Building a marketing system and sales department at SkladBot

Product

A cloud platform that automates fulfillment warehouse operations: app.skladbot.ru.

Role

Marketing and Sales Lead. Team of ten. Worked across the founder, Sales, Implementation, and Support teams. Owned the customer journey from research and acquisition through sales, implementation, and retention.

Situation

The product was just entering the market, so systematic marketing and sales processes had not yet been built. Most customers came through the founder’s personal network and speaking engagements, while inquiries were handled inconsistently.

Constraints

  1. No stable customer acquisition system.
  2. The sales process was intuitive and undocumented.
  3. The manager spent up to six hours a day on product presentations alone.
  4. No structured onboarding, implementation, or post-sale support.
  5. Scaling sales required proportional team growth.

Objectives and solutions

Acquisition

Objective

Build a customer acquisition system that does not depend on the founder’s personal network.

What I did

  1. Conducted 20 interviews with active and former customers. Analyzed the reasons behind purchase, implementation, continued use, and churn.
  2. Only two of the 20 customers cited technical issues as the reason for leaving. Another 15 had not understood the system or integrated it into their daily work.
  3. Used the research to segment customers, position the product, design sales scenarios, and communicate value on the website and in presentations.
  4. Developed the go-to-market strategy and marketing funnel. Created the website, articles, videos, emails, and lead magnets.
  5. Built an industry community for fulfillment business owners as a separate touchpoint with potential customers.

Sales

Objective

Build a sales process that can scale without proportional team growth.

What I did

  1. Mapped the process from a new inquiry to payment for implementation.
  2. Introduced lead scoring, consistent presentation rules, post-meeting follow-ups, and a unified CRM workflow.
  3. Defined the objective, manager actions, result, KPI, and transition rules for every stage.
  4. Created the complete sales content stack: product presentation, emails, scripts, and commercial proposals.
  5. Formalized CRM operations and the transfer of customer information between stages.

Activation

Objective

Ensure that customers not only pay for the product, but implement it and use it regularly.

What I did

  1. Built a dedicated implementation process for the first 30 days after payment.
  2. Separated ownership between Sales and Implementation and documented the customer handoff.
  3. Defined the setup, training, support, and usage-control stages.
  4. Established successful implementation criteria and activation KPIs.
  5. Created an implementation plan, instructions, reference materials, training content, and automated customer messages.
  6. Built a Telegram support bot that answers common customer questions.

Retention

Objective

Reduce churn and improve retention through regular product usage and systematic analysis of churn reasons.

What I did

  1. Introduced controls for the transition from the first month to the second and beyond.
  2. Built a system for collecting and analyzing the reasons behind refusals and churn.
  3. Established rules for handling implementation blockers, problems, and critical customer requests.
  4. Connected sales, implementation, and support data to customer-process improvements.
  5. Defined KPIs for retention and regular product usage.

Automation

Objective

Reduce the dependency of revenue growth on team size.

What I did

  1. Introduced customer scoring to filter out poor-fit inquiries before the product presentation.
  2. Created a video presentation that introduces the product without a manager’s involvement.
  3. Prepared automated emails and materials to guide customers through the sales stages.
  4. Built a Telegram support bot that answers common product questions and reduces the support team’s workload.

Results

Acquisition

  1. The number of leads booking a product presentation increased by 32.2%.
  2. Organic traffic increased by 110%.
  3. An industry community of 800 business owners became a source of UGC, which we turned into lead magnets and used to generate inquiries.
  4. Lead magnets account for 3% of all inquiries.
Work artifact: existing customer interview scriptOpen

A small excerpt from the research script is shown without sensitive data or metrics.

Existing customer interview script

We identify jobs through people’s actions. The goal is to uncover those actions and use them to define a segment.

Segment = long-term customers ∩ customers with smooth implementation ∩ processes that the product fits perfectly.

Ideal JTBD scenario v4.0

  1. Contextcontext + background
  2. Switch triggerstruggling moments + push forces
  3. First interaction with the solutionhiring moment
  4. Real processesjob execution
  5. Workarounds, failures, and constraintsbarriers + anxieties
  6. Training and implementationonboarding JTBD
  7. Benefits and progresspull forces + desired outcomes
  8. Segmentationcore ICP detection

Sales and revenue

  1. Revenue grew by 100% year over year.
  2. Sales were moved to a unified process with scoring, CRM, KPIs, and control points.
Work artifact: sales business processOpen

A small excerpt is shown without sensitive data or metrics.

