What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Joanna Platt, who runs partnerships and delivery, wants to be a customer first and then refer and implement for clients. Four connectors fit Starter exactly. Sophie quoted £26k including implementation, with a target of 15 Aug 2025.
What happened: Joanna described a Snowflake consultancy with about sixty clients. She runs the client base across a CRM, a call recorder, shared mailboxes and a helpdesk, reconciled by hand.
Customer view: She wants to use B-Viz internally first and will not introduce it to clients unless she would stake her name on it. She also wants a proper referral and implementation arrangement.
Commercial: Sophie Ling quoted £26k for Starter, including the one-off implementation, not the yearly subscription. The four named systems use all four Starter connectors, so Xero would be an add-on or a tier move. Users are close to the 15 soft limit.
Watch: Partner terms were not promised. Sophie said she would take them to colleagues and confirm ownership in writing.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Who was there
BG-Demo
Them
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Sophie Ling to send a written note with the owners, the security overview and demo dates.
- Joanna Platt to arrange read access to a small, safe subset of HubSpot and Zendesk data for the demo.
- Sophie Ling to take the partner and referral structure to colleagues and confirm in writing.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Four connectors is a hard Starter limit, so adding Xero needs an add-on or a higher tier.
- Partner terms are unconfirmed and Mossbrook would be the first partner, so the arrangement has to be written from scratch.
- Summer holidays and the Snowflake admin's security review could slip the 15 Aug 2025 target.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Mossbrook could become a reference customer and an implementation and referral partner to its roughly sixty clients.
- Users are around the 15 soft limit, which points to extra-user blocks or Growth later.
Transcript
- Joanna PlattHello, hello. Can you hear me okay? I've got a headset on that sometimes cuts out.
- Sophie LingLoud and clear. Afternoon, Joanna. Thanks for making the time.
- Joanna PlattAfternoon. Sorry, I'm literally walking back to my desk from a delivery stand-up, give me a second. Right. Sat down. Fine.
- Sophie LingNo rush at all. How's the week been? It's been properly hot down here, I've been working with a fan pointed at my face.
- Joanna PlattManchester is pretending to be the Mediterranean, so same. Everyone's in the office because we have the only air conditioning on the floor. Busy week though, good busy. Can I start with the client pipeline? It's the easiest way to explain why I wanted this call.
- Sophie LingPlease do. That's exactly what I'd like to hear. I'll take notes and then I'll ask my annoying questions.
- Joanna PlattOkay. So, quick background in case the intro email was thin. We're a Snowflake consultancy. We build and then run data warehouses for mid-sized companies, mostly in the North West. Sixty or so clients at the moment, give or take. Manufacturing, logistics, a few professional services firms, a couple of housing groups.
- Sophie LingRight, so a proper spread. And they're all on Snowflake because you put them there.
- Joanna PlattMostly, yes. And that's what caught my eye about B-Viz. It runs inside the customer's own Snowflake account. That's a big deal for us, because we're the ones with the keys, and our clients don't want another vendor copying their data somewhere else.
- Sophie LingYeah, that's the design. Nothing leaves their account. We deploy into it and we run inside it.
- Joanna PlattGood. So here's the thing I keep hearing from clients. We build them a lovely warehouse, and six months later the sales director says, I still can't ask it a simple question. They end up in spreadsheets again. And I hate that. It makes our work look like shelfware.
- Sophie LingMm. That's the classic one. The data is there, but nobody can get at it without an analyst.
- Joanna PlattExactly. So what I want to understand is whether B-Viz is the answer to that, and whether it's something we use for ourselves first, then bring to clients. I don't introduce anything to a client I wouldn't stake my name on. So we'd be a customer before we're anything else.
- Sophie LingI like that order. It's honest. Can I ask what you'd use it for internally? Your own data, I mean, not your clients'.
