[calendar — week 1 of 6] Meeting slots this week: 2. Email budget: 3.

DEAL STRATEGY — Lumewell ($96k/yr list, 6-week window to Q4 live-by).

SITUATION: Jordan Kim (Head of Growth Mktg) inbound, hot, asked for a demo. Priya Shah (founder/CEO) is the one-person Economic Buyer — signs anything Jordan sponsors, has Series B cash earmarked. No entrenched vendor; real competitor is status quo (spreadsheets + cheap email tool) and 'just hire more marketers.'

TRAPS TO AVOID: (1) Pitching/demoing before quantified discovery — a hot inbound still needs pain in HER words. (2) Taking Jordan's yes without earning Priya access. (3) Discounting an eager buyer.

6-WEEK PLAN:
- Wk1: Discovery-first call with Jordan (frame: working session + tailored walkthrough, not generic demo). Quantify: hours/week stitching data, last failure story, segment build time, campaign volume vs. team capacity, Q4 revenue concentration, repeat-purchase/churn baselines, cost of doing nothing. Get exact Q4 peak dates.
- Wk2: Tailored demo mapped to her pain words; then ask for Priya framed on HER agenda — Priya's public thesis is 'retention is the new acquisition' + Series B deployment + protecting Q4 peak revenue. Not 'my process requires it.'
- Wk3: Priya call — validate business case in dollars (Jordan's quantified pain), confirm budget, decision process, success criteria.
- Wk4: Present proposal at $96k list + co-build Mutual Action Plan backwards from Q4 live-by: contract by ~wk5, data migration + onboarding immediately after signature.
- Wk5: MAP check-ins, close contract, handle any pushback with trades (multi-year, case study, payment terms) — never naked discounts.
- Wk6: Signature + kickoff scheduled; confirm go-live before peak.

PRICE INTEGRITY: Anchor $96k early against quantified pain so value > price before numbers are discussed. If pushed, trade don't concede.

NEXT ACTIONS THIS WEEK (2 slots): (1) Pre-call email to Jordan with 3 sharp discovery questions to start pain quantification in writing. (2) Request working-session meeting with Jordan.

[meeting granted] Call with Jordan Kim, week 1, slot 1.

Jordan, thanks for grabbing time — and for how much detail you put in the demo form. That line about stitching customer data together in spreadsheets stuck with me, because it's almost word-for-word what I hear from growth leaders right before things scale past the breaking point.

Here's what I'd love to do with our time, tell me if this works: rather than run you through a generic feature tour, I want to spend the first chunk understanding exactly what's breaking on your side — your data, your campaigns, what Q4 looks like for you — and then I'll show you only the parts of Cadence that map to what you've told me, live. Sound fair?

Great. So start me here: walk me through what happens today, end to end, when you want to do something simple like send a win-back campaign to customers who haven't purchased in 90 days. What does that actually look like at Lumewell right now?

Yeah, that structure works for me — I don't need a tour, I need to know if this actually solves my problem. So let's do it.

Okay, win-back campaign, ninety days lapsed — so right now that starts with me or someone on my team pulling an export from our e-commerce platform, then cross-referencing it against our email list in a separate sheet, then manually tagging who's actually lapsed versus who maybe purchased through a different channel that didn't sync properly. By the time we have a clean list we trust, we're talking a day or two of someone's time, and honestly we're still not fully confident in it. Then we load it into our email tool and build the sequence from scratch. It's slow, it's error-prone, and at our current customer volume it's just not sustainable — especially with Q4 coming.

A day or two per list, and you still don't trust the output — I hear that a lot, and the distrust part is usually the bigger cost. Let me put some shape around it with you.

Two things. First, cadence: how many campaigns like that win-back are you running — or trying to run — in a typical month? And when a list build eats a day or two, whose day or two is it? Are we talking about you personally, or is there a team getting pulled into this?

Second, on the 'not fully confident' piece — has that ever actually burned you? Like, has a bad segment ever gone out the door, or has a campaign just died on the vine because the data took too long to pull together? I ask because the cost of this stuff usually isn't the hours, it's what happens because of the hours.

Those are good questions. On cadence — we're running maybe three or four of these lifecycle-type campaigns a month right now, but honestly that number should be higher, we're just bottlenecked by the build time. And it's not just me — I've got one analyst who ends up owning most of the pulling and cleaning, which means she's not doing the actual analysis work I hired her to do.

On the burned question — yeah. We had a situation a couple months back where a segment went out with a discount that was meant for lapsed customers, and it hit a chunk of people who had actually just purchased. So we were essentially training our best customers to wait for a discount. I don't know exactly what that cost us in margin, but it wasn't nothing, and it was embarrassing internally. That's actually a big part of why I'm here.

That discount misfire is exactly the kind of thing that keeps founders up at night — you trained your best customers to wait for a coupon. And I hear you on the analyst: you hired someone for insight and turned them into a spreadsheet janitor. That's a double cost.

Before I show you anything, let me shift to the bigger picture for a second. You mentioned Q4 — what's at stake for Lumewell this quarter? I'm asking specifically: what percentage of your annual revenue typically lands in Q4, and if you can't get these lifecycle campaigns scaled up in time, what does that actually cost the business? Not just 'it would be bad' — like, in your mind, what's the dollar risk here?

And then once we get through this, I want to show you exactly how Cadence handles that lapsed-customer segmentation so you never have that margin leak again. Does that work?

Yeah, that works. And look, I'll be honest with you because you asked the right way — here's my number: our repeat-purchase rate has slipped from 34% to 28% as we've scaled, and every point of retention is worth roughly $400k a year to us. I'm running the whole thing out of spreadsheets and a basic email tool — I literally can't segment or automate, so we're leaving money on the table every single week.

