The six phases at a glance
The order is the point. Each phase makes the next one cheaper, and skipping one moves its cost to a later phase where it is larger. The overview below is the whole project in one view, and the sections after it say what happens, what we need and what you get.
Discovery
How you sell, who decides, and why deals die.
Design
One honest pipeline and the smallest useful field set.
Build
Configuration, permissions and the safe automations.
Migrate
Clean, rehearse, move and reconcile.
Train
On your own data, in your own time zone.
Hand over
Documentation, an admin session and adoption signals.
The method is the same one we publish in implementation in six steps, and the checklist we run it with is the Implementation Playbook. What it costs is on the cost page.
Discovery
We do not open the tool in the first session. We ask how you sell, who decides, and why deals die, and we write the answers down in your team's words.
| We need from you | You get |
|---|---|
| Two or three people who sell, and the person who owns the project | A written process description and a list of decisions that are still open |
| Your current CRM or spreadsheet, and the reports you rely on | A scoped plan with a price for the next phase |
Design
One pipeline with stages named after events, and the smallest field set that your first reports need. Territory, ownership and visibility are decided here, because they are cheap to set on an empty account and awkward to retrofit.
| We need from you | You get |
|---|---|
| A decision on what a qualified deal means, from the person who owns it | The pipeline, the stages with exit criteria, and the field list |
| The five questions leadership actually asks of the numbers | A reporting definition for each one |
Build
We configure the account against the design, set permissions, and add the automations that are safe: follow-up tasks, idle deal reminders and defaults on creation. Anything that emails a customer or changes ownership waits until the team has worked in the account for a month.
| We need from you | You get |
|---|---|
| Access to the integrations, and an answer on who sees what | A configured account, with every automation documented |
Migrate
Data is cleaned at the source, mapped in writing, rehearsed in a staging run and moved in dependency order. A migration typically needs one to three weeks of preparation, and the cutover is measured in hours, usually over a weekend. The full procedure is in the migration manual.
| We need from you | You get |
|---|---|
| A full export, a decision on owners who left, and an agreed freeze window | Reconciliation counts and orphan checks you can verify, and the old system kept read only |
Train
Training happens on your own records, not on a demo account, and in the time zone the team works in. A walkthrough on sample data teaches people the tool and not their job.
| We need from you | You get |
|---|---|
| The whole team in the room, for the sessions that matter | Reps who work out of the account on day one, and a short guide per role |
Hand over
You get an administrator session and written documentation of every automation. We agree which adoption signals a manager reviews weekly for the first month, and an aftercare period with a response time. The handover is judged on whether you can change a field without us.
| We need from you | You get |
|---|---|
| An administrator who owns the account after we leave | Documentation, a trained admin and an aftercare period with a named response time |
What changes for a US team
Territory by state, a time zone on every record, sales tax inputs and the accounting link are built into the design phase and not added at the end. The detail is on the United States page. If you have a European team too, that has its own page.
What to do next
If you want to see whether your account is ready before you speak to anyone, run the Readiness Assessment. If you are ready to talk, book a call, and bring the list on that page. Last reviewed: October 2026.