- Joanna PlattOur own, yes. Right now we run our client base out of the CRM, a call recorder, a shared mailbox for each client and the helpdesk. Nobody can tell me in one place which clients are quiet, which are unhappy, which have an open request that's gone stale. I find out in Monday's meeting when someone says, oh, did you know.
- Sophie LingSo four or five systems, and a person reconciling them by hand.
- Joanna PlattThat person is me. Or my delivery lead, on a bad week.
- Sophie LingHa. Okay. Which CRM are you on? And the helpdesk, do you know off the top of your head?
- Joanna PlattWe're on HubSpot for the CRM. Helpdesk is Zendesk. Calls are recorded in Gong, because one of our partners insisted a while back. Mail is Microsoft 365.
- Sophie LingGood, all four are connectors we already have. And finance? Do you want that in or is it a later thing?
- Joanna PlattXero. Later, I think. Let's write that down as a maybe. I'd rather get the client-facing stuff right first.
- Sophie LingSensible. Now, I should be upfront about how the smallest tier works so we don't waste your time. Starter is for one team. It has a limit of four connectors, and that one is a hard limit. Users are a soft limit of fifteen. You get pages, chat and search, and a check-in with us every six months.
- Joanna PlattFour connectors. So HubSpot, Zendesk, Gong and Microsoft 365 uses all of them.
- Sophie LingYes, exactly. And Xero would be a fifth, so that would be an add-on conversation or a move up a tier. We can talk about that, but I wouldn't build the plan around it yet.
- Joanna PlattFine. Who owns that decision, us or you? I don't want to find out in month three that we've hit a wall.
- Sophie LingFair question. The limit is enforced by the product, so you'd see it, and your CSM would flag it well before. You'd have a named person on our side for adoption. That's Marcus Bell, if you go ahead. I'd bring him into a call before anything is signed.
- Joanna PlattYes please. Marcus. Let's write that down. I'll want him early, not after the paperwork.
- Sophie LingDone. Okay, so that's the internal use. You mentioned a partner angle as well. Tell me what you're picturing there, because I don't want to assume.
- Joanna PlattRight. Two parts, and I want to keep them separate. One, implementation. When a client of ours wants B-Viz, our consultants know their Snowflake account already, so we could do the setup rather than you sending strangers in. Two, referral. We introduce clients we think are a good fit, and we want that to be a proper arrangement, not me forwarding emails and hoping.
- Sophie LingMm. And you'd want to be the first one doing that, I imagine.
- Joanna PlattI'd like to be, yes. Nobody's done it with you yet?
- Sophie LingNo, you'd be first. Which is good and slightly scary for both of us. It means we'd write the way of working together rather than copy one.
- Joanna PlattI can live with that. It means I can ask for what I need. What does the client need on day one? That's my test for everything. If a client signs and on day one there's nothing in front of them, we've failed.
- Sophie LingThat's actually how we think about the demo too. We build it on their own data, so on day one there are already pages and answers they recognise. Not a generic sandbox with fake companies in it.
- Joanna PlattGood. Because my clients are sceptical. They've been shown a lot of dashboards.
- Sophie LingUnderstood. Can I come back to the internal side for a moment? I want to understand who'd use it day to day. You said fifteen users is the soft limit. Is that enough?
- Joanna PlattLet me think. Delivery has quite a few people, then partnerships is me and a couple of others, then our account managers, and the management team would look at it. It's close. I'd say we're around the line, honestly, maybe a bit under.
- Sophie LingOkay. Soft limit means it won't cut anyone off, but we'd talk about it if you stayed over. There's an add-on for additional users in blocks of ten.
- Joanna PlattRight, that's reasonable. Let's park it and see who actually logs in.
- Sophie LingAgreed. What does a good outcome look like for you in, say, the first few months? If I wrote it on a slide, what would it say?
- Joanna PlattThree things. One, I can ask which clients have gone quiet and get a real answer. Two, my delivery lead stops building a weekly status pack by hand. Three, and this is the big one, I can show a client what it looks like on a real set of data, ours, and say, this is what you'd get.