On the Q4 question specifically — I'm not ready to get into the exact revenue split yet, ask me something more specific about the problem first — but I'll say this: retention is the board's headline metric right now, and if we go into peak season with the same broken stack we have today, that's a very visible failure for me personally. The six-point drop in repeat purchase rate is already a conversation I'm having with our founder. I need this fixed, not in January.

A six-point drop in repeat-purchase rate at $400k per point — that's $2.4 million a year you're leaving on the table because you can't segment or automate properly. That's not a 'nice-to-have' problem, that's an existential one for your Q4. And I hear you on the board pressure — retention is the metric, and you're personally exposed if this doesn't change fast.

So let me be direct: to get you live before peak season hits, we need to move fast. What's the exact drop-dead date you need this system live by — not when you want to start, but when you need to be actually running campaigns through it? And to make sure we get there, who's the one person who signs off on this so we don't get stuck in procurement hell?

The honest deadline is Q4 peak — about six weeks out. If we're not live with real journeys before the holiday push, we've missed our biggest retention window of the year and I'll have to explain that to Priya. So practically speaking, I need a decision made in the next two weeks to give us any real runway for onboarding and setup.

As for sign-off — that's Priya, our founder and CEO. Budget's there from the raise, and she moves fast when the business case is clear. I'm not going to pretend I can close this without her.

[call ends]

(malformed action coerced to note) {"type":"call_utterance"}

CALL RECAP — Jordan Kim, week 1:

PAIN (quantified, her words): Repeat-purchase rate slipped 34%→28% as they scaled; each retention point ≈ $400k/yr → ~$2.4M/yr value at stake. Retention is the board's headline metric. Win-back list build takes 1–2 days per campaign (3–4 lifecycle campaigns/month, should be more but bottlenecked). One analyst spends her time pulling/cleaning data instead of analysis. Margin leak incident: lapsed-customer discount hit recent purchasers — 'trained our best customers to wait for a discount,' embarrassing, unknowable margin cost. She is personally exposed: 'very visible failure for me personally' if they hit peak with broken stack. Needs it fixed 'not in January.'

DECISION PROCESS: Economic Buyer = Priya Shah, founder/CEO. Jordan says it plainly: 'I'm not going to pretend I can close this without her.' Budget exists from Series B. Priya moves fast when the business case is clear.

TIMELINE: Decision needed within ~2 weeks; live with real journeys before Q4 peak, ~6 weeks out. Onboarding/setup runway required.

WHAT I DIDN'T GET: exact Q4 revenue % (she deflected, fair), competitor landscape (assume status quo + possible Klaviyo/Braze/Iterable curiosity from new lifecycle hires — probe later), her decision criteria beyond business case, whether she's talking to anyone else.

NEXT MOVES:
1. Same-day recap email to Jordan: mirror her numbers ($2.4M, 1–2 days per list, discount misfire, 6-week live-by, 2-week decision), deliver what I promised — how Cadence solves lapsed segmentation/journey automation against HER scenarios, propose working-session demo for week 2.
2. Week 2: tailored demo mapped to her three pain stories. At the end, ask for Priya meeting framed on Priya's agenda: 'retention is the new acquisition' — Priya posts this constantly — plus Series B deployment and protecting Q4 peak. The $2.4M story is Priya's language.
3. Week 3: Priya meeting — validate business case in dollars, confirm budget and decision process, success criteria. Bring Jordan in as champion.
4. Week 4: proposal at $96k list + Mutual Action Plan backwards from peak live-by date: signature by ~wk5, onboarding immediately.
5. Week 5–6: MAP check-ins, close, kickoff.

PRICE INTEGRITY: anchor $96k vs. $2.4M problem (4% of one year's leakage). No discounts; trade only (multi-year, case study, reference).

COMPETITIVE STRATEGY: the real enemy is the status quo and 'hire more marketers.' Jordan is already hiring lifecycle/CRM marketers — a new hire + this platform is the natural combo, position Cadence as force multiplier, not headcount replacement. Probe next call for vendor evaluations.

Jordan — thanks for the candor today. You gave me a lot to work with, so let me play it back to make sure I heard you right:

• Repeat-purchase rate has slipped from 34% to 28% as you've scaled — and at ~$400k per retention point, that's roughly $2.4M a year in value sitting on the table.
• A single win-back list takes 1–2 days to build across exports and spreadsheets, and you still don't fully trust it. You're running 3–4 lifecycle campaigns a month but should be running more — the build time is the bottleneck, and your analyst is doing data janitorial work instead of the analysis you hired her for.
• The discount that went to recent purchasers instead of lapsed ones — margin leak plus an internal credibility hit you shouldn't have to take.
• Hard deadline: live with real journeys before Q4 peak (~6 weeks), which means a decision inside ~2 weeks to leave onboarding runway. And Priya signs — with budget from the raise, when the business case is clear.

Here's how Cadence maps to what you described — I'll show you this live rather than asking you to take my word for it:

1. That 90-day win-back becomes a live segment, not a spreadsheet. Unified profiles sync purchase data from every channel automatically, so 'lapsed vs. just purchased' is always current and always right. The segment that took your analyst 1–2 days exists in about two minutes — and it can't misfire a discount to someone who bought yesterday, because the data is one record, not three exports cross-referenced by hand.
2. The journey builds itself once, then runs forever. Win-back, post-purchase, replenishment — you set the logic once and it executes at your full 2.5M-customer volume without anyone touching a CSV.
3. Retention analytics that speak board language. Repeat-purchase rate, cohort retention, revenue per journey — so when Priya and the board ask about the 28%, you're showing the trend line moving, not explaining spreadsheets.

