The 12-month plan
Do this, then this, then that. Each step has an owner (you), a lead time and a way to know it is done. Lead times are for UK construction, catering and facilities buyers; they are long, and most of the waiting is procurement, not persuasion. They are estimatesS16 until your first three deals replace them.
- Months 1–2: company ready to be onboarded as a supplier; Fernham and Menu Partners live; Barratt pilot in procurement.
- Months 3–6: Barratt pilot live; outbound to Tier 1; two paying tenants in the base case, three to four in the upside; first reference quotes.
- Months 7–12: Tier 2 outbound with references; the Barratt division deal; four paying tenants plus one expansion in the base case (£43k ARR), seven plus two in the upside (£85k); decide whether to hire.
Revenue scenarios
Cash. Year one needs £43k–£58k (≈ £13k–£18k of costs plus £30k–£45k of living costs, Chapter 4). Base-case cash received is about £34k. Plan for £45k–£60k of runwayS25. The business is not capital-intensive; the cash is your time and the length of UK procurement.
Sales cycles by buyer type
Reasoned estimatesS16; no published UK benchmark exists for this vertical and deal size. Use them for planning and replace them with your own after ten deals.
| Buyer | Discovery → signed pilot | Pilot → annual contract | First touch → revenue | Stakeholders |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small private housebuilder (50–300 staff) — Fernham | 3–6 weeks | 4–8 weeks | 3–5 months | 1–3 |
| Regional division of a housebuilder plc — Barratt London | 6–12 weeks | 8–16 weeks | 5–9 months | 4–7 |
| Group level, after a division succeeds — Barratt Redrow | 3–6 months | 3–6 months | 9–18 months | 8–12 |
| Contract caterer, single client contract — Menu Partners | 4–10 weeks | 6–12 weeks | 4–7 months | 3–6 |
| Contract caterer, head-office estate deal | 3–6 months | 3–6 months | 9–15 months | 8–15 |
| FM contractor, mid-market | 6–12 weeks | 8–16 weeks | 5–9 months | 4–8 |
Consequences: a deal started in September that is not a small private builder will not pay this financial year. Front-load the pipeline with small, fast buyers; they pay for the certificates and produce the case studies that make the slow buyers possible. Add a full quarter to every plc estimate for InfoSec and legal queues.
The selling calendar (verified dates)
| Period | What is happening | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 18 Dec 2026 – 4 Jan 2027 | Verified construction winter shutdown (CIJC Working Rule Agreement)S26. Nothing is decided. | Do not forecast a December close. Case studies, reporting, January follow-ups queued. |
| January | Budget-year re-engagement; annual H&S plans written | The best outreach week of the year is the first full week of January. |
| February – April | Sites fully manned | Push pilots to signature. |
| May – July | Long days, full sites, highest headcount | Run pilots here; activation numbers are at their best. |
| August | Employer-designated close-downs vary (the industry-wide summer shutdown no longer exists: ask each account) | Prospect, don't close. |
| September – November | Next-year budget planning | The "put us in next year's budget" conversation. |
Contract catering is growing (9.3% a year) while private housing output is forecast down 10%S27. Caterers run on client-contract cycles, not calendar years: ask when the next mobilisation is. Weight your outbound roughly 40% construction, 40% catering and hospitality, 20% logistics and FM, not housebuilder-first.
Month by month
Month 1 · Get sellable
Company hygiene (week 1)
Companies House, bank, ICO fee, accountant, and buy the insurance now: professional indemnity, public liability and cyber, because the pilot agreement commits you to holding them before launch day and the cyber policy limit sets the data-protection liability cap.
Start Cyber Essentials (week 1)
Self-assessment through an IASME certification body. Fix what it flags (MFA everywhere, patching, no shared admin accounts).
The pack (week 2)
One-pager, security summary, DPA, terms, order form, pilot wording (Chapters 8, 9, 11).
Product: device-bound sessions (week 2–3)
Before the first paying customer, ship long-lived device-bound sessions with re-verification only on a new device (Chapter 4, policy C). It is the cheapest option and the best experience, and the security summary describes it, so it has to be true.
Demo tenant (week 2)
A branded tenant with Polish, Romanian and English workers, a scheduled must-read, a hazard report with a photo, a 2-minute video with captions. Rehearse the 30-minute demo five times. Record a 90-second version.
Three warm asks (week 2–3)
Send the intro requests in Chapter 6. Book Fernham and Menu Partners meetings in week 3–4.
Before the first cold email: privacy notice, suppression list, CTPS (week 2–3)
Publish the prospect privacy notice (legal pack) at team-comms.com/privacy, set up an opt-out suppression list in the CRM, and buy the TPS/CTPS screening licence. Chapter 9 legal notes.
