Marlcliff Security Services / BG-Demo – Negotiation
Callcompleted
Marlcliff Security Services · 6 May 2025 11:15
Negotiation of the Growth deal valued at £52k plus VAT including implementation. Nigel Fairbrother asked for a split, a written usage review and a lower first-year number. Owen Tallis offered a written answer the next day.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Negotiation of the Growth deal valued at £52k plus VAT including implementation. Nigel Fairbrother asked for a split, a written usage review and a lower first-year number. Owen Tallis offered a written answer the next day.
What happened: Lewis Kerr and Owen Tallis took Sharon Tilley and Nigel through scope, price, payment and service levels for Growth, with a target signing of 22 May 2025.
Customer view: Nigel said 'If I sign this and six months on it's two people in customer operations, I'm not renewing it.' He asked for the annual split, the usage review in the order form and a lower first-year price.
Commercial: Owen said any movement would be first term only and would end at renewal. Growth credits cover availability, and Lewis advised against Enterprise on current needs.
Watch: Nigel said he was not promising the date. The alarm monitoring export needs a sample file before a date is promised.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Growth price negotiation
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Lewis Kerr to send the revised draft order form with the split figure and both payment options that day.
- Owen Tallis to give a written answer on first-term movement the next day.
- Sharon Tilley to send a redacted alarm export sample and the user names that week.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Nigel ties any renewal to proven usage beyond customer operations.
- Nigel wants a lower first-year number, which would end at renewal.
- The alarm monitoring export may delay the connector go-live.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Sharon's last-quarter incident cases can give the quarterly review a baseline.
- Account managers responded well to the demo on Marlcliff's own data.
Transcript
Lewis KerrMorning, both. Can you hear me alright?
Sharon TilleyMorning, Lewis. Yes, loud and clear. Sorry, I've got the control room radio going next door. Hang on.- Sharon TilleyRight, that's better. We had an alarm activation overnight at a client site and it ate half my morning, so if I vanish for a minute, that's why.
- Lewis KerrNo problem at all. Owen should be joining too, I think he's just finishing another call.
Owen TallisHere. Morning all. Sorry, the last one ran over. Nigel, good to see you. Sharon.
Nigel FairbrotherMorning.- Lewis KerrThanks for making the time. So, just to confirm what we're here for. Marlcliff wants Growth, so account managers, the control room and credit control are looking at the same picture of each client. And as I understand it you'd like to have signed by Thursday 22 May 2025. Is that still right?
- Sharon TilleyThat's what I'd like, yes. Nigel's the one who signs, so.
- Nigel FairbrotherI'd like to know who is actually using it before we get to the date. Go on, Lewis, you've got your agenda. I'll come back to that.
- Lewis KerrFair enough, and I'll come to usage, because I think it's the right place to start. The plan for the call is scope first, then the figure, then terms, and then we agree who sends what and by when. Owen's here because pricing questions tend to land with him.
- Owen TallisYes. Where does the deal stand against the date, Lewis? That's my only opening question.
- Lewis KerrNegotiation stage, expected close Thursday 22 May 2025, and the value in our system is £51,600. That's the deal value, so it includes the one-off implementation. It is not the annual subscription on its own, and I want to be clear on that so nobody does the wrong division later.
- Nigel FairbrotherSay that again. Fifty-one six is the lot?
- Lewis KerrThe whole deal value, yes. Subscription and implementation together, plus VAT. Everything I quote today is plus VAT.
- Nigel FairbrotherRight. So what's that per contract? Because that's how I think about it. We price by the guarding hour, and everything has to wash its face against a contract.
- Sharon TilleyNigel, it isn't per contract, it's per company. It sits over all of them.
- Nigel FairbrotherI know that, Sharon. I'm saying I'll divide it by the number of client contracts and see what it adds to each one. I wasn't asking Lewis to do it, I was telling him how I'll do it.
- Lewis KerrUnderstood, and that's a sensible way to look at it. To put a number on it for you, I'd want to give you the annual figure separately from the implementation so you can do exactly that sum. I'll send that over today, split out clearly.
- Nigel FairbrotherGood. Split it out. I don't accept a percentage without the base, so no percentages in the email either, just the figures.
- Owen TallisAgreed. Figures with the base, every time.
- Nigel FairbrotherNow. Who is actually using it? Be straight with me. If I sign this and six months on it's two people in customer operations, I'm not renewing it.
