Delancey Haig / BG-Demo – Check In
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Delancey Haig · 27 Jan 2025 12:15
Saskia Mendes at Delancey Haig shared a story of a director catching a disputed invoice before a client review. Active users are nine or ten of forty seats. She asked about seat count ahead of the 3 Jul 2025 renewal.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Saskia Mendes at Delancey Haig shared a story of a director catching a disputed invoice before a client review. Active users are nine or ten of forty seats. She asked about seat count ahead of the 3 Jul 2025 renewal.
What happened: on 27 Jan 2025 Saskia told of a director who found a disputed contractor invoice on the client page before the review and raised it first. She called it what she bought the brain for.
Customer view: around half of the directors use it properly, and the rest keep to spreadsheets and calls. Saskia put it down to habit, not data trust, and asked for something simpler.
Commercial: Daniel Okafor proposed a single dashboard page per director using the Growth dashboards builder, then a short director session, then the quarterly review. Saskia asked again whether forty seats is too many; Daniel declined to guess and said the shape of the renewal would follow the evidence.
Watch: the term runs to 2 Jul 2025 and Saskia wants an honest value summary. The evidence does not show the renewal outcome.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Director page and renewal evidence
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
champion
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Daniel Okafor to send Saskia the by-person usage view within a day or so of the call.
- Daniel Okafor to check how dispute status comes through from the accounting system and reply by the end of the week.
- Daniel Okafor to build the director page with Saskia and prepare a short value summary ahead of renewal.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Only around half of the directors use the brain properly, and use is event-driven around reviews, not daily.
- Saskia is again questioning whether forty seats is the right number, ahead of the renewal on 3 Jul 2025.
- Finance may ask what the subscription earns, and the value case so far rests on one director story.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A per-director dashboard page built with the Growth dashboards builder could make the brain the page directors land on.
- Disputed invoices as a standing item on that page would give directors the early warning Saskia values.
- The quarterly review included in Growth can be held with directors once the page exists.
Transcript
Daniel OkaforHello Saskia, good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?
Saskia MendesLoud and clear. Hi Daniel. Sorry, I'm in a different room today. The usual one has a leak coming through the ceiling and facilities are up there with buckets.- Daniel OkaforOh no. Well, thank you for making the time anyway, I know January is a busy month for you. It's just the two of us, is that right? I wasn't sure whether any of the directors were joining.
- Saskia MendesJust me. I did ask, but one of them is out at a client and the others are in reviews all week. Which is actually my story, can I tell you? It's quick.
- Daniel OkaforPlease do.
- Saskia MendesSo one of the client-account directors, I won't say who, was going into a review on Tuesday. And she pulls up the client page in the brain, the whole picture, vacancies, placements, invoices, complaints, all on the one screen. And there's a contractor invoice that's been sitting in dispute for a few weeks. Nobody had told her. The client hadn't raised it yet.
- Daniel OkaforMm. So she found it before they did.
- Saskia MendesBefore they did. She raised it herself at the start of the meeting, said we'd already got it in hand, and apparently the whole tone of the room changed. That's the thing, the directors need this. That's what I bought it for.
- Daniel OkaforThat's lovely to hear, genuinely. That's exactly the picture we had in mind when we set up the Growth tier with you. How is the team finding it more generally? I'd like to come back to that, because I've got the usage numbers in front of me and I want to talk them through honestly.
- Saskia MendesGo on, I can tell from your voice it's the slightly less shiny bit.
- Daniel OkaforHa, no, not bad, just worth a conversation. So you've got forty licensed users. Over the last month, on a typical day, it's been somewhere around nine or ten people actually active. And that's a little lower than the quarter before. Not dramatic, but it's moved the wrong way.
- Saskia MendesYeah. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I did look at that before the call.
- Daniel OkaforI appreciate that.
- Saskia MendesPart of it is Christmas, the last few weeks of December nobody was doing anything. But honestly, part of it is that we gave seats to a lot of people at the start who were never going to be daily users. Some of the operations team, a few people in finance. They log in when they need something and otherwise they don't.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a very common pattern, actually. You hand out seats generously at go-live because you don't want anyone left out, and then it settles into the people who really have a reason to be in there.
- Saskia MendesRight. But the directors are the ones I care about. And I'd say, what, around half of them use it properly. The rest are still doing it the old way, which is a spreadsheet and a phone call to somebody.
