Your business operating profile
Performance marketing agency with 14 staff serving retained clients and project work, generating leads from referrals and inbound content.
Based on the information provided, the agency generates enough qualified demand but loses value in two places: proposals that go quiet after sending, and retainers where delivered hours exceed what was priced. Both are measurable with data the agency already holds.
Based on the information provided. Not a factual conclusion about performance.
- 01Proposal follow-upPotentially high impact
- 02Retainer profitabilityPotentially high impact
- 03Client reporting timePotential time savings
Business health map
Five areas of the business, each signal tied to a concrete next action. No scores without meaning.
- Proposal conversionAt risk
Proposals are sent, then followed up inconsistently.
Action: Fixed three-touch follow-up sequence per proposal.
- Retainer renewalsNeeds attention
Renewal conversations happen in the final week of a term.
Action: Start renewal review 60 days before term end.
- Client reportingAt risk
Monthly client reports are assembled manually per account.
Action: One template, one data source, per account type.
- Scope trackingNeeds attention
Extra requests are absorbed without a record.
Action: Log out-of-scope requests against the account.
- Client healthUnknown
No structured signal of an account going quiet.
Action: Track last meaningful client contact per account.
- Lead qualificationNeeds attention
All inbound enquiries get a full proposal regardless of fit.
Action: Add a three-question fit check before proposal work.
- AttributionWorking
CRM records lead source consistently.
Action: Extend to record proposal outcome by source.
- Time allocationAt risk
Senior time goes to reporting and unlogged scope creep.
Action: Time-box reporting and log every extra request.
Operator diagnostic
An executive summary, then the top five opportunities — each with the evidence behind it and the data still missing.
Northline does not have a demand problem. It has a discipline problem in two specific places. Proposals are strong but go quiet without a structured follow-up, and retainer delivery absorbs unlogged extra work that erodes margin. Both leaks are visible in data the agency already keeps in its CRM and project tool — they are simply not being reviewed.
- 01
Proposal follow-up gap
ImpactHighEffortLowConfidenceHighUrgencyHighAutomationHighProblemProposals are sent and then followed up only if someone remembers.
EvidenceOBSERVEDCRM sample shows 19 proposals sent in the last 90 days, 12 with no logged activity after the send date.
Business impactProposal-stage opportunities are the most expensive to generate and the cheapest to recover.
RecommendationRECOMMENDEDA fixed three-touch follow-up sequence with an owner per proposal.
Data required to go further- Proposal sent date
- Owner
- Activity log
- Outcome
Build my workflowNext actionBuild the proposal follow-up workflow and backfill the 12 silent proposals.
- 02
Unlogged scope creep on retainers
ImpactHighEffortModerateConfidenceMediumUrgencyMediumAutomationMediumProblemExtra client requests are delivered without being recorded or priced.
EvidenceOBSERVEDProject tool sample shows three accounts where logged hours exceed the retained hours by more than 20%.
Business impactMargin erosion is invisible until a retainer becomes unprofitable to service.
RecommendationRECOMMENDEDLog every out-of-scope request and review hours vs retained hours monthly per account.
Data required to go further- Retained hours per account
- Logged hours
- Request log
Next actionCompare logged vs retained hours for all accounts this month.
- 03
Late renewal conversations
ImpactMediumEffortLowConfidenceHighUrgencyMediumAutomationHighProblemRetainer renewals are discussed in the final week of the term.
EvidenceOBSERVEDOwner-reported pattern across recent renewals.
Business impactLate conversations weaken pricing position and shorten reaction time.
RecommendationRECOMMENDEDTrigger a renewal review 60 days before each term end.
Data required to go further- Contract end dates
- Account owner
Next actionList every contract end date for the next six months.
- 04
Unqualified proposal work
ImpactMediumEffortLowConfidenceMediumUrgencyMediumAutomationMediumProblemFull proposals are produced for enquiries that were never a fit.
EvidenceINFERREDOwner-reported; proposal effort per opportunity is not currently tracked.
Business impactSenior time spent on proposals that had low probability from the start.
RecommendationRECOMMENDEDThree-question fit check before any proposal is written.
Data required to go further- Enquiry record
- Budget indication
- Timeline
- Decision maker
Next actionAgree the three qualifying questions with the sales lead.
