actually a good summary. The challenge is we've got data everywhere. We've got HubSpot for the CRM, we're tracking campaign data in Google Workspace, we've got reporting scattered across Salesforce and some custom tools. What we don't have is a single place to look at everything. Our account managers have to pull data from three, four different systems to answer a client question. It's clunky.
- Tom AshdownHow long does that usually take? When someone asks a question, how long are they waiting for an answer?
- Toby ListerCould be hours. Sometimes days if it's a weekend. We have data analysts who get pinged, they dig through systems, come back with an answer. Works, but it's slow and it's why people have started to just not ask.
- Tom AshdownRight, so you're leaving questions unasked because the friction's too high. And presumably that affects how you support your clients?
- Toby ListerIt does. Yeah. If an account manager can't quickly see campaign performance, they can't proactively improve it. They're reactive. That's what we want to fix.
- Tom AshdownOkay. So you've got Salesforce, Google Workspace, other things. What's the gold standard of what you'd want to see? If I could give you a magic box that answered any question about a client in seconds, what would you ask it?
- Toby ListerThe core thing is: given a client, show me everything. Campaign performance, spend, ROI, email engagement, any notes from their account manager. All in one place. Then from there, we could start asking smarter questions. Trending questions. Which campaigns are underperforming. Who's at risk of churning.
- Tom AshdownAnd how would that work, practically? Who would use that? Would it be your account managers, the analysts, everyone?
- Toby ListerInitially the analysts and senior account managers. But if it works, we'd want everyone using it. Even junior AMs could ask better questions if the data was there.
- Tom AshdownWhat about security? You're dealing with client data. What does your security team need to see?
- Toby ListerThat's a good question. We're not regulated, but clients care about their data. Anything that keeps their data in our systems, not stored somewhere else, that would be a sell for us.
- Tom AshdownGot it. So you use Snowflake?
- Toby ListerActually, we're just getting Snowflake into the org. We've been looking at it. But yeah, moving in that direction.
- Tom AshdownBrilliant. So here's what I'm thinking. The thing we do is we build a layer on top of all your systems: Salesforce, Google Workspace, HubSpot, whatever. It sits inside your Snowflake account. It's queryable. So instead of analysts pulling data manually, your account managers ask questions in plain English and get answers in seconds. No data leaves your Snowflake.
- Toby ListerThat's actually really interesting. When would something like that be ready?
- Tom AshdownSo we can do a discovery call, then a demo on your actual data. That's what I'm thinking. Discovery is really just us understanding the systems you've got, then we come back with a concrete proposal. No pressure. This is just exploration. What do you think?
- Toby ListerYeah, I'd like to see a demo. How long would that take?
- Tom AshdownDemo's probably an hour or so. We'd connect to your systems, run you through it. Could be a week or two out, depending on your calendar.
- Toby ListerOkay. Let's do that. I'm keen to see it.
- Tom AshdownBrilliant. So I'll send over a bit of info about what we do, and then we can get something in the diary for the demo. Who else should be on that? Would Steve be interested? He's client services?
- Toby ListerSteve, yeah. He's the one who'd be using this day-to-day if we went ahead. Good idea.
- Tom AshdownPerfect. I'll get some reading over to you, and let's get the demo booked in for next month sometime. Sound good?
- Toby ListerYeah, sounds good. Cheers, Tom.
- Tom AshdownCheers, Toby. Speak soon.
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