- Daniel OkaforDo you know why? Is it that they don't trust what's in there, or that they haven't got into the habit?
- Saskia MendesHabit, mostly. I think. One of them said to me it's another place to look. And I said, no, it's the only place to look, but I'm not sure I got through.
- Daniel OkaforMm. That's a fair thing to hear, and it's useful. Can I ask, when the directors who do use it open it, what are they typically doing? Is it the client page, or are they asking questions in the chat?
- Saskia MendesMostly the client page before a review. Then the chat when they've got something specific. Like, has this client had any complaints about a contractor since the summer. Things like that.
- Daniel OkaforRight, and that fits what I can see. Questions go up in the days before reviews and then tail off. Which is fine, it's how people work. But it does mean the habit isn't daily yet, it's event-driven.
- Saskia MendesWhich, to be fair, is how a review works. You don't need the client's whole history on a Wednesday afternoon with nothing booked.
- Daniel OkaforHa, that's true. So maybe the number to watch isn't daily users, it's whether every director is in there before every review. Is that something you could tell me?
- Saskia MendesNot exactly. I could find out. I'd have to ask them, and some of them will tell me what they think I want to hear.
- Daniel OkaforWell, I can give you what I can see on my side, by person, and you can decide what to do with it. Would that help? I'd only share it with you, not circulate it.
- Saskia MendesYes please. That's exactly what I need. I'd rather know who's not looking than guess.
- Daniel OkaforOf course. I'll send it over after the call, or certainly in the next day or so. Just to close the loop on that one.
- Saskia MendesBrilliant. Sorry, someone just walked in and out. Go on.
- Daniel OkaforNo problem at all. On the support side, it's been very quiet. Nothing raised in the last month, no tickets at all, so nothing high priority either.
- Saskia MendesWhich is either a good sign or nobody's using it enough to break it.
- Daniel OkaforHa. I was going to say the same thing, I just wasn't going to be the one to say it. I think it's a bit of both, to be honest. The connectors have been stable, the nightly refresh has been landing on time, so the data the directors see is fresh. That part's working.
- Saskia MendesYeah, I haven't had a single complaint about the data. If anything it's the opposite, people say it's right and then don't open it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's an honest way to put it.
- Saskia MendesSo what do we do? Can we make it simpler? Because that's really my question. If the directors need three clicks to get what they want, they won't do it. If it's one, they will.
- Daniel OkaforI think there's a real option here. On Growth you have the dashboards builder, and I don't think your team has built much with it yet. So the idea would be a single page per director. Their clients, open vacancies, placements this quarter, invoices in dispute, complaints. They open it and it's already theirs.
- Saskia MendesA page they land on. Not something they have to build.
- Daniel OkaforExactly. You'd decide what goes on it, and I'd sit with you to put it together, so it isn't another job for your side. Probably an hour or so with me and whoever on your team knows the client structure best.
- Saskia MendesThat would be me, and one of the account managers. Mm. And I could show it to the directors in the Monday meeting rather than asking them to go and find it.
- Daniel OkaforI think that would land much better. People respond to seeing their own clients on a screen, much more than to a general demonstration.
- Saskia MendesWhat did the client actually say, is my test. When a director comes out of a review, did the tool help or didn't it. If I can get that sentence from three of them, I'm happy.
- Daniel OkaforThat's a good test. And the Tuesday story is your first one already.
- Saskia MendesIt is, isn't it. I'll get her to say it in her own words. She'll hate that.
- Daniel OkaforHa. I'd be happy to hear it, if she's willing, it helps me understand what to build around.
- Daniel OkaforCan I turn to the contract side for a moment? Just so there are no surprises. Your term runs to 2 Jul 2025 and the renewal date is 3 Jul 2025, so we're a good few months out, but I'd rather raise it early than late.
- Saskia MendesYeah, I had it in my head as the summer. Go on.
- Daniel OkaforSo the order form is at forty-one thousand eight hundred a year for the subscription, and what's been invoiced matches that. Your finance team has paid on time, nothing outstanding on our side. So the paperwork is clean.
- Saskia MendesGood. Finance haven't said anything to me, so I assume they're happy, though they wouldn't necessarily tell me.
- Daniel OkaforI'll send a formal renewal notice in the spring, in good time, so you and your finance colleagues aren't up against it. Between now and then, what I'd like is for us to be able to say, with some evidence, what the brain has done for you.