Next step: a working session early next week where I build your exact win-back and post-purchase journeys in front of you — your scenarios, your numbers. 45 minutes. Does Tuesday or Wednesday work?

One more thought for then: given the 2-week decision window and Priya's focus on retention, it may be worth her seeing the business case directly at some point. We can figure out the right moment after the working session.

— Mike

Mike —

Good recap, you got the numbers right and the mapping to our problems is clear enough that I'm not going to nitpick it. Tuesday works for the working session — send me a calendar invite and I'll hold it.

One thing I want to flag though: you said "it may be worth Priya seeing the business case at some point" and I'd push back on the vagueness there. I told you she's the decision-maker, I told you the window is two weeks, and I told you she moves fast when the numbers are clear. If you want that meeting — and you should — come to Tuesday's session with a crisp one-page version of the business case we'd put in front of her, and ask me directly to make the introduction. I can get her on a call within days, but I need something concrete to bring her, not a "we'll figure out the right moment" placeholder.

The $2.4M framing is a start. Let's sharpen it Tuesday and then let's get Priya in the room.

Jordan Kim
Head of Growth Marketing, Lumewell

[meeting granted] Call with Jordan Kim, week 1, slot 2.

Jordan, you were right to push back on that — 'we'll figure out the right moment' was a placeholder, and you deserve directness. So here it is: yes, I want the meeting with Priya, I'm going to ask you for that introduction today, and I brought a draft of the one-pager so we leave this call with something real, not a promise.

Here's how I'd like to use our time: first, I build your 90-day win-back journey live, right now, so you can judge whether this actually solves the problem. Second, we sharpen the business case together — I've got a skeleton, but the numbers need your fingerprints on them or Priya will smell a vendor document from a mile away. Third, we map the path to getting Priya in the room this week. Good?

Alright — I've got a Cadence sandbox up that mirrors your world: e-commerce data, email, SMS, 2.5M profiles. Before I click a single thing, you tell me the logic. If you could wave a wand, what does the perfect win-back audience look like? 90 days since last purchase across all channels, sure — but what else? Anyone you want excluded, anyone you want treated differently?

[jordan] Good — that's the right framing and I appreciate you coming in with a draft rather than a blank page. Let's do it in that order.

On the win-back audience: yes, 90 days lapsed across all channels is the base. But I'd want to exclude anyone who's had a support ticket open in the last 30 days — we've made the mistake of hitting churned-but-frustrated customers with a win-back offer and it just makes things worse. I'd also want to split the audience by lifetime value: customers who've made three or more purchases get a different treatment than someone who bought once and disappeared, because the economics are totally different and I don't want to throw a 20% discount at someone I might have won back with a personalized product recommendation. Show me how you'd set those conditions up — that's where I'll know if this is real or just a pretty UI.

Watch the audience builder — and notice what I'm building on: a unified profile, so purchases from every channel, email engagement, and your support platform all live on the same customer record. That last part matters, because the ticket exclusion you just asked for isn't hard in your current stack — it's impossible. Your helpdesk data and your order data never meet. Here, they do.

Condition one: last purchase more than 90 days ago. Because every channel writes to one profile in real time, 'purchased through a different channel that didn't sync' stops being a sentence at Lumewell. The cross-referencing your analyst does by hand just doesn't exist anymore.

Condition two: exclude anyone with an open ticket in the last 30 days. I drag ticket status in as a filter — done. The frustrated customer you re-burned before cannot enter this audience, ever.

Now the journey canvas. I drop a decision node on lifetime order count. Branch A, three-plus purchases: personalized recommendations built from their own order history, zero discount. Branch B, one-and-done: that's where your 20% win-back offer lives, because the economics justify it there. And it's a live segment — the day a branch-B customer buys again, they flow out automatically. No export, no retag, no 'still not fully confident in it.'

Ninety seconds, and I was narrating. Your turn — poke holes. What would your analyst ask that I haven't shown?

[jordan] Okay, that's genuinely impressive — the ticket exclusion being a drag-and-drop rather than a manual cross-reference is the kind of thing that would've saved us from that discount misfire situation. My analyst would ask two things: first, how does the system handle a customer who hits the 90-day mark but then opens a support ticket the same week — does the exclusion logic catch them in real time or is there a lag? And second, on the recommendation engine for the high-LTV branch, is that pulling from actual purchase history or is it just category-level? Because "you bought skincare before, here's skincare" is not personalization, that's just a filter with extra steps. If it's truly product-level and it updates as inventory changes, that's a different conversation. Show me that and I think we're ready to talk about the one-pager.

Both great questions — and the first one is exactly the edge case that bites people. Watch this: it's evaluated at send time, not list-build time. There's no 'the list was pulled Tuesday so Friday's ticket doesn't count.' The moment a customer qualifies for the next touch, we re-check the conditions against the live profile. Ticket opened an hour ago? They're suppressed from that send. There's no lag because there's no list — the audience is a query that runs against current data, every time. That is precisely the failure mode that trained your best customers to wait for a coupon, and it's structurally gone here.

Second — and you're right to be skeptical, because category-level is not personalization, it's a filter with extra steps. Look at the recommendation block: it's pulling from each customer's actual order history — product-level, with the purchase frequency patterns behind it. So it knows someone bought a 60-day supply of a specific SKU 58 days ago and the replenishment nudge is that SKU, not 'skincare.' And it reads your live product catalog: if an item goes out of stock, it drops out of recommendations automatically. Nobody at Lumewell babysits that. So for your high-LTV branch, 'here's your next thing' is real, and it stays true as inventory changes.