StageObjectiveAMO taskStage resultMessage
New inquiryMove to scoringCall within 30 minutes. Move the lead to “In progress”.Customer reached by phone.Hello, thank you for your inquiry. A manager will call within 30 minutes to discuss the implementation process.
ScoringIdentify needs and filter out poor-fit leadsRun the scoring script, add notes to the customer card, and send a follow-up within two hours.A decision is made: schedule a presentation or decline. The customer’s jobs and problems are clear.Summarize the conversation: customer job, problem, implementation owner, presentation date, and customer-side participants.
PresentationShow how the system solves the customer’s processes and move them to implementationSend a follow-up within one hour after the presentation.The customer workflow and selection criteria are understood. The product is demonstrated in the context of the customer’s needs.Summarize the problem, selection criteria, and implementation process. Record a specific first-month scenario and outcome.
Work artifact: sales manager playbookOpen

A small excerpt is shown without sensitive data or metrics.

  1. Our customer
  2. Automated emails
  3. Product presentation script
    1. Conversation framework
    2. Job discovery
    3. Showing how the system handles these jobs
    4. Closing
    5. Important details
  4. Sales approach
  5. Sales process
    1. Solution
    2. Flow
    3. Rules for handling inquiries
  6. Pre-demo lead qualification
    1. Purpose of scoring
    2. Rules
  7. Running the presentation
  8. Presentation template
    1. Introduction — 3–5 minutes
    2. Current processes — 5–7 minutes
    3. Job and desired outcome — 3–5 minutes
    4. Solution demo — 10–15 minutes
    5. Implementation format — 5 minutes
    6. Launch terms — 2–3 minutes
    7. Next step — 1–2 minutes
  9. Checklist
    1. Before
    2. During
    3. After the presentation

Activation

  1. Sales and implementation were combined into one process covering the first 30 days after payment.
  2. Separate activation KPIs and successful launch criteria were established.
  3. Implementation became a structured process with setup, training, support, and control points.
  4. Activation increased by 20%.
Work artifact: implementation business processOpen

A small excerpt is shown without sensitive data or metrics.

StageTimingObjectiveAMO taskStage resultMessage
New customer ready for setup1 hourNotify the responsible manager about a new customerCollect customer data. Review problems, processes, jobs, and blockers. Send a welcome message and links.A customer group is created.Confirm payment and send account access, the support link, and the customer video guide.
Implementation planImmediately after creating the Telegram groupShow the customer what will happen during the first monthSend the implementation plan PDF.The plan is sent and understood.Send the monthly work plan and explain how each action contributes to successful implementation.
Initial customer data1 dayPrepare the account before the setup callSend specific instruction links and receive confirmation that the customer is ready.The customer has entered the data needed for setup and demonstrations.Ask the customer to enter company details, register the company, add a client, configure integrations, and connect the required services.
Work artifact: SkladBot implementation success plan

Retention

  1. Introduced controls for the transition from the first month to the second and beyond.
  2. Built a system for collecting and analyzing the reasons behind refusals and churn.
  3. Established dedicated retention KPIs and rules for customers at risk of leaving.
  4. The share of customers advancing to the next month increased by 20%. Customer retention increased from 2.4 to 3.8 months.

How the objectives were solved

Increasing customer lifetime

  1. Problem. Customers used the product for an average of 2.4 months. Churn was high after the first few months.
  2. Hypothesis. The support team cited two reasons: unique customer processes that did not fit the system and technical product issues.
  3. Test. Conducted 20 interviews with active and former customers and systematized the reasons for churn.
  4. Finding. Only two customers cited technical problems. Another 15 had not understood the product or integrated it into daily work.
  5. Solution. Rebuilt implementation around a dedicated manager, a 30-day plan, training, usage monitoring, and mandatory churn analysis.
  6. Result. Average customer usage increased from 2.4 to 3.8 months.

2024 vs 2025

Traffic

Unique visitors
↑ +105%

Traffic sources

Referrals
↑ +173%
Organic
↑ +110%
Direct
↑ +51.7%
Telegram
↑ +5%

Telegram subscribers

Group
↑ +200%
Channel
↑ +67%

Conversion by source

chatgpt.com
13.3%
Organic
3.4%
Lead magnets
3.4%
Telegram
2.4%

Leads

Total inquiries
↑ +32.2%

Revenue

Total receipts
↑ +100%

Award for this case study

Competition by Palindrom and Maxim IlyakhovEditor of the Year 202566 entrants · second placeCertificate →