- Saskia MendesYes. Because I'll be asked. Someone will say, we've got forty seats, how many are used, what's it earning. And I'd rather not answer that off the cuff.
- Daniel OkaforAbsolutely. So I'll put together a short summary. How many questions have been asked, by whom, which pages the directors use, and the examples like the invoice dispute. Plain language, a page or two, something you could forward.
- Saskia MendesThat would be really helpful. And be straight in it. If adoption's patchy, say it's patchy. I'm not going to hand them something rosy and have it fall apart.
- Daniel OkaforI wouldn't dream of dressing it up. It'll say what it says.
- Saskia MendesCan I ask about the seats thing, though? If, say, we're only really using a quarter of the forty, is it silly to be paying for forty?
- Daniel OkaforIt's a fair question and I'd rather you asked it than sat on it. Honestly, I wouldn't guess at an answer today. The forty is what's in the order form, so that's what we'd be working from. What I'd like to do is look at who really uses it once the directors have had a chance with the new page, and then we can talk about the right shape for the renewal with real evidence.
- Saskia MendesSo not a decision now.
- Daniel OkaforNo. And I'm not going to promise you a particular outcome, because the terms are something I'd need to go through with our side first. But I'll come back to you properly once we've both seen how the next few weeks go.
- Saskia MendesFair enough. That's more than I'd get from most suppliers, to be fair.
- Daniel OkaforHa, thank you. One more thing on the quarterly review, because Growth includes that. Would it be useful to hold one in the next few weeks, with a director or two in the room? I think it'd be good for them to hear the numbers from us rather than via you.
- Saskia MendesHmm. Yes, but let me do the dashboard page first. If I'm putting something in front of them it should be something they can use that day, not another presentation.
- Daniel OkaforThat makes sense. So the order is the page, then a short session with the directors, then the review. Does that feel right?
- Saskia MendesYes. And can the session be short? Half an hour. They'll give me half an hour. They won't give me an hour.
- Daniel OkaforHalf an hour it is. I'll keep it to their clients and their pages, nothing about the product in general.
- Saskia MendesPerfect. Oh, and one other thing, while I think of it. The contractor invoices. The thing that she found on Tuesday. Is there a way to flag that kind of thing automatically? Rather than someone having to go looking?
- Daniel OkaforRight. So the data's all there, the invoices and the complaints are both in the brain. What you'd be after is putting disputed invoices on that director page as a standing item, so it's the first thing they see rather than something they have to ask about. I think that's doable within the dashboards, I'd want to check how the dispute status comes through from your accounting system before I promise it.
- Saskia MendesOkay. Check and tell me. If it's easy, great. If it's awkward, say so.
- Daniel OkaforI will. I'll come back to you on that one by the end of the week.
- Saskia MendesLovely.
- Daniel OkaforIs there anything else on your mind, anything from the team that's been bothering them? I'm happy to take the awkward stuff.
- Saskia MendesNot really. Oh, actually, one of the account managers asked whether she can add notes herself, because she's heard other people can. I said I'd ask.
- Daniel OkaforMm. Is that a note against a client, or against a person?
- Saskia MendesAgainst a client, I think. Like a running note. What did they say, what's the mood.
- Daniel OkaforLet me find out exactly how that behaves for your set-up and I'll answer with something I'm sure of, rather than something I think is right. Can you ask her to send me a line on what she'd want to record?
- Saskia MendesWill do. I'll copy you in.
- Daniel OkaforThank you. So just to close the loop on what we've said. I'll send you the by-person usage view, today or tomorrow. I'll check the disputed invoice item and come back to you by the end of the week. I'll sit with you to build the director page, and I'll put together the short value summary ahead of renewal. And you'll ask your account manager to send me her note question.
- Saskia MendesAnd I'll find a slot in the Monday meeting for the page. I'll message you with the date once I've got it.
- Daniel OkaforThat's everything on my list. Anything I've missed?
- Saskia MendesNo, I think that's it. Thanks, Daniel. It's useful when you just tell me where things are, rather than telling me it's all going brilliantly.
- Daniel OkaforThat's the only way I know how to do it. Thanks for your time, and good luck with the ceiling.
- Saskia MendesHa, thank you. Speak soon. Bye.
- Daniel OkaforBye for now, Saskia.
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