Before we sell SPICED Pulse to a single client, we run it on ourselves. We score our own Grain calls against SPICED, join them to our own HubSpot pipeline, and run the weekly coaching loop on a small slice of the WbD sales team. Three reasons. First, it makes us better: our own reps get real coaching on Impact and Critical Event. Second, it gives the MDs a working system on real WbD data to demo, not a mockup. Third, it de-risks the customer offer, because we have already lived every step we are about to sell.
The dogfood pilot uses the exact stack we already pay for: Grain for the calls, HubSpot for the deals and the org hierarchy, and our own Claude instance for the compute. Nothing new to buy, no third party in the loop, no recordings moving off our side. This is the identical three-layer shape we will later stand up on a client's stack, run first on ourselves.
If SPICED Pulse cannot move behavior on our own reps, on our own calls, we have no business selling it. Running it on WbD is the cheapest, fastest, most credible proof we can build, and every problem we hit is a problem we solve once for ourselves and never again in front of a client.
Keep the pilot small enough to run by hand and honest enough to show signal. One or two managers, a handful of reps, two to four weeks of Grain calls. We are proving the loop, not boiling the ocean. Names below are placeholders to be filled once we pick the pilot group.
Manager A and optionally Manager B (to be filled), with their direct reps: Rep 1, Rep 2, Rep 3 and so on (to be filled). Enough reps to see a team pattern, few enough that Dan can inspect every card by hand in the first weeks.
A rolling 2 to 4 week window of the pilot reps' recorded Grain calls. Enough call volume to score reliably (target at least 5 calls per rep per week), short enough that the data is current and the loop stays weekly.
The open deals owned by the pilot reps, pulled from HubSpot with their amount, stage, and close date. These are the deals whose SPICED completion we track week over week and the deals the Deal Pulse view reads.
A Grain call is scored when it is a pilot rep's call attached to a pilot deal inside the window. We score for Impact and Critical Event completion first, the two behaviors with the strongest revenue link, then quality 1 to 5 as the coaching signal.
Deliberately out of scope for the pilot: the full team, historical calls beyond the window, non-English calls, and any use of the scores for evaluation or accountability. This is development framing, held by the rep and their manager.
We do not invent a new meeting. The loop plugs into the two starred moments WbD managers already hold, the Monday pipeline review and the Tuesday 1:1. The system does the heavy lifting. The one required act from the manager is small and concrete: deliver one coaching card per rep.
Deliver one coaching card per rep each week in the Tuesday 1:1, then mark it delivered. That is the whole ask. Everything upstream is automated, and the scoreboard is the reps' week-over-week improvement, not manager activity. A ritual this small is a ritual that actually happens.
After a few weekly cycles on real WbD data, the MDs have three surfaces to show live in a client conversation. Not slides, not a mockup. The same system we are running on our own team, reading our own Grain calls and our own HubSpot pipeline.
Team average against the SPICED standard and exactly where the gap sits, on our own reps. The manager and executive read the same picture at a glance: where the team is strong, where it is behind, and on which deals.
The demo that lands. A real WbD rep's call: what the customer actually said, what the rep actually said, the verdict and why, the one next move. Every score deep-links back to the moment in the Grain recording.
Every pilot deal with its SPICED completion next to its amount, weighted value, confidence, and risk flag. Our real pipeline, so the leading indicator and the lagging one meet on one screen the MD can point at.
An MD who opens SPICED Pulse on real WbD data can say, truthfully, "this is us, and here is what it found." That credibility is what turns a pitch into an engagement. We prove it on ourselves, then help the client stand up the identical shape on their own stack.
The single thing we are proving on ourselves: that weekly coaching of two SPICED behaviors, Impact and Critical Event, driven by each rep's own Grain calls and delivered in the Monday review and Tuesday 1:1, changes what our reps do on calls. Success is behavior changed plus a revenue signal, not a tool shipped. We hold ourselves to leading indicators first and read the lagging ones with appropriate patience.
The share of active pilot deals showing a quantified, customer-validated Impact and an identified, tested Critical Event, scored from Grain. This is the headline. We watch it rise from our own baseline and hold for several consecutive weeks.
The share of pilot managers delivering at least one card per rep per week, plus each rep's week-over-week quality delta on the coached behavior. Ritual adherence and rep improvement are the earliest honest signals that the loop is real.
Win rate on the coached deals and stage-to-stage conversion on the deals the behavior touched. A guardrail matters here: conversion on coached deals should hold or rise, never fall, while the leading indicators move.
Cycle length on coached deals over time. On a small pilot in a short window this is a directional read, not proof. We pre-agree that the leading metric is the success signal and the lagging metric is confirmation that arrives later.
A small pilot over a few weeks will show behavior change before it shows revenue. We say that up front. If completion lifts and holds and conversion does not fall, the pilot succeeded, and the revenue read is the confirmation that follows across the next deal cycles. Claiming a revenue win in four weeks would be the dishonest version, and we do not make that claim.
A simple four-step arc. Durations are working estimates to pressure-test with Shari, not fixed commitments. Each step ends with something we can point at.
Two clear owners so nothing falls between them. Dan owns the build and the coaching standard. Shari owns the weekly rhythm and the manager ritual actually happening. The pilot managers own delivering their cards.
Pilot managers (Manager A, Manager B, to be filled) own delivering their coaching cards in the Tuesday 1:1. Pilot reps own acting on the one coaching action before the next call.