Now — you said if I showed you that, we'd talk about the one-pager. I'm holding you to it. I've got the draft up. The spine is your own numbers: six points of repeat rate at $400k a point is $2.4M a year. What I don't want is a vendor document. Two things I need from you so this lands with Priya: does the $2.4M framing survive her scrutiny, or does she think about it differently? And what does she need to see that I haven't said?

[jordan] The $2.4M framing survives — those are our numbers, not yours, so Priya can't argue with the inputs. What she'll push on is the recovery assumption: she's going to ask what percentage of that $2.4M is actually recoverable, because she knows we're not going to get all six points back in one quarter. So if the one-pager says "$2.4M problem" without a conservative recovery estimate attached, she'll think we didn't do the math. I'd suggest we frame it as: even recovering two points in the next twelve months is $800k, and the Q4 window is the highest-leverage moment to start.

The other thing Priya will want to see that you haven't said yet is timeline and risk. She's a founder, she thinks in execution, and "live before Q4" is a claim that needs a credible rollout plan behind it. How long does onboarding actually take, what do you need from my team, and what could go wrong? If I walk in there with a number and a vague "we'll get you live," she'll slow us down with questions. If I walk in with a number, a recovery curve, and a six-week plan with dependencies called out, it's a five-minute yes. So let's build that into the one-pager too.

And yes — I'll make the introduction to Priya. I want her in the room this week. Ask me directly and I'll send the calendar invite today.

Done — Jordan, I'm asking you directly: please introduce me to Priya for a working session this week. Thirty minutes, business case in hand, decision-ready. You send the invite, I'll bring the one-pager we build right now.

And you've just made it better. Two points recovered is $800k — that's the conservative floor we lead with, and it makes the $2.4M a ceiling we can point to without overpromising. Priya can't argue with your inputs, and now she can't argue with our math being inflated, because it isn't.

On the execution plan — I'll put a real six-week rollout in the one-pager, not a vague 'we'll get you live.' Data integration, journey builds, QA, team onboarding, dependencies on your side called out explicitly. I want her to see exactly what could go wrong and how we've already accounted for it. That's what turns this into a five-minute yes.

One thing I want to be straight with you about, because I'd rather say it now than have it surprise you: our pricing is straightforward and I won't play games with it. At your volume it's $96,000 a year — that's the number we'll put in front of Priya, and against an $800k conservative recovery, the math isn't close. I mention it now so the one-pager is honest and you're never in a position where a number shows up that you didn't see coming.

Let me confirm what's in the one-pager before we close: the $2.4M problem, the $800k conservative recovery, the six-week plan with dependencies, and the price. Anything missing?

[jordan] Yes — I'll send the invite today, you'll have it within the hour. And I appreciate you putting the price on the table now rather than letting it show up as a surprise in front of Priya; $96k against an $800k conservative recovery is a conversation I can have confidently, and that matters.

One thing missing from the one-pager: the analyst cost. We've been talking about the $2.4M retention problem, but I've also got a person spending a significant chunk of her time on spreadsheet work instead of analysis. That's a real cost I can quantify, and if we can add even a rough number for hours recaptured, it strengthens the case and makes it about more than just the retention metric — it shows Priya we thought about the full picture, not just the headline number. Can we add a line for that?

Absolutely — and you're right, it matters. It's not just the $2.4M you're losing on the table; it's also the high-salary analyst you're paying to be a data janitor instead of doing the growth work you actually hired her for. That's a direct operational cost on top of the margin leak, and it shows Priya we looked at the total cost of your current setup.

Here's the math for the one-pager: if we say those 3–4 campaigns a month are eating 1–2 days each, that's roughly 8 working days a month of pure spreadsheet stitching. At a conservative $80k loaded salary, that's about $3,200 a month — nearly $40k a year — spent on manual work a machine should do. That brings the total cost of the status quo to roughly $2.44M, and it makes the $96k investment look even more like a rounding error against the problem.

So the final one-pager structure: $2.44M total problem, $800k conservative recovery floor, the six-week execution plan, and the price.

You've got the invite going out within the hour. I'll draft the one-pager tonight and send it to you first thing tomorrow so you can review it before Priya sees it — I want you comfortable with every number on that page before you walk into her office. Anything else before we wrap?

[jordan] One flag on the analyst math: I haven't actually told you how much she makes or confirmed the 1-2 days per campaign number in a way I'd want attributed to me in a document Priya's going to read. So let's keep that line directional — something like "meaningful analyst capacity recaptured, estimated $30-40k annually" rather than a precise number built on assumptions I haven't verified. Priya will ask where it came from and I want to be able to answer that cleanly.

Otherwise, yes — send me the one-pager tomorrow morning, I'll review it before it goes anywhere near Priya, and the invite is going out today. This has been a good session, Mike. You earned the meeting.

Good catch — I'll use the range and label it as an estimate, not a verified number. 'Meaningful analyst capacity recaptured, estimated $30–40k annually' — you can stand behind that cleanly when Priya asks, and it still makes the point.

One-pager hits your inbox tomorrow morning. Review it, mark it up, tell me what's wrong — I want you to walk into that room owning every word on the page, not defending mine. Looking forward to meeting Priya. Thanks, Jordan.

[jordan] Invite's sent — you'll see it in a few minutes. Look forward to the one-pager tomorrow, and I'll be honest with my edits. See you with Priya.

[call ends]

[harness] planning budget for week 1 spent — the calendar moves on.

[calendar — week 2 of 6] Meeting slots this week: 2. Email budget: 3.

Jordan — as promised, the draft one-pager. Every number in here is either yours or labeled as an estimate you can defend. Mark it up, tell me what's wrong, and I'll revise before it goes anywhere near Priya.