- Sharon TilleyIt won't be two people. I'll say what I saw. When we looked at it on our own data, the account managers asked it things they currently chase me for. Which site, which shift, what did the client last hear from us. Credit control asked about an invoice and the calls around it in one go.
- Nigel FairbrotherThat's a demo. People are polite in demos.
- Sharon TilleyThey weren't that polite. One of the account managers asked if she could have it on Monday.
- Lewis KerrCan I offer something practical on that, Nigel? On Growth there's a quarterly review with your customer success manager, Daniel Okafor. It's not a sales meeting. He brings the usage: how many people are active, what questions are being asked, and who is asking them. So you'd see the answer to your question every quarter, from the system, not from us.
- Nigel FairbrotherShow me before the renewal. Not at the renewal.
- Owen TallisThat's what the quarterly reviews do. The first one lands well inside the first term. If it shows the usage isn't there, you'll know with time to act, and so will we. That's as much in our interest as yours.
- Nigel FairbrotherMm. Could we have it written down that the first review happens, and what it covers?
- Lewis KerrYes, I can put it in the order form as a schedule item. Quarterly review, usage report included. I'd rather it was written than remembered.
- Nigel FairbrotherGood. Next. Scope. What am I buying? Tell me in plain words, not brochure.
- Lewis KerrGrowth. Several teams on one layer, which is you, with customer operations, the control room and credit control. Up to forty users and eight connectors. Pages, chat and search, plus the dashboards builder. It runs inside your own Snowflake account, so the data doesn't leave your estate.
- Sharon TilleyEight connectors is plenty for us to start. We've got the CRM, the call recorder, the helpdesk, the accounting system, the alarm monitoring export, a couple of shared drives. I'd have to count the rest.
- Lewis KerrThat's inside the eight, and the alarm monitoring export is the one I'd flag early. It's the one with the least standard shape, so we'd want to look at a sample file before we promise a date on it.
- Sharon TilleyI can get you a sample this week. Redacted, obviously. I'm not sending a client's incident log to anyone unredacted.
- Lewis KerrWouldn't expect it. Redacted is fine.
- Owen TallisAnd on the connectors, the order form will list each one you've named, with a live-within commitment against it. The number of days gets written into the form, so it's a promise on paper and not a hope.
- Nigel FairbrotherAnd if one isn't live in that time?
- Owen TallisThen that's a conversation about the contract, not about goodwill. I'd rather we agreed the remedy now than argued about it later. Lewis, can you draft that so Nigel can look at it?
- Lewis KerrYes, I'll draft that with the order form.
- Nigel FairbrotherFine. Implementation. How long?
- Lewis KerrEight weeks for Growth, fixed fee, one-off. It's the same shape for every Growth customer: connectors first, then the pages your teams will actually use, then training.
- Sharon TilleyI want the control room and account managers first. Credit control can come after. If an incident report doesn't reach the account manager before the client rings, that's the whole thing failing.
- Lewis KerrThat's a good order and it matches what you said when we first spoke. I'll set the plan out that way.
- Nigel FairbrotherRight. Price. I've looked at what you sent. I'm not going to pretend I think it's cheap.
- Owen TallisNo, understood. Let me say how I think about it, Nigel, and then you tell me where it's wrong. Fifty-one six, plus VAT, is the deal value for Growth including the implementation. It is a new-business price for a company that is a new customer, so any movement I can make is a first-term movement.
- Nigel FairbrotherWhat does that mean in English?
- Owen TallisIt means if we agree to move the price, it applies to the first year only. At the first renewal the subscription goes to the list price for your tier. I'd rather you hear that now than at the ninety-day notice.
- Nigel FairbrotherSo whatever you give me now goes away.
- Owen TallisIt ends at renewal, yes. And I won't discount it twice. If we use movement now to get you across the line, there's no second round at renewal. That's what keeps the first-year price honest.
- Nigel FairbrotherHm. That's not nothing, but it also isn't what I was hoping to hear.
- Sharon TilleyNigel, can I say something? The thing you'll be paying for is the end of me and three account managers spending a morning reconciling an incident log against a client's complaint. I've watched it happen. It's not a nice-to-have for us.
- Nigel FairbrotherI'm not saying it's a nice-to-have, Sharon. I'm saying I need to be able to defend it at the next margin review. They'll ask what it saves, and I can't say 'Sharon's morning'.
