In 2024 we were hired to deliver a target in two months, and finished a fortnight early.
The pitch is one of the cleanest in retail technology. A brand pays for placement, sends people to check it, and receives back a stack of subjective reports. A photo answers the same question in seconds, at every store, without arguing.
The buyer is specific and slightly unusual: trade marketing, merchandising and field sales, rather than IT. Those are the people whose day the product changes and whose budget it comes from, and they are rarely the ones vendors call first.
What we did
Two months across the Gulf, in food and consumer goods. 22 meetings booked, 17 confirmed held, 22 companies introduced, with the contracted target delivered fifteen days before the end of the engagement.
Almarai, Savola Food Group, IFFCO, the Abudawood Group, Mezzan Holding, Jaleel Holdings, Khimji Ramdas, Juma Al Majid, Abbar Foods, Nabil Foods, AFIA, Harvest Foods, Dr. Schär Arabia, Sharjah Coop and Paris Gallery. Trade marketing analysts, merchandising managers and area sales managers.
The closing deck the client asked for
At the end of a short engagement most clients want a results summary. This one asked for two slides, and the second one is the interesting request.
Slide one: the numbers. Meetings, companies, countries, industries, job titles. Slide two, in the client's own words: what went wrong and what can be improved for future projects, so both sides are ready if there is a next one.
We have asked for that second slide on every engagement since. A campaign that delivers its target still contains three or four things that cost a fortnight, and they are invisible a month later unless somebody writes them down while the account is still warm. The clients who ask for it are the ones who understand that outbound is a machine being tuned rather than a service being consumed.
What it shows
Finish early where you can, and end properly either way. The closing conversation that says plainly what worked and what did not is worth more to both parties than another slide of achievement, and it is the cheapest insurance there is against repeating a mistake on the next account.