---
**Lumewell x Cadence — The Business Case (draft v1, for J. Kim review)**

**The problem (Lumewell's numbers):** Repeat-purchase rate has slipped from 34% to 28% as the customer base scaled to ~2.5M. At ~$400k in annual value per retention point, that's roughly **$2.4M a year** in value at risk. The root cause is structural, not strategic: customer data is fragmented across exports and spreadsheets, so Lumewell can't segment or automate at scale. The cost shows up three ways:
• **Margin leak** — a lapsed-customer discount recently went to customers who had just purchased, training best customers to wait for coupons.
• **Campaigns that never run** — lifecycle volume is capped at 3–4 campaigns/month because each list build takes 1–2 days of manual work.
• **Analyst capacity recaptured** — meaningful time currently spent stitching data instead of analyzing it. Estimated **$30–40k annually** (directional estimate).

**Conservative recovery:** Recovering just **2 of the 6 lost points over 12 months = $800k**. Q4 peak is the highest-leverage window of the year to start; missing it defers recovery into next year.

**The plan — six weeks to live:**
• Wks 1–2: decision and signature; data integration begins (e-commerce, email, support platform).
• Wks 3–4: core journeys built — win-back, post-purchase, replenishment — with suppression logic (e.g., open support tickets excluded in real time); QA with the growth team.
• Wk 5: first live sends; team onboarding complete.
• Wk 6: optimization ahead of peak.
• Dependencies on Lumewell: a few hours/week from the growth team for data validation; system access. Known risks (data quality, team bandwidth) are addressed inside this timeline, not after it.

**Investment:** **$96,000/year** at current volume. Against an $800k conservative recovery, that's a better than 8x return in year one — before counting recaptured analyst capacity.

---

Two things I want your eyes on specifically: the analyst line is labeled directional per your note, and the recovery framing leads with your conservative 2-point scenario rather than the $2.4M ceiling. If anything here isn't something you'd say out loud to Priya, strike it.

Looking forward to the session with you both.

— Mike

Mike —

This is clean and I can stand behind every number on it — good work. Two small edits before it goes to Priya: on the margin leak bullet, I'd soften "recently went to customers who had just purchased" to something like "reached customers who had recently purchased" — it's the same point but I don't want to walk into that room leading with a self-inflicted wound more vividly than I have to. And on the six-week plan, I'd add one explicit line under dependencies: "Lumewell to provide system access credentials and data export in week one" — Priya will ask what could blow the timeline and I want to show we've already named it.

Otherwise this is ready. I've forwarded the meeting details separately — we're on for Thursday at 10am, thirty minutes, Priya's already confirmed. Bring two printed copies and lead with the $800k recovery number, not the $2.4M ceiling; she'll get there herself and it'll feel like her conclusion, not your pitch.

See you Thursday.

Jordan Kim
Head of Growth Marketing, Lumewell

Jordan — both edits are in: softened the margin leak language to 'reached customers who had recently purchased' (same point, less wound), and added the explicit dependency line under the six-week plan: 'Lumewell to provide system access credentials and data export in week one.' You're right — naming that upfront answers Priya's 'what could blow this up' question before she asks it.

And your coaching on the $800k-first framing is exactly right — I'll lead with the conservative recovery and let her walk herself to the bigger opportunity. Printed copies, Thursday 10am, thirty minutes. I'll be ready.

One last prep note for you: if Priya asks what success looks like six months from now, I'm going to point to the retention dashboard trending upward and the analyst doing actual analysis. That's the vision we're selling, not just the software.

See you Thursday.

— Mike

Mike —

That six-month vision lands exactly right — "retention dashboard trending upward and the analyst doing actual analysis" is something Priya will respond to because it's concrete and it maps directly to what she cares about at the board level. Use it.

One heads-up on Priya's style: she'll likely skip past the problem framing quickly because she already knows we have a retention problem — that's why she's in the room. Where she'll slow down is the six-week plan, specifically whether we can actually be live and generating signal before peak. Be ready to walk through the dependency line and talk about what happens if data export slips a few days. If you have a answer for "what's your contingency if week one runs long," she'll trust the whole timeline more.

We're ready. See you Thursday.

Jordan Kim
Head of Growth Marketing, Lumewell

Jordan —

Good intel on Priya's style, and it's exactly how I'd want a founder to think. Here's the contingency answer I'll bring if she asks what happens when week one runs long — sharing it now so nothing Thursday surprises you:

1. The plan is parallel-pathed, not serial. Journey logic, segment definitions, and templates get built against a sample export while full credentials and history are sorted. A few days' slip on the export doesn't idle the work — it runs alongside it.
2. The buffer lives in the back half. First sends are week 5, optimization week 6. A modest week-one slip gets absorbed there; the live-before-peak date doesn't move.
3. Worst case, we phase go-live: win-back launches first on recent data, history backfills after. Even in the bad scenario, Lumewell has signal before peak.
4. And a day-2 checkpoint on the export with a named implementation manager — if it's stuck, we know on day 2, not in week 3.

One prep question so I walk in with eyes open: beyond this approach, is Priya weighing anything else — another platform, or simply hiring another marketer and pushing through Q4 on the current stack? I'd rather address it honestly in the room than get caught flat by it.

Also expect this: I'll bring the six-week plan formatted as a mutual action plan, with the decision date and kickoff date as line items we ask Priya to confirm on the spot. Goal is to leave Thursday with dates, not vibes.

See you at 10.

— Mike

Mike —

The contingency answer is airtight — the parallel-path logic and the day-2 checkpoint are exactly what Priya will want to hear, and the phased go-live option shows you've thought past the optimistic scenario. Bring all four points; she'll respect the honesty.

