How we sell.

The real motion — the Attio pipeline, the two deal shapes, the call sequence that closes, and the fields that keep the forecast honest.

The pipeline, as it lives in Attio

Every opportunity lives on the Sales list in Attio and moves through a fixed set of stages. This is the system of record — the funnel below is the literal Stage field, not an aspiration. Today: 12 Prospects, 3 Proposal, 7 Won, 7 Lost, 4 On Ice.

Parking

On Ice

Real fit, wrong timing — parked to revisit, not lost.

Stage 1

Prospects

New inbound or sourced contact; not yet qualified against the ICP.

Stage 2

Qualified

Confirmed ICP fit and a real, documented pain to solve.

Stage 3

Develop

Multi-threaded; mapping needs to capabilities, building the business case.

Stage 4

Proposal

Pricing (and where needed an RFP response) on the table; driving to signature.

Closed

Won / Lost

Won hands off to Customer Success; Lost is tagged with a reason.

Two deal shapes — run them differently

Across the real calls, deals split into two shapes. They need different discovery, different pricing, and different timelines — know which one you're in by the end of the first call.

Program deal	Bulk / event deal
Recurring automation: work anniversaries, birthdays, new-hire kits, recognition.	A production run: branded swag for an event, conference, or company-wide drop.
HRIS-driven (Workday, Rippling, HiBob, Paycom, ADP). Subscription-led.	Quote-driven. Volumes, decoration, customs, and a hard deadline.
Sells on the platform + automations + global fulfillment.	Sells on per-unit price, warehousing, and on-time delivery.
Closes in weeks; often “sign now, launch in January” to fit budget years.	Deadline-bound — e.g. 4,000 pieces before a July 1 event = ~3 wks production + 2 wks shipping.

Many of the best accounts are both — land the program, then grow into bulk/event spend (a Customer Success expansion, see Sales vs CS).

The real sale, start to finish

Intro / discovery call (30 min) — frame priorities, run discovery, light demo. Opener: “curious if anything has changed on your end since we last spoke” / “anything specific you want to walk away with today?”
Demo — back-office walkthrough, automations, the redemption experience, the three catalogs, then pricing. A second demo is common to bring in another stakeholder.
Same-day recap email — non-negotiable. Summary + pricing + catalog link, turned around the day of the call (overnight if they present to leadership the next morning).
Sandbox account — offered before signing. “Most companies we work with set up the sandbox before they sign.” No time limit.
Draft agreement — proactively offered (“should I send over our draft agreement?”), put in the contact's name first, signer updated later. Sent via PandaDoc.
Signature — usually CEO / partner / VP; the champion runs it internally. One-year contract is standard.
Onboarding handoff — AE introduces the dedicated CSM on a call; ~4–6 onboarding calls over the first two months. See the Won handoff.

Always book the next step before you hang up — tie it to the prospect's internal leadership meeting. The follow-up email plus a booked next call is the single most consistent pattern across won deals.

Timeline & seasonality

SMB program deals move fast — “present next week, decide the week after.”
Global / enterprise deals are slower and budget-year-driven: prospects often want to sign now but launch in January. Don't mistake a January launch for a stalled deal.
Bulk / event deals run on the event date, backward: production + shipping windows are the constraint, not the buying committee.
Urgency lever: a discount for signing by end of month (see Pricing).

The fields a rep maintains on every deal

These are the actual attributes on the Attio Sales list. Keeping them current is what makes the pipeline forecastable — and most double as the discovery you should already have.

Field	What it captures
Owner	The rep accountable for the deal.
Main POC / Additional contacts / Decision maker	The buying group — champion, influencers, economic buyer. Multi-thread; don't single-thread the champion.
Employees	Headcount — the core ICP sizing signal. “Too small” is a real loss reason.
Countries / HRIS	Global footprint (the biggest qualifier) and the system to integrate for automation.
Goals / Challenges	Documented discovery: what they want, what hurts today.
Spend/employee, Estimated contract value	Deal sizing and forecast inputs.
Take rate %, Monthly platform fee, PEPM fee	The commercial structure — see Pricing.
Priority, Projected close date, Close confidence	How hard to push, forecast timing, and rep-scored likelihood (the forecast-quality signal).
Close-lost reason	On a Lost deal: Competition, Price, Went cold, Not the right time, or Too small. See Objections.

Who's involved

Champion — usually HR (programs) or Marketing / Ops (swag & events). Runs the deal internally.
Finance / CFO — owns the funding model; sometimes a dedicated finance-only call (account balance, invoicing, payment terms).
HRIS owner — needed for the integration that makes automations work.
Economic buyer — CEO / partner / VP signs; the champion rarely signs.
The team: Thomas (founder-led demos & pricing), Nick Jackson (AE, intros & demos), Sebastian Yidi (CSM, implementation).

Pipeline hygiene

Set close confidence honestly — it's the forecast, not a motivation gauge.
Capture Goals and Challenges on the record, not just in your head.
Multi-thread: fill decision maker and additional contacts, not just the main POC. “Went cold” is a single-threading failure.
Use On Ice for good-fit-wrong-time deals instead of Lost.
Always tag a close-lost reason on Lost — it's how we learn why we lose.

Source: PerkUp Attio Sales list (33 deals, verified 2026-06-08) and 1,200+ deal notes (2025–2026); PerkUp recorded calls (tl;dv, May–Jun 2026). Notion — Sales & Marketing Playbooks.