Client Alignment — Comms Workflow, ABM Stack, and Priority Deliverables

Date: 2026-04-05
Attendees: Mark Hope, Sebastian Gant
Client: ^[1]

Overview

Mark and Sebastian aligned on Aviary's immediate priorities following Sebastian's call with the Aviary team. Three areas were addressed: a new client communications workflow to satisfy Blessin's request for more frequent project visibility, an ABM tech stack built on Aviary's existing tools, and two high-priority sales assets due by Monday.

Key Decisions

1. Dual Slack/Trello Comms Workflow

Aviary's stakeholder Blessin cannot attend weekly calls and requested daily or bi-daily project updates. The agreed solution is a two-layer system:

• External (Slack): A new aviary-team Slack channel (created during the call via Slack Connect) serves as the client-facing touchpoint for quick, high-level updates. Aaron Grossman was invited during the call; Sebastian will add Blessin and Justin.
• Internal (Trello): A Trello board (created during the call) will track all tasks with assignments, priorities, start/end dates, and dependencies. Sebastian will populate it with all current next steps. The board will be shared with the client once it is ready for external consumption — not before.

"We want to be sure that's ready for client consumption before we show it to them." — Mark Hope

2. ABM Tech Stack — Existing Tools Only

The team agreed to avoid new software costs by working within Aviary's existing stack:

Email Outreach (Apollo → HubSpot → SendGrid)
- Apollo used for lead generation and list building (analogous to ZoomInfo)
- Lists imported into HubSpot for contact management and activity tracking
- SendGrid used as the email execution platform; HubSpot integration enables open/click tracking back into the CRM
- Mark will own the SendGrid setup and HubSpot integration once credentials are received

LinkedIn ABM (Sales Navigator)
- Upload the top 50 target accounts as a CSV into Aaron's Sales Navigator
- Monitor account activity and engage with posts to build rapport
- Decision: train Aaron to run this himself rather than hand over credentials
- Sebastian will schedule a dedicated 45-minute training call with Aaron

Credential Requirement: Admin logins for Apollo and SendGrid are needed to avoid 2FA friction and enable team access. Sebastian will request these from Aaron.

3. Next.js ROI Calculator — Build In-House

After reviewing template-based tools (Outgrow, Shout), the team decided to build a custom Next.js React app for the ROI calculator. Rationale: complete control over design, branding, and formula logic; more professional output than shoehorning into a third-party template.

Mark began a working prototype during the call. Key features planned:

• Multiple calculator types (e.g., labor cost savings, lead gen ROI)
• Personalized branding per prospect: client logo and brand colors
• Individual URLs per calculator (usable in Zoom calls or as direct send links)
• Future potential as a website lead magnet (gated by email)

Mark will refine the prototype using the ROI formulas Sebastian previously sent to Aaron.

4. Customer Journey Brochures — Melissa by Monday

Aviary provided text-only drafts of customer journey documents (covering use cases such as new member onboarding and collections). These need to be transformed into polished, client-facing sales assets.

Agreed process:
1. Sebastian runs the drafts through Claude AI (using the existing Aviary project context) to improve narrative and surface content improvements
2. Sebastian sends proposed content to Aaron for feedback before design begins
3. Sebastian briefs Melissa with instructions to produce two branded brochure-style documents — clean layout, proper headings, bullet icons, Aviary branding — no heavy design work needed
4. Deadline: two polished drafts by Monday

Action Items

Participants & Roles

Related

• ^[2]
• ^[3] (if created)
• ^[4] (if created)
• ^[5] (if created)