Ashwell Mercer Interiors / BG-Demo – Check In
Callcompleted
Ashwell Mercer Interiors · 13 Apr 2026 12:30
Craig Ashwell said he cannot take forty seats to his board with five or six active. He wants to see the brain find a forgotten variation before any price talk, and does not want a number first.
What was said
What this says
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Craig Ashwell said he cannot take forty seats to his board with five or six active. He wants to see the brain find a forgotten variation before any price talk, and does not want a number first.
What happened: Marcus Bell showed five or six active users against forty Growth seats and one quiet ticket. Craig named the project managers as the missing group, working on site rather than at a desk.
Customer view: Craig asked whether he had bought too many seats but said he is not looking for a way out. He cannot defend something nobody is using.
Commercial: the contract runs to 22 Aug 2026 and renewal falls on 23 Aug 2026. Craig wants it shown working first, then the contract. Marcus will bring Priya in after the project manager session.
Watch: variations sit partly in a spreadsheet the brain cannot read. Mobile use is unchecked. One invoice shows as overdue on BG-Demo's side, and Craig routed it to his finance lead.
Themes
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026Theme
Seat utilisation before renewal
Importance
renewal
Sentiment
mixed
Voice
decision-maker
Who was there
BG-Demo
CRMmade from
Them
CRMmade from
Follow-up
Next steps
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Craig Ashwell to email names of two or three project managers by Thursday.
- Marcus Bell to send the one-page open variations view before the project manager session.
- Marcus Bell to bring Priya in on renewal after that session and flag the overdue invoice to BG-Demo finance.
Risks
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- Five or six active users against forty seats leaves Craig Ashwell unable to justify renewing the seat count to his board.
- Variations held in a spreadsheet are invisible to the brain, limiting its value to project managers.
- An overdue invoice is open and Craig will not discuss cash on a call.
Opportunities
As at Fri 9 Oct 2026- A one-page view of open variations could win over the project managers, the missing user group.
- A credit control colleague who likes the brain could advocate to the project managers.
Transcript
Marcus BellHello Craig, can you hear me alright?
Craig AshwellYeah, loud and clear. Afternoon, Marcus. Sorry, I'm walking back from site, give me a second while I get inside.- Marcus BellNo rush at all. I'm only just back from a sandwich myself, so we're even.
- Craig AshwellRight. Door's shut. Okay. Before we start, I'll tell you what's on my mind, because it's been sitting there all weekend. One of the fit-outs out in the Thames Valley. The client keeps asking for changes on the floor and nobody has put a variation against any of it. That's what worries me.
- Marcus BellOkay. And is that something you'd expect to see in the brain, or is it still in people's heads?
- Craig AshwellThat's the problem. It's in people's heads. Or in a site diary. The variation should be recorded before the work is done, not after. That's the whole reason I bought this thing.
- Marcus BellYeah, understood. That's actually a good lead in, because it's partly what I wanted to cover. Happy to share my screen if that's alright. I've pulled the numbers for the last quarter and I'd like to show you what the usage looks like, and then we can talk about what to do with it.
- Craig AshwellGo on.
- Marcus BellCan you see it? It's the usage page for Ashwell Mercer.
- Craig AshwellI can see it. Bit small, but yes.
- Marcus BellI'll make it bigger. There. So you're on Growth, forty licensed users, forty-four thousand a year, order form and invoices both agree on that. The part I wanted you to see is this line. On an average day, over the last thirty days, it's about five or six people actually active in the brain.
- Craig AshwellFive or six.
- Marcus BellFive or six. Which is up a bit on the previous quarter, so it's moving the right way, a little. But against forty seats, it's a small slice.
- Craig AshwellYeah. I'll be honest, that's not a surprise, and I don't like it. I look at that and I think, what am I paying for? Forty seats and a handful of people.
- Marcus BellThat's a fair thing to ask, and I'm not going to dress it up. I'd rather we looked at who those five or six are and why the rest aren't in there.
- Craig AshwellI can tell you who they are. It's me, it's two in the commercial team, it's someone in credit control, and the bid lady. Sorry, the person who runs the bids. That's about it.
- Marcus BellRight, that matches what I see. A couple of the names in the list are quite heavy, and then there's a long tail of people who logged in once, in the first few weeks, and haven't been back.
- Craig AshwellThe project managers.
- Marcus BellIs that who they are?
- Craig AshwellMostly, yeah. They're on site all day. They're not sat at a desk asking a search box questions. They've got a phone and a site diary and a van. If it isn't on the phone and in front of them in thirty seconds, it doesn't happen.
- Marcus BellMm. That's useful, actually. So it's less that they don't see the point and more that the way in doesn't fit the day.
- Craig AshwellPartly. Partly they don't see the point. Let's be straight. Nobody's told them what's in it for them. I told them it'd be good for the business. That's not a reason.
- Marcus BellNo. Okay. So what would be a reason for a project manager? If you were them.
- Craig AshwellWhere's the variation. That's it. What has the client signed, what have they only said out loud on a Tuesday, and is it priced. If the brain could tell them that before they go and move a partition, they'd use it.