- Sharon TilleyThen give me the questions. I'll get you the number of incidents where a client heard from somebody else first. You can put a cost on that.
- Nigel FairbrotherDo that. Actual cases, not a feeling.
- Sharon TilleyI'll pull last quarter's. Not pretty, but it's real.
- Lewis KerrThat would help us too, Sharon, because the first thing we'd do after the connectors are live is point the system at exactly those cases. Then the review has a baseline to compare with.
- Owen TallisWhich is a decent answer to Nigel's question. It gives the quarterly review something to measure.
- Nigel FairbrotherMm. Maybe. Payment. What are the terms?
- Lewis KerrSubscription annual in advance, thirty-day terms on the invoice. Quarterly is available on request. Implementation is invoiced separately as a fixed fee.
- Nigel FairbrotherQuarterly. I'd want quarterly. Cash is cash.
- Owen TallisThat's possible. I'll want to check whether it changes the figure, so I won't promise it on the call. Lewis, can you confirm that in writing alongside the draft?
- Lewis KerrYes. I'll ask you to confirm it and put both versions in the email: annual in advance and quarterly. You pick.
- Nigel FairbrotherAnd I want the same layout for both. Same base, same line items, so I can compare them without a calculator.
- Lewis KerrSame layout. Noted.
- Owen TallisAnything else on terms, Nigel? What else would stop you signing?
- Nigel FairbrotherExit. If it doesn't work, what's the position?
- Owen TallisStraight answer: it's an annual subscription under our master agreement. There's no break in the first term on convenience. What you do have is the live-within commitments on connectors and the service levels for Growth, and the order form can sharpen those. I'd rather build the protection around delivery than around leaving.
- Nigel FairbrotherThat's honest, at least. I don't love it.
- Owen TallisYou wouldn't be a finance director if you did.
- Sharon TilleyHa. He wouldn't.
- Nigel FairbrotherService levels. Say them for the record. What do we get on Growth?
- Lewis KerrAvailability on the Growth tier, with service credits if it's missed, and a first response on a priority-one ticket inside one business hour. The nightly refresh is complete by seven in the morning your time on business days. That's the same on every tier.
- Sharon TilleySeven is fine. My account managers are in from half seven, and the control room has been up all night anyway.
- Nigel FairbrotherWhat if the data's old but it's technically up?
- Owen TallisGood question, and I'll be straight about it. On Growth the credit covers availability. Stale data with the system answering counts as available. Freshness credits are an Enterprise feature. If that's important to you, we can talk about what the order form could say, but I'm not going to pretend Growth has it.
- Nigel FairbrotherHm. Appreciated. Most people would have waffled.
- Sharon TilleyIs Enterprise something we should be looking at, Lewis?
- Lewis KerrHonestly, no, not on what you've told me. Forty users and eight connectors covers what you've described, and I don't push an upgrade the usage doesn't support. If the numbers get tight after the first couple of quarters, we'd see it in the review and talk then. Today Growth is right.
- Nigel FairbrotherI'll note that. Saves me asking you again at renewal.
- Owen TallisFair. Let me come back to price, because we haven't closed it and I don't want to leave it vague. Nigel, what would you need to see to be comfortable with the fifty-one six?
- Nigel FairbrotherThree things. The annual split from the implementation, so I can do my per-contract sum. The usage review written into the order form. And a lower first-year number. I'm not telling you how much, I'm telling you it has to move.
- Owen TallisThe first two are easy. The third I'll take away. I'll not quote a number from memory on a call. Let me look at what's possible within the rules, and Lewis will come back to you in writing.
- Nigel FairbrotherIn writing is fine. I prefer it.
- Owen TallisAnd to be clear, Nigel, it would be first term only, as I said. I'm saying that again because I don't want it to be a surprise.
- Nigel FairbrotherYes, yes, I heard you the first time.
- Sharon TilleyCan I ask about training? Because the account managers are the ones who matter. If they don't get it, nobody else will.
- Lewis KerrTraining is part of the implementation. Sessions by role: account managers, control room, credit control. If you wanted a day on site in Bristol, that's an add-on, and I'd price it separately so you can decide whether it's worth it.
- Sharon TilleyLet's see how the first sessions go. I don't want to commit anything to Nigel before he's seen it.
- Nigel FairbrotherThank you, Sharon. For once.
- Sharon TilleyDon't push it.