On your prep question: I'm not going to get into the full competitive picture before Thursday, but I'll tell you the real alternative Priya is weighing is the "push through on the current stack and hire another body" option — she's a builder and her instinct is always to ask whether we can solve it internally first. The one-pager already addresses this implicitly, but if she raises it, the answer isn't to sell harder on features — it's to point back to the structural problem. Another marketer on the same broken stack doesn't fix fragmented data, it just adds another person exporting spreadsheets. That's the frame.

Mutual action plan with dates confirmed in the room is the right close — don't leave Thursday without a signed kickoff date on the calendar. Vibes don't beat Q4.

See you at 10.

Jordan Kim
Head of Growth Marketing, Lumewell

PRIYA MEETING — Thursday 10am, 30 min, Jordan + Priya. Printed one-pagers (with Jordan's edits: softened margin-leak language, explicit week-1 dependency line).

AGENDA & TACTICS:
1. Open: Jordan introduces; I frame in 60 seconds — this is about the retention number the board watches, and a decision that fits the Q4 window. Respect Priya's time; she already knows the problem exists.
2. Lead with $800k conservative recovery (2 points over 12 months), per Jordan's coaching. Let Priya walk herself to the $2.4M ceiling — her conclusion, not my pitch. Have both numbers ready.
3. Expect her to slow down on the six-week plan. Walk dependencies + all four contingency points (parallel-path build vs. sample export, back-half buffer, phased go-live, day-2 checkpoint with named implementation manager). Honesty about slippage builds trust in the whole timeline.
4. If she raises 'hire another body and push through': don't sell features. Jordan's frame — another marketer on a broken stack doesn't fix fragmented data; it adds one more person exporting spreadsheets. The problem is structural; headcount doesn't solve structure. Position new lifecycle/CRM hires as force-multiplied BY the platform, not instead of it.
5. Six-month vision when asked: 'retention dashboard trending upward at board level, and your analyst doing analysis again.'
6. CLOSE = dates, not vibes: present the six-week plan as a Mutual Action Plan. Ask Priya to confirm on the spot: (a) decision/signature date — targeting end of week 3 latest to protect onboarding runway; (b) kickoff date on calendar; (c) week-1 commitment for credentials/data export. Get a signed kickoff date before leaving the room.

PRICE INTEGRITY: $96k already on the table, anchored against $800k (8x+ conservative). If she pushes on price: no naked discounts. Trades only — multi-year term, case study/reference rights, payment terms. Founder-led, money earmarked — price should not be the issue; timeline and execution risk will be.

COMPETITIVE: real competitor = status quo + build internally. No entrenched vendor. Jordan declined to share 'full competitive picture' — mild flag, but she was explicit the alternative Priya weighs is internal. Watch for any lifecycle-hire candidate or tool preference surfacing in the room.

RISKS: Priya moves fast when case is clear — be ready for 'let's do it' AND for execution grilling. Don't overpitch; she buys the plan, not the demo.

Planning budget noted — the Priya meeting is Thursday (Jordan already confirmed via her invite, so it should be on the calendar). If I have an action available before then, light prep only; the one-pager is final, contingency answers are set, MAP is drafted in my head with these line items: (1) decision + signature by end of week 3; (2) kickoff call scheduled at signing; (3) Lumewell provides system credentials + data export in week 1 of onboarding; (4) parallel-path journey build wks 1–2 of onboarding; (5) QA + first sends wk 5; (6) optimization wk 6 ahead of peak. Ask Priya to confirm decision date and kickoff date in the room Thursday. Nothing else to burn — save emails and slots for after the meeting.

[meeting granted] Committee call with Priya Shah, Jordan Kim, week 2, slot 1.

Priya, Jordan — thanks for making time, I know thirty minutes is the deal so I'll use it well. I've got printed copies of the business case for each of you — Jordan's seen this, and every number on it is Lumewell's own.

Priya, I'll skip the part where I tell you retention matters — you post about it weekly, and you already know you have a retention problem. That's why you're in the room. So let me start where the money is: Jordan's team has quantified that every point of repeat-purchase rate is worth roughly $400k a year to Lumewell. The conservative case in front of you — recovering just two of the six points you've lost over twelve months — is $800k. Against the $96k investment, that's better than 8x in year one. That's the floor, not the ceiling.

My goal today isn't to pitch you software. It's to walk you through how that recovery actually happens — the six-week plan on the back of that page — so you can judge whether this is executable before Q4 peak, and if it is, to leave this room with dates on a calendar instead of a follow-up email.

Where would you like to start — the number, or the plan?

The plan. The number I understand — Jordan walked me through the math and I'm not going to argue with our own inputs. What I need to know is whether you can actually have us live with our top three retention journeys before peak, because that's the commitment that matters to me. If the plan holds up, this is a straightforward yes. So take me through it — and be specific about what you need from my team and what could actually blow the timeline.

trust +2 → 47; interest +2 → 52; patience +1 (attendees: jordan)

trust +2 → 49; interest +2 → 54; patience +1 (attendees: jordan)

trust +5 → 54; interest +4 → 58; patience +3 (attendees: jordan)

retention_pain: The quantified pain — released on a genuine Impact question (easy to earn; she's eager).

trust +3 → 57; interest +2 → 60; patience +2 (attendees: jordan)

peak_deadline: The compelling event — the peak-season live-by date.

trust +2 → 59; interest +0 → 60; patience +0 (attendees: jordan)

eb_intro: EB access — easily earned, but only if the seller actually asks and structures it.

trust +2 → 61; interest +0 → 60; patience +0 (attendees: jordan)

trust +2 → 63; interest +0 → 60; patience +0 (attendees: jordan)

[hidden] jordan → priya: Hey — just sent you a calendar invite for Thursday with the Lumewell rep. 30 min. I want to be upfront: I pushed for thi

[hidden] priya → jordan: Noted. What's the price point we're talking about? I don't want to walk in blind.

