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Series A B2B SaaS — Workflow Platform (UK)

B2B SaaS · Workflow Platform

From founder-led sales to a repeatable, ICP-led pipeline — in six months.

A Series A workflow platform had funding, a roadmap, and a sales motion that lived entirely with the founders. Through IMG's expert community, Partner in Growth embedded as Fractional CMO and rebuilt the foundations — ICP, messaging, demand programme, sales rhythm — without adding a full-time CMO to the cap table.

2.4×

Qualified pipeline growth

8% → 27%

Lead-to-opp conversion

5

Enterprise logos in Q1

Industry

B2B SaaS · Workflow Platform

Stage

Post-Series A

Engagement

Fractional CMO · 6 mo

Delivered

via IMG

The Challenge

Funded, capable — and stuck in founder-led sales.

Eighteen months after Series A, the platform had product-market fit signals but no marketing engine to compound on. Every deal flowed through one of the two founders. The ICP was "any operations team that needs better workflows" — accurate, but unsellable.

The bottleneck wasn't lead volume. It was conversion. Leads arrived, founders demoed them personally, and roughly 8% converted to qualified opportunity. Marketing existed as a content output, not as a system. There was no positioning, no segmentation, no operating cadence between sales and marketing.

Hiring a full-time CMO would have cost £150K+ and a 6-month ramp. The team needed senior expertise immediately — but only as much as the rebuild required, and only for as long as it required.

The shape of the work

Lead-to-opp conversion + qualified pipeline — six-month progression

Lead-to-opp %

Left axis · 8 → 27

Pipeline (× baseline)

Right axis · 1 → 2.4

Lead-to-opportunity conversion (left axis) and qualified pipeline volume (right axis, ×baseline) climbed together as ICP and messaging tightened. The gain compounded — better-defined leads converted at a higher rate.

What Partner in Growth did

Rebuild the foundations. Then build the engine on top.

The 6-month embed sequenced into three phases of work — each defined by what the previous phase made possible.

01/ 03

Phase 1 — ICP definition (weeks 1–4)

Ran 18 customer interviews + competitive analysis to define the actual buyer.

  • 18 customer interviews across won, lost, and at-risk accounts.
  • Mapped 7 attributes that predicted high-LTV deals (industry vertical, team size, integration profile, decision-maker title, etc.).
  • Killed three personas the team had been chasing — none of them paid back the cost to acquire.
  • Defined a single primary ICP + one secondary, with explicit qualification criteria.

Outcome

A single ICP everyone could repeat — sales, marketing, founders.

Three of the five enterprise logos closed in Q1 were sourced specifically against the new ICP definition. Two would have been disqualified under the old generic targeting.

02/ 03

Phase 2 — Messaging & GTM (weeks 5–10)

Rebuilt the messaging architecture and the GTM motion around the new ICP.

  • Rewrote homepage, sales decks, demo flow, and outbound sequences around the ICP's specific outcomes.
  • Built a new lead qualification framework with the sales team.
  • Replaced the generic content programme with three pillars matched to the ICP's buying journey.

Outcome

Conversion lifted within the first quarter of new messaging.

8% → 27%Lead-to-opp conversion
22% → 41%Demo-to-pipeline rate
120 → 78 daysMedian sales cycle
03/ 03

Phase 3 — Operating rhythm (weeks 11–24)

Embedded the weekly sales-marketing cadence and the demand programme.

  • Set up weekly pipeline review with sales + marketing + founders.
  • Launched an outbound demand programme against the new ICP target list (400 accounts).
  • Designed a reporting framework so the team could run the cadence after the embed ended.

Outcome

An engine the team could operate without external support.

By month 6, decisions had moved out of the consultant's weekly review into the team's own cadence. Founder time on sales calls dropped from ~70% to ~25% of the working week.

How the client progressed

Three phases. One compounding curve.

The engagement was sequenced so each phase set up the next. Skipping any phase would have broken the compound.

  1. M101

    Baseline — founder-led, ICP unfocused

    8%Lead To Opp
    1.0×Pipeline Multiple

    Three personas, no qualification framework, every deal a one-off.

  2. M202

    ICP defined

    11%Lead To Opp
    1.2×Pipeline Multiple

    18 interviews complete, primary ICP locked, two personas killed.

  3. M303

    Messaging shipped

    16%Lead To Opp
    1.5×Pipeline Multiple

    Homepage, decks, demo flow rebuilt. First deals close under new framing.

  4. M404

    Demand engine live

    21%Lead To Opp
    1.8×Pipeline Multiple

    Outbound programme into 400-account target list begins producing.

  5. M505

    Operating rhythm embeds

    25%Lead To Opp
    2.1×Pipeline Multiple

    Sales–marketing cadence running weekly. First enterprise logos close.

  6. M606

    Compound + handover

    27%Lead To Opp
    2.4×Pipeline Multiple

    Five enterprise logos closed in Q1. Founder time on sales falls to 25%.

Before & After

Six months of rebuilt foundations.

Every metric below reflects movement between engagement start and engagement close.

Defined ICP

Before

Three vague personas

After

One sharp ICP + secondary

Single point of focus

Lead-to-opportunity conversion

Before

8%

After

27%

+237%

Qualified pipeline volume

Before

1× baseline

After

2.4× baseline

+140%

Founder-time on sales calls

Before

~70% of week

After

~25% of week

−45 percentage points

Enterprise logos closed (quarter)

Before

1

After

5

+400%

Sales cycle (median)

Before

~120 days

After

~78 days

−35%

Demo-to-pipeline rate

Before

22%

After

41%

+86%

How they progressed — by the numbers

Pipeline 2.4×. Conversion 3×. Founder time back.

Within six months, lead-to-opportunity conversion had moved from 8% to 27% — over 3× — and qualified pipeline volume was 2.4× the starting baseline. Five enterprise logos closed inside Q1, three of them sourced specifically against the new ICP.

The deeper outcome was operating. Founder time on sales calls dropped from roughly 70% of the working week to 25%, freeing the founders to do what only founders can do — product, strategy, capital. The flexible IMG engagement model meant the embed could ramp down as the team took over the operating rhythm, with no fixed retainer to carry forward.

2.4×

Pipeline growth

Six months

+237%

Lead-to-opp conversion

8% → 27%

5

Enterprise logos

Closed in Q1

−35%

Sales cycle

120 → 78 days

−45 pp

Founder time on sales

70% → 25%

6 mo

Time to handover

End-to-end engagement

Engagement walkthrough

Walkthrough coming soon

How a Series A SaaS rebuilt its pipeline foundations in six months

60–90s explainer. Suggested arc: 1) founder-led-sales bottleneck, 2) the IMG flexible-engagement model in 15s, 3) the three-phase rebuild, 4) the operating rhythm that compounded.

Embed senior expertise — only as long as you need it

Series A founders don't need a full-time CMO. They need CMO-level work for as long as the rebuild takes.

If you're founder-led on sales and the rebuild can't wait for a 6-month hire ramp, a 30-minute call will tell you whether a Fractional CMO embed fits your stage.

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