Solicitor's review of the DPA, terms, order form and pilot agreement (week 2–4)
Budgeted at £1,500 (Chapter 4). Send the legal pack as drafted; ask for a fixed fee. Decide VAT at the same time: registration is compulsory once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any rolling 12 months, and voluntary registration earlier lets you reclaim VAT on costs and looks normal to a plc; the price list is ex VAT either way.
Price list published (week 3)
Pricing page live on team-comms.com with the three tiers. Published pricing shortens every conversation.
Month 2 · First customers
Fernham: sign the Company plan at £550 a month (week 5–7)
Demo to the construction director; order form on the call; on site with join cards within a week.
Menu Partners: £2,500 60-day pilot (week 5–8)
Recall-notice story; up to three kitchens on; day-30 and day-60 reviews booked at signing; the £950 Company band printed on the pilot paper.
Barratt London: the £2,500 pilot on a purchase order (week 5–8)
HSEQ or divisional H&S director meeting. The £2,500 pilot is sized for a divisional purchase order; confirm their delegated-authority limit on the call rather than assuming it. Barratt Redrow centralises ~95% of buyingS28, so send the supplier pack and DPA to group procurement the same day and run the two in parallel; do not describe the pilot as a way round procurement, to them or to yourself.
Weekly review starts (every Friday from now)
Chapter 11. Non-negotiable.
Month 3 · Evidence
Reference quotes from Fernham and Menu Partners
Ask on the day-30 call, with the number they saw (confirmed reach %).
Outbound to Tier 1 begins
Five accounts a week, warm path first, the full eight-touch sequence (Chapter 9). Track replies.
Menu Partners converts to annual
Day-60 review with the reach numbers; Company plan order form.
Months 4–6 · The pilot that matters
Month-4 checkpoint: the contingency (week 16)
Three triggers, decided in the Friday hour, not at month 10. No signed pilot or order by week 16: the segment is wrong; move the outbound weight to whichever sector produced replies and stop working the one that did not. Reply rate under 2% after 60 first emails: the message is wrong; rewrite the opening line around the strongest discovery quote you have and re-run on 20 accounts before sending more. Two pilots miss criterion 1: the problem is onboarding, not the product; you go to site for every join session until it passes. If all three warm leads have said no by month 4, the remaining runway goes on the caterers and food manufacturers (the fastest cycles in Chapter 5), and the hiring decision in step 20 becomes a stopping decision.
Barratt London pilot live (month 4)
Up to three sites, 60 days, the four success criteria agreed in writing, the mutual action plan co-signed. You on site for the first two join sessions. Cyber Essentials Plus started if they asked.
Outbound produces its first logo (months 5–6)
Discovery → demo → proposal → pilot, using the reference quotes. Expect 30 or more touched accounts per booked demo early on (Chapter 9 assumptions).
Product: fix what customers hit (one day a week)
Keep a list; ship the top item monthly. Do not build SSO or integrations until an Enterprise deal depends on it. Search: Sitemate is buying "toolbox talk app" keywords (Chapter 2); put a plain page on team-comms.com for that phrase and the construction one-pager behind it, budget £0 beyond an afternoon, and revisit paid search only after the first two references exist.
Months 7–9 · Expand
Barratt: from pilot to division, then group (month 7–12+)
Day-60 review → the division at the band its enrolled workers fall in (1,001–2,000 is £2,600 a month; above 2,000 is Enterprise from £3,600), with the pilot credited, signed by the division. Confirm the count during the pilot; the month-12 revenue depends on it. Then the group agreement, which is a second sale with 8–12 stakeholders and 9–18 months; start it the day the division signs.
Tier 2 outbound with references
Ten accounts a week. Use the Barratt story only once it is public; ask permission in writing.
Renewal machine
Day-240 health review with the reach numbers; day-270 renewal conversation; any price change notified 90 days out in its own message; day-300 formal notice (Chapter 12). Save play triggered by the metrics page's own worry thresholds (no posts for two weeks: ring the admin on Monday). If the champion leaves, you have a fortnight to find the replacement admin: ask the same day. Every lost customer gets a 15-minute call to learn why (Chapter 9, after the sale).
Months 10–12 · Decide
The hiring decision
If base case or better (≈ £43k ARR, 4+ tenants, pilot-to-paid above 60%): hire a part-time onboarding/CS person so you keep selling. If below conservative: the problem is the pitch or the ICP, not headcount; go back to discovery notes.
Price rise
Raise published prices 5–8% for new customers; existing customers at renewal, notified 90 days before in a separate message with a reason and a number.
Year-2 plan
Either: the same motion in one more sector (logistics or care, whichever produced replies), or: deepen construction with the supply chain (subcontractors of your customers are warm leads with zero acquisition cost).