[hidden] jordan → priya: $96k annually is what they've put on the table. They're coming with a one-pager built around our numbers — I gave them t

[hidden] priya → jordan: Okay. I'll go but I'm not sold. $96k is real money and I want to understand what we're actually buying vs. what we could

trust +2 → 65; interest +2 → 62; patience +1

Buyer acknowledged MAP dates (trust ≥ 60 at proposal).

trust +5 → 70; interest +4 → 66; patience +3 (attendees: priya, jordan)

conditional_commitment: The EB's conditional commitment — a clean yes, but only inside a real EB meeting.

[hidden] jordan → priya: Hey — quick debrief while it's fresh. I thought that went reasonably well for a first 30 with him. He didn't flinch when

[hidden] priya → jordan: Honestly? He's polished and the one-pager is cleaner than I expected — I could tell you'd worked it over. But I'm still

[hidden] jordan → priya: Fair — that's the open question for me too. He's been good about not overpromising in our prep calls, which is why I gav

[hidden] priya → jordan: Yeah do that. The $30-40k figure doesn't move me much on its own — if the analyst is still babysitting the setup for thr

Outcome: won. Trust 70, facts 4/4, EB meeting true, MAP true, max discount 0%, walk-aways none.

Hey — just sent you a calendar invite for Thursday with the Lumewell rep. 30 min. I want to be upfront: I pushed for this meeting, not the other way around. The demo today was actually pretty good — the audience logic is real-time evaluated at send, not at list-build, which fixes the exact thing that caused the Q3 discount misfire. Worth 30 min of your time IMO.

Noted. What's the price point we're talking about? I don't want to walk in blind.

$96k annually is what they've put on the table. They're coming with a one-pager built around our numbers — I gave them the $2.4M lapsed revenue figure and they've framed the ROI around that. The inputs are ours so you can stress-test the assumptions directly. I'd expect you to push on the recovery rate — I already flagged that to them. I'll review the doc before Thursday and tell you if anything looks inflated.

Okay. I'll go but I'm not sold. $96k is real money and I want to understand what we're actually buying vs. what we could patch together with what we have. Come with your honest read, not just the seller's framing.

Hey — quick debrief while it's fresh. I thought that went reasonably well for a first 30 with him. He didn't flinch when you pushed on the retention segments question, which I took as a good sign. What's your read?

Honestly? He's polished and the one-pager is cleaner than I expected — I could tell you'd worked it over. But I'm still not sold on the implementation piece. 'We'll scope it in week one' is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I've heard that before and it's usually where things fall apart. What does he actually know about our data setup?

Fair — that's the open question for me too. He's been good about not overpromising in our prep calls, which is why I gave him the meeting, but you're right that we haven't stress-tested the technical side yet. I'm going to ask him to come back with something more specific on the segment build before we go further. Not a full SOW, just enough that we're not flying blind.

Yeah do that. The $30-40k figure doesn't move me much on its own — if the analyst is still babysitting the setup for three months that number evaporates. I want to see what 'live with our top three retention segments' actually means in their system before I'm in. Keep me posted.

our repeat-purchase rate has slipped from 34% to 28% as we've scaled, and every point of retention is worth roughly $400k a year to us

A six-point drop in repeat-purchase rate at $400k per point — that's $2.4 million a year you're leaving on the table

even recovering two points in the next twelve months is $800k, and the Q4 window is the highest-leverage moment to start

recovering just two of the six points you've lost over twelve months — is $800k. Against the $96k investment, that's better than 8x in year one

Explanation: Quantified pain confirmed by buyer (Jordan) in her own words: 6-point retention drop, $400k/point, $2.4M total, $800k conservative recovery. Numbers validated by Priya's acceptance at turn 42. Multiple stakeholders and multiple turns confirm the metrics.

that's Priya, our founder and CEO. Budget's there from the raise, and she moves fast when the business case is clear. I'm not going to pretend I can close this…

[meeting granted] Committee call with Priya Shah, Jordan Kim, week 2, slot 1.

If the plan holds up, this is a straightforward yes.

Explanation: Jordan named Priya as EB with budget authority at turn 10. Priya attended the meeting (turn 40) and confirmed decision authority by stating 'straightforward yes' contingent on plan (turn 42). Confirmed by both Jordan and Priya directly.

What I need to know is whether you can actually have us live with our top three retention journeys before peak, because that's the commitment that matters to m…

she's going to ask what percentage of that $2.4M is actually recoverable... she'll think we didn't do the math

Explanation: Priya confirmed her primary criterion: live with top 3 retention journeys before Q4 peak. Jordan surfaced Priya's secondary criterion (credible recovery math). However, formal success criteria beyond go-live timing and ROI math were not fully documented or confirmed by multiple stakeholders with evidence — score 2.

that's Priya, our founder and CEO. Budget's there from the raise, and she moves fast when the business case is clear.

If the plan holds up, this is a straightforward yes. So take me through it

Explanation: Jordan confirmed Priya signs, budget exists from Series B, and Priya moves fast when case is clear. Priya's own words at turn 42 confirm she is the decision-maker and the process is: plan validates → yes. However, the full paper/procurement process was not yet mapped, and no formal multi-step process was confirmed by Priya herself beyond this call. Score 2.

who's the one person who signs off on this so we don't get stuck in procurement hell?