- 05
Manual client reporting
ImpactMediumEffortModerateConfidenceHighUrgencyLowAutomationHighProblemMonthly reports are assembled by hand for each account.
EvidenceOBSERVEDTeam reports roughly 2 hours per account per month across 9 accounts.
Business impactAround 18 hours per month of senior time that could go to delivery or sales.
RecommendationRECOMMENDEDOne report template per account type, fed by one data source.
Data required to go further- Current report formats
- Metric definitions per account type
Next actionGroup the 9 accounts into two or three report templates.
Where could money be leaking?
Operator names the leakage area. Where the numbers to value it don't exist yet, it says exactly what would be needed instead of inventing a figure.
Abandoned quotes
OBSERVED12 of 19 proposals sent in the last 90 days have no logged activity since.
To estimate impact we need: Proposal values and historical win rate for followed vs unfollowed proposals.
Manual bottlenecks
OBSERVEDThree accounts exceed retained hours by more than 20%.
Manual bottlenecks — reporting
OBSERVEDApproximately 18 hours per month spent assembling client reports.
Lost opportunities
INFERREDProposals are written before fit is established.
To estimate impact we need: Time spent per proposal and win rate by lead source.
Dormant customers
INFERREDPast project clients are not contacted after delivery ends.
To estimate impact we need: Client list with last project end date and outcome.
Fix this first
Ranked on impact, effort, confidence and urgency — not on how interesting the problem is.
Proposal follow-up gap
Why this comes firstA fixed three-touch follow-up sequence with an owner per proposal. It scores highest because the evidence is high, the effort is low, and the potential impact is high — so it returns value before anything more ambitious is attempted.
Unlogged scope creep on retainers
Extra client requests are delivered without being recorded or priced.
Late renewal conversations
Retainer renewals are discussed in the final week of the term.
Unqualified proposal work
Full proposals are produced for enquiries that were never a fit.
Manual client reporting
Monthly reports are assembled by hand for each account.
Operator readiness
This measures the maturity of your operational systems — not the quality or success of your business.
Your biggest opportunity is not adding more AI tools. It is reporting — the weakest part of your operating system, and the one every other improvement depends on.
Build my workflow
The recommendation becomes an executable workflow: steps, owners, tools, approval points and the metrics that prove it worked.
Convert more sent proposals by removing reliance on memory.
A proposal is marked as sent in the CRM.
Log the send
- What happens
- Record proposal value, owner, send date and decision date.
- Why it happens
- The send date is the clock every later step runs from.
- What it requires
- CRM proposal record.
- Proposal sent
- Team waits for a reply
- No reply
- Opportunity quietly closes itself
- Proposal logged with owner and value
- Three scheduled touches over 14 days
- Senior escalation if still silent
- Outcome and reason recorded
- Win rate reviewed by source
- Proposal value
- Send date
- Owner
- Decision date
- Outcome
- CRMNot connected
- EmailNot connected
- Google SheetsNot connected
- Optional: Zapier/Make/n8nNot connected
Connect a tool to activate automation. Operator is not running any of these today.
- Difficulty
- Low
- Setup time
- Estimated 4–6 hours to set up
- Human approval points
- 2 steps require a person to review before continuing.
- Proposals with all three touches completed
- Proposal win rate
- Average days from send to decision
ROI estimator
Change the assumptions and the scenarios change with them. Every figure is an estimated scenario, never a promise.
estimated value per month
- Uplift applied
- 7.2%
- Extra customers
- 0.4/mo
- Revenue effect
- ₹98,842
- Time recovered
- ₹28,058
estimated value per month
- Uplift applied
- 18%
- Extra customers
- 1/mo
- Revenue effect
- ₹2,47,104
- Time recovered
- ₹46,764
estimated value per month
- Uplift applied
- 25.2%
- Extra customers
- 1.4/mo
- Revenue effect
- ₹3,45,946
- Time recovered
- ₹65,470
- Base customers = leads per month x conversion rate. Extra customers = base customers x the uplift applied.
- Conservative applies 40% of your assumed uplift, Expected 100%, Optimistic 140%.
- Time recovered assumes 30% / 50% / 70% of manual hours are removed, valued at your hourly figure across 4.33 weeks.
- These are estimated scenarios based on assumptions you entered. They are not a forecast and not a promise of revenue.
Your next 5 moves
The session should end with work, not a report.