- Sophie LingThat third one is a nice way to put it. Your own account becomes the reference.
- Joanna PlattExactly. But I only get to say that if it genuinely works for us. I won't fake it.
- Sophie LingNo, and I wouldn't want you to. Okay. Let me ask about the less fun bit. Who else needs to be comfortable with this on your side? Security, finance, your managing director?
- Joanna PlattMy managing director will sign anything I put in front of him if the number's sensible, but he'll ask what happens to the data. I'll handle that. For us, security is mostly our own Snowflake admin, one person, and she'll want to see what role B-Viz runs under. Finance is a part-timer who just wants an invoice she can match.
- Sophie LingThat's helpful. I can send our security overview before the demo so your admin has time to read it. And invoices are annual in advance, thirty-day terms, quarterly if you ask.
- Joanna PlattAnnual's fine. Let's write down the security overview. I'd like her to see it early so she isn't a blocker in the last week.
- Sophie LingNoted. Now numbers, only roughly, since we're at discovery. If you went with Starter, the deal comes out at £25,500 in total, and that includes the one-off implementation. It's not the yearly subscription on its own.
- Joanna PlattRight, so twenty-five and a half all in, with setup. And the setup is fixed fee?
- Sophie LingFixed fee, yes, and it runs about four weeks for Starter. After that you pay the subscription each year. I'll put the split in writing so it's clear which is which.
- Joanna PlattPlease do. My finance person will ask exactly that. And four weeks, is that four weeks of us doing things or four weeks of you?
- Sophie LingBoth, and that's worth being honest about. The connectors go quickly if someone on your side can grant access the same day. Most delays I see are people waiting for credentials.
- Joanna PlattThat'll be me chasing our admin. Okay. I can control that. Who owns the connector access, us or you? Us. Write that down.
- Sophie LingHa, I will. Okay, so timing. Where would you like this to land? I have a mid-August close pencilled in on my side, but that's only a guess.
- Joanna PlattMid-August works. Summer holidays will be a nuisance, a few of us are away, but I'd rather decide by then than drift into the autumn. Is that Friday 15 Aug 2025 you had in mind?
- Sophie LingThat's the one. Friday 15 Aug 2025 as a target, not a deadline. If the demo goes well and your admin is happy, we can move faster. If not, we shouldn't force it.
- Joanna PlattGood. So what happens between now and then?
- Sophie LingI'd suggest this. Next, a demo on a slice of your own data, ideally HubSpot and Zendesk, since that's where your quiet-client question lives. For that I need someone to grant read access to a small, safe subset. Not everything.
- Joanna PlattI can arrange that. I'd pick a handful of clients we're relaxed about and strip anything sensitive. Is that okay?
- Sophie LingThat's perfect. Then the proposal, then your admin reviews the security side, then the order form if you're happy.
- Joanna PlattFine. And the partner conversation, do we do that at the same time or after?
- Sophie LingI'd say alongside but separate. I'll take the partner idea to my colleagues and come back with how we might structure referrals and who does implementation work. I don't want to promise terms I can't confirm today.
- Joanna PlattGood, I'd rather hear nothing than hear a guess. But I do want someone to own it. Who owns the partner side at your end?
- Sophie LingFor now, me, and Marcus once there's a live account to look after. I'll confirm in writing.
- Joanna PlattThanks. Then let's write that down: Sophie owns the commercial and partner questions, Marcus owns adoption. I'll own access and getting my admin to read things.
- Sophie LingPerfect summary. I'll send a short note today with those, plus the security overview and a few dates for the demo. Does next week suit?
- Joanna PlattNext week is fine, mornings are better. Thanks, Sophie, this was more useful than I expected.
- Sophie LingLikewise. Speak soon, Joanna. Enjoy the heat.
- Joanna PlattCheers. Bye for now.