- Lewis KerrAnother practical point, Sharon. The account managers need to be named for the user list before go-live. I'd ask for that around the signing, not after.
- Sharon TilleyI'll send you the names. Some will be on leave, so I'll mark who's covering. And someone from IT will need to be on the connector calls, I'll sort that.
- Lewis KerrPerfect. A colleague in IT who can approve access is the single most useful person in the first fortnight.
- Nigel FairbrotherOn security. Where does our data physically sit?
- Lewis KerrIn your Snowflake account, not ours. We build and run the layer inside it. If you ever left, the data and the structure are yours, still in your account.
- Nigel FairbrotherGood. That's a point in your favour. I'd rather not have a client's incident history sitting in somebody else's cloud.
- Sharon TilleyClients ask us that. It'll be nice to say we've thought about it.
- Owen TallisRight. Let me play it back, because I want to be sure I haven't missed anything, and then we'll set dates. Growth, forty users, eight connectors, implementation eight weeks, fixed fee. Total deal value £51,600 plus VAT, with the subscription and implementation split out in the paperwork. Quarterly review in the order form. Connector commitments with live-within dates. Payment options laid out in the same format, annual and quarterly. And a written answer from me on whether there's movement in the first term. Is that everything?
- Nigel FairbrotherAdd the sample file for the alarm export. That's Sharon's, but it affects the date.
- Sharon TilleyYes. I'll do it this week. And the incidents from last quarter.
- Owen TallisGood. So what's the next dated step? Lewis.
- Lewis KerrI'll send the revised draft order form and the split of the figure today, with both payment options in the same layout. Then Owen's written answer on the first-term position, I'd expect that by tomorrow, Owen?
- Owen TallisTomorrow, yes. Wednesday. I'll tell you what I can and can't do. If the answer's no, I'll say no.
- Nigel FairbrotherI'll read it. I won't decide on a call, you know that. I'll take it to my own review once I've got the paper in front of me.
- Owen TallisUnderstood. Who signs?
- Nigel FairbrotherI do. But not today, and not on a number I haven't had a chance to divide.
- Owen TallisFair. Thursday 22 May 2025 is still the date we're working to, then?
- Nigel FairbrotherIt's the date I'd like. If the paper comes tomorrow and it reads the way you've said, it's not unreasonable. I'm not promising it.
- Owen TallisThat's honest enough. I'll hold the date on our side, but I won't treat it as certain. If it slips, tell Lewis early and we'll reset it properly rather than let it hang.
- Lewis KerrAnd Nigel, if it helps, I can set up a short call with Daniel Okafor before you sign, so you can ask him directly what the quarterly review looks like in practice.
- Nigel FairbrotherYes. I'd like that. Not long. Fifteen minutes, if he can do it.
- Lewis KerrI'll ask him and offer you a couple of slots in the email.
- Sharon TilleyCan I say one more thing on the plan? When we go live, I want the first thing anyone asks it to be a real incident. Not a test question. A real one from last week.
- Lewis KerrI like that. It's the best way to show people what it's for. We'll build the first session around it, with the incident you choose.
- Sharon TilleyGood. Let's get the account manager on it from day one.
- Nigel FairbrotherWhile you two are planning the party, can I check the paperwork will say plus VAT on every line?
- Lewis KerrEvery line, with the VAT position stated at the foot as well. No ambiguity.
- Nigel FairbrotherGood. That's all from me, then. Unless there's something you haven't told me.
- Owen TallisNothing hidden, Nigel. The one thing I'd say is that the sooner we have the sample file and the names, the sooner the eight weeks start. A late signing doesn't just move the date, it moves go-live.
- Sharon TilleyHeard. I'll push on my side.
- Nigel FairbrotherI'll read what you send and come back to Lewis early next week at the latest.
- Lewis KerrThat works. So to sum up my actions: draft order form and split figure today, Owen's written answer tomorrow, Daniel's call offered in the same email. Sharon, redacted sample and names to me this week. Nigel, your reply early next week.
- Sharon TilleyDone. Sorry, I think my radio's going again. I might need to jump.
- Owen TallisGo, go. Thanks, both. Useful call, and a lot more direct than most.
- Nigel FairbrotherDirect is cheaper. Speak soon.
- Lewis KerrThanks, everyone. Speak soon. Kind regards from me, and I'll get that email out within the hour.
- Sharon TilleyThanks, all. Bye.
- Owen TallisCheers. Bye now.
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