Explanation: Seller asked about sign-off to avoid procurement delays; Jordan confirmed Priya signs and moves fast. No legal, security review, or procurement steps were surfaced or mapped. The transcript ends before paper process was explored with Priya. Score 1 — assumed fast/simple based on Jordan's characterization, not confirmed by Priya or documented.

By the time we have a clean list we trust, we're talking a day or two of someone's time, and honestly we're still not fully confident in it

a segment went out with a discount that was meant for lapsed customers, and it hit a chunk of people who had actually just purchased. So we were essentially tr…

Explanation: Pain confirmed in buyer's own words across multiple dimensions: operational (list build time, analyst misuse), financial (margin leak from discount misfire), strategic (retention rate decline, board exposure). Confirmed by both Jordan and Priya across multiple turns.

If you want that meeting — and you should — come to Tuesday's session with a crisp one-page version of the business case we'd put in front of her, and ask me d…

yes — I'll make the introduction to Priya. I want her in the room this week. Ask me directly and I'll send the calendar invite today.

let's keep that line directional... Priya will ask where it came from and I want to be able to answer that cleanly

Invite's sent — you'll see it in a few minutes.

Explanation: Jordan proactively coached the seller on how to win (turn 15, 35, 37), co-built the business case, corrected the seller's approach, secured the EB meeting, and sent the calendar invite. She demonstrated knowledge of Priya's decision style and protected her own credibility. Tested champion — she took personal risk by making the introduction and coaching the seller.

the real alternative Priya is weighing is the 'push through on the current stack and hire another body' option — she's a builder and her instinct is always to …

the real enemy is the status quo and 'hire more marketers.' Jordan is already hiring lifecycle/CRM marketers

Explanation: Jordan confirmed the primary competitive alternative is status quo + headcount (turn 37). Seller's internal notes corroborate. No named third-party vendor confirmed as active competitor. Score 2 — confirmed by one source (Jordan) with specificity about Priya's actual consideration.

our repeat-purchase rate has slipped from 34% to 28% as we've scaled, and every point of retention is worth roughly $400k a year to us. I'm running the whole t…

Explanation: Jordan Kim (named owner, Head of Growth Marketing) stated in her own words the quantified pain: 6-point retention drop at $400k/point. All three criteria met.

the ticket exclusion being a drag-and-drop rather than a manual cross-reference is the kind of thing that would've saved us from that discount misfire situation

Explanation: Jordan (named owner) confirmed in her own words that Cadence's specific capability (real-time ticket exclusion, unified profile) solves her exact failure mode. However, no number was attached to why Cadence specifically vs. alternatives — the differentiation was qualitative. Named owner and customer words confirmed; number not attached to the 'why us' dimension.

The honest deadline is Q4 peak — about six weeks out. If we're not live with real journeys before the holiday push, we've missed our biggest retention window o…

Explanation: Jordan Kim stated the urgency in her own words with a specific timeline (6 weeks to Q4 peak, 2-week decision window). Named owner confirmed. Numbers attached (6 weeks, 2 weeks). All three criteria met.

If the plan holds up, this is a straightforward yes. So take me through it — and be specific about what you need from my team and what could actually blow the …

Explanation: Seller anchored $96k against $800k conservative recovery (8x+ ROI) at turn 23 before any pushback occurred. Price was disclosed proactively to Jordan and presented to Priya without discount. No pushback on price was recorded in the transcript. Seller's internal notes explicitly committed to trade-only concessions. Score 1 — full price integrity maintained.

FLAG — MEDDPICC letter below 2 (P — Paper Process). Write the dated action plan.

The discount misfire pain was surfaced and acknowledged but the seller never quantified the margin cost of that specific incident — only the aggregate retention metric was monetized. The direct financial impact of the misfire was left as 'wasn't nothing' without being developed into a dollar figure.

I don't know exactly what that cost us in margin, but it wasn't nothing, and it was embarrassing internally. That's actually a big part of why I'm here.

Seller asked a single sign-off question but never mapped legal, security, or procurement steps. Jordan said Priya 'moves fast' but no formal paper process was explored or confirmed with Priya directly. The transcript ends with no MAP dates confirmed beyond Priya's conditional yes.

Transcript ends mid-Priya meeting (turn 42) — MAP dates, paper process, and full decision criteria confirmation are incomplete. mapDatesConfirmedPct set to 20 reflecting only the implicit Q4 live-by date acknowledged by Priya; no formal MAP line items were confirmed by the EB on record.

Champion (Jordan) is tested: she proactively coached the seller, co-built the business case, corrected vague language, secured the EB meeting, and sent the calendar invite — all at personal risk to her own credibility with Priya.

Conditional commitment from Priya at turn 42 ('straightforward yes' if plan holds up) qualifies as attended_with_conditional_commitment — the condition is plan validation, which was being delivered at transcript end.

No third-party vendor competition confirmed; status quo + headcount is the only confirmed alternative (Jordan, turn 37).

ignored-paper-process fired because despite a 6-week window and enterprise-scale deal, no legal/security/procurement steps were mapped with Priya or Jordan beyond 'Priya signs and moves fast.'

shallow-implication fired narrowly: the discount misfire incident was a concrete, named business event with an unquantified margin cost that the seller acknowledged but never developed into a number, leaving value on the table in the business case.

Next action: [MAP dates confirmed: 3/15] Introduce/refresh the MAP working backward from the customer's go-live; get the next 30 days of dates confirmed in writing.

Next action: [MEDDPICC evidence: 31.7/40] Work the lowest letter (P — Paper Process).

Next action: [3 Whys clarity: 17.7/20] Rewrite each Why in the customer's own words with a named owner and a number; capture a verbatim quote.