- Marcus BellRight. And that's the sort of question the brain can answer, as long as the emails and the calls and the variation records are actually flowing in. So can I check something? When the client says something on a call, or sends an email asking for a change, does that land anywhere the brain can see?
- Craig AshwellEmails, yes. Everyone's on the same mail. Calls, patchy. Some people record, some don't. And the variations themselves, well. That's the thing. Some are in the commercial system and some are in a spreadsheet that one of the quantity surveyors keeps.
- Marcus BellOkay. So the spreadsheet is a gap.
- Craig AshwellThe spreadsheet is a gap. I know. I know. I've said it to them.
- Marcus BellI'm not having a go. It's really common. I'd just want to be clear that the brain can only be as good as what's feeding it, and that's a bit of what you're seeing with the numbers.
- Craig AshwellFine. Fair.
- Marcus BellLet me show you one more thing while I've got it up. This is the tickets view. There's one ticket in the last thirty days, nothing urgent, nothing high priority. So there's no fire on our side that I can see. It's quiet.
- Craig AshwellQuiet's the worry, isn't it. Quiet means nobody's using it.
- Marcus BellIt can do, yeah. I'd say quiet plus a few people using it heavily is exactly where I'd want to pay attention. It's not that anything's broken. It's that it could be worth a lot more to you than it is.
- Craig AshwellGo on then. What would you do?
- Marcus BellHonestly? Three things. First, I'd like to spend half an hour with a couple of your project managers, not the whole team, just two or three, and ask them what they look up on a normal day. Then I'll know what to show them.
- Craig AshwellHalf an hour.
- Marcus BellShall we book thirty minutes, yeah. Over lunch if that's easier, when they're back in the yard. Second, I'd look at getting the variations out of the spreadsheet and into somewhere the brain can read. I can't fix that for you, it's your system and your people, but I can show you what a connected version looks like. Third, I'd put together a one-page view for you of the projects with open variations, so you've got something to point at when you talk to them.
- Craig AshwellThat third one, that's the one I'd actually use.
- Marcus BellOkay, good. I can have a first go at that. It'll only be as good as what's in there, so I'll tell you where it's thin.
- Craig AshwellDo that. Tell me where it's thin. I'd rather know.
- Marcus BellWill do.
- Craig AshwellCan I ask you something slightly different?
- Marcus BellOf course.
- Craig AshwellThe renewal. It's the summer, isn't it. August.
- Marcus BellYes. The contract runs to 22 Aug 2026 and the renewal date is 23 Aug 2026. So it's a few months off, but not so far that I'd leave it. I'd like us to be having this conversation properly well before then, not in the last couple of weeks.
- Craig AshwellBecause I'll tell you, if I'm sat there in August with six people using it, I can't walk into my own board and say renew forty seats. I can't.
- Marcus BellNo, I hear you. And I'd rather you said that to me now than found it out in July. What I can't do is talk about price, that's Priya's side, she owns the commercial terms. But I can make sure she knows what you've just said, and I can make sure there's something real to show by then.
- Craig AshwellPriya, yes. I've met her. She was fine. Straight.
- Marcus BellShe is. I'll bring her in when we've got the picture a bit clearer, so she's not coming in cold.
- Craig AshwellGood. And don't send me a number before I've seen the thing working. I don't want a letter. I want to see it find a variation I'd forgotten about.
- Marcus BellUnderstood. That's a fair test, actually. Find me a variation I'd forgotten about.
- Craig AshwellThat's the test.
- Marcus BellOkay. Can I raise one more thing? It's a bit awkward, so I'll just say it. On our side there's one invoice showing as overdue on the account.
- Craig AshwellRight.
- Marcus BellI'm not chasing, that's not my job, and I don't know the detail. I just didn't want you to find out from a reminder email and think I'd known and said nothing.
- Craig AshwellYeah. Look. I don't talk about cash on a call like this. That goes through our finance lead. Send it to her, or I'll pass it on, but I'm not going to guess what's happened with it. It could be a purchase order thing. It could be nothing.
- Marcus BellThat's absolutely fine. I'll make sure the right person on our finance team sends the detail to your finance lead, and I'll leave it with them. And if it turns out to be something on our side, we'll own that.
- Craig AshwellFair enough. I'll mention it to her this afternoon so she isn't surprised.
- Marcus BellThanks. Appreciate that.
- Craig AshwellRight. So back to the people thing. Forty seats. Do I need forty? Honestly. Because I've been wondering whether I've just bought too many.
- Marcus BellHmm. I don't think I'd say that yet. You bought Growth because it covers project, commercial and credit teams together, and that's still the idea. At the moment it's really commercial and credit who are in it. The project side is the bit that's missing. If they come in, the forty starts to make sense. If they don't, then yes, it's a fair question and we'd have to look at it honestly.
- Craig AshwellOkay. That's straight. I like straight.
- Marcus BellI'd rather be. There's no point me telling you it's all fine.
- Craig AshwellNo. Well. It isn't, is it. It's a good product and I'm not using it.
- Marcus BellI'd put it a bit more kindly. It's a good start and it hasn't spread yet.
- Craig AshwellHa. Kinder. Okay.
- Marcus BellCan I ask about the commercial team side, since that's where the use is? What are the two of them actually doing in there? If I know what's working I can point at it when I speak to the project managers.
- Craig AshwellMostly they're looking at a client. Pull up the client, see the projects, see what's invoiced, see the last few emails. That's the thing. Before a meeting. Saves them ringing round three people.
- Marcus BellThat's good. That's exactly the use case. One screen per client.
- Craig AshwellAnd the credit control person uses it the same way. Before she rings a client about a valuation. What's been agreed, what's been delivered. She likes it. She told me. That's rare.
- Marcus BellCould she say that to the project managers, do you think? Not in a presentation, just a couple of lines.
- Craig AshwellShe might. She's not shy. I'll ask her.
- Marcus BellThat'd be worth more than anything I could say. Honestly, a peer saying it saves me an hour of explaining.
- Craig AshwellYeah, yeah. Right. What else have you got on that screen?
- Marcus BellA bit more on the data side. The records are going in, the connectors are loading, I don't see anything stuck. So it's not a freshness problem, the brain isn't going stale on you. It's a using-it problem.
- Craig AshwellSo it's me.
- Marcus BellIt's not you. It's the rollout. And that's partly on us for not coming back to it after the first weeks. I should have been asking about the project managers sooner.
- Craig AshwellHm. Well. Both of us then.
- Marcus BellBoth of us. Fine by me.
- Craig AshwellCan I be blunt about the site thing, though? If it's no good on a phone it's no good. I don't care how clever it is. They're standing in a half-built floor with dust on the screen.
- Marcus BellUnderstood. I'd want to see them using it, honestly, rather than guess. I'll ask when we do that thirty minutes. I don't want to promise you something about how it works on a phone that I haven't checked. Let me find out properly and come back to you.
- Craig AshwellGood. Don't promise me things. Tell me what's true.
- Marcus BellThat's what I'll do.
- Craig AshwellOkay, so, summary, because I've got a meeting at one. You're going to talk to two or three project managers. Half an hour.
- Marcus BellYes. If you can give me names, or tell them I'll be in touch, and I'll try to fit round when they're in the yard.
- Craig AshwellI'll sort that. I'll email you the names by the end of the week. Mondays are mad, so let's say Thursday.
- Marcus BellThursday's great. Second, I'm going to put together that one-page view of open variations, with notes on where the data's thin.
- Craig AshwellAnd you'll show me it finding something. A variation I'd forgotten.
- Marcus BellI'll try. If it doesn't find one, I'll tell you that too.
- Craig AshwellFine. And you're sorting the invoice thing through finance, not me.
- Marcus BellYes. I'll flag it internally today and our finance team will contact yours. You're passing on a heads up to your finance lead.
- Craig AshwellThis afternoon. Done.
- Marcus BellAnd the renewal. I'll bring Priya in once we've had the project manager session, so that when she talks to you there's something real behind it.
- Craig AshwellRight. That's the order I want. Show me it works, then talk to me about the contract.
- Marcus BellUnderstood. Can I add one thing? If after that you decide it's not for the project managers, I'd rather know early and sit down and work out what makes sense. Not wait till the last minute.
- Craig AshwellYeah. Okay. I appreciate that. You're not the pushy sort, are you.
- Marcus BellI try not to be. It doesn't work on you anyway.
- Craig AshwellHa. No. It doesn't.
- Craig AshwellActually, while I think of it. One of the quantity surveyors asked me whether the brain could flag a variation that's been mentioned in an email but never raised. Like a, I don't know, a nudge.
- Marcus BellOkay. That's a good one. I don't want to say yes straight away because I'd want to look at what the brain does with emails like that, and how it's set up for you. Can I take it away and come back with a proper answer?
- Craig AshwellYes. Good. That's all I'm asking.
- Marcus BellI'll put it in the notes. I'll send you a short note after this with what we agreed, so you've got it in writing.
- Craig AshwellBullet points, please. I don't read paragraphs.
- Marcus BellBullet points. That's the only way I write.
- Craig AshwellGood man.
- Marcus BellRight, I'll stop sharing. Anything else you want to cover before you go? Anything I haven't asked?
- Craig AshwellHmm. No. Only that I do want this to work. I'm not looking for a way out. I just can't defend something nobody's using. That's all.
- Marcus BellNo, I get that, and I'd say the same in your seat. We've got a few months. That's enough time to make a real difference if we start now.
- Craig AshwellThen let's start now.
- Marcus BellGood. So Thursday for the names, I'll send the note today, I'll flag the invoice, and I'll come back on the email nudge question.
- Craig AshwellThat's it. And the page of variations.
- Marcus BellAnd the page of variations. Yes. I'll aim to have that with you before the session with the project managers, so you've seen it first.
- Craig AshwellPerfect. Look, I've got to go, they'll be waiting. Thanks, Marcus. Talk soon.
- Marcus BellThanks, Craig. Enjoy the meeting. Speak soon, take care.
- Craig AshwellCheers. Bye.
Callsmade from