SLED Subcontracting
SERVICE 05 · AUTOMATION AND SYSTEMS

Automation that pays for itself, and proves it

Sales, CRM, support, and back-office workflows on n8n, Make, and the tools you already run, with the hours counted.

Let's talk See what we build
  • Process mapped first
  • Payback instrumented
  • Monitored on retainer

WHAT WE BUILD

4 categories, 1 senior bench

We map the workflow first: every step, who touches it, how often it fails, and what the exception path is. Then we wire it and put a counter on it.

01

Lead routing and follow-up

New leads scored, enriched, assigned, and followed up across email, SMS, and WhatsApp until a person takes over.

How we prove it Every run logged against a baseline you measured with us before launch, so speed-to-lead is a number, not a feeling.

02

Quotes, proposals, and reminders

Quote and proposal generation from CRM data, plus appointment reminders that let clients confirm, reschedule, or cancel without a call.

How we prove it Templates versioned, every send logged, and the no-show baseline written down so the reduction can be read by finance.

03

Support triage and CRM hygiene

Tickets and emails enriched with account context, extracted into structured records, and kept in sync across your CRM and reporting.

How we prove it Writes to a system of record always carry a reconciliation path; bad-shape data halts to an exception queue instead of landing.

04

Invoice, reconciliation, and marketing ops

Back-office flows where MIT found the highest measured returns and the least budget: invoicing, reconciliation, and campaign operations.

How we prove it Runs, items, exceptions, and hours returned on every automation, reported monthly on 1 page for a finance reader.

Named stack
n8n Make Zapier GoHighLevel HubSpot Pipedrive Zoho Bitrix24 Salesforce Google Sheets Google Forms Airtable Monday.com WhatsApp Twilio PostgreSQL Supabase Claude
of workflow we automate, from lead routing to reconciliation
6 categories
on every automation: runs, items, exceptions, hours returned
4 counters
monthly payback report, written for a finance reader
1 page
compared in writing at your volume: n8n, Make, or Zapier
3 platforms

Use cases

Work someone repeats every day

Find the workflow a person repeats daily, wire it, and count the hours. These are the shapes we build most often for 50 to 500 person companies.

  • Lead routing and follow-up

    Scores, enriches, and assigns each new lead, then runs the first follow-up sequence before a rep has opened the CRM.

    Sales teams · Agencies · Real estate

  • Quote and proposal generation

    Builds the quote or proposal from CRM fields and a versioned template, sends it, and logs the send against the deal.

    B2B services · Contractors · Distributors

  • Appointment reminders

    Pulls bookings from your calendar or CRM and sends reminders by email, SMS, or WhatsApp with confirm and reschedule built in.

    Clinics · Coaches · Service businesses

  • Email to CRM extraction

    Watches an inbox, extracts customer and deal fields from each message, and creates or updates the CRM record in real time.

    Sales ops · Support · Account management

  • Support triage and enrichment

    Tags and routes each ticket, attaches order or account context, and escalates anything outside policy to a named person.

    E-commerce · SaaS · Property management

  • Invoice and reconciliation flows

    Generates invoices from closed deals, matches payments, and routes mismatches to an exception queue instead of silently posting them.

    Finance · Accounting · Agencies

  • CRM hygiene and reporting

    Dedupes, normalises, and enriches records on a schedule, then assembles the weekly pipeline report without anyone exporting a sheet.

    RevOps · Marketing ops · Leadership

  • Scheduled prospecting

    Sources leads on a schedule against your ICP filters, dedupes against history, and personalises outreach before it is sent.

    Outbound teams · Recruiters · Freelancers

Client stories

Automations already doing the job

Each one started as a task someone repeated by hand. Each one now runs on a schedule or a trigger, logged, with exceptions routed to a person.

All case studies

How we ship

Mapped, instrumented, monitored, and owned

Every automation leaves with a written baseline, a counter, a failure plan, and a named owner, agreed before we wire anything.

01 Map first

A broken process automated is a broken process, faster

We map the workflow before we automate it, and sometimes the finding is to delete 3 steps instead.

Every step named
Who touches it, how often it fails, and what the exception path is, written down with you.
Baseline measured
Hours and volumes measured in your systems before launch, with the assumption stated so you can argue with it.
Delete before automate
If a step should not exist, we say so. It is the cheapest recommendation in the engagement.
02 Payback counter

What every automation carries

The payback is a report, not a feeling.

Runs and items
Executed, logged, and counted against your measured baseline, alertable per automation.
Exceptions
Escalated to a queue and a person, never silently dropped.
Hours returned
Measured against a before you agreed to, reported monthly on 1 page for a finance reader.
03 When it breaks

4 causes, none of them exotic

There is no version where an automation quietly fails for 3 weeks and nobody notices.

Upstream API or UI changes
Monitoring catches the failed run, we are alerted, and fix inside the response window.
Expired credentials
Alerted before expiry where the platform exposes it, immediately on failure where it does not.
Bad data or rate limits
Unexpected shapes halt to an exception queue; spikes get backoff and queueing with a backlog alert.
04 Right platform

n8n, Make, or Zapier, in writing

We tell you which, and why, at your volume.

n8n
Complex logic, self-hosting, high volume, and custom code steps. Low flat cost self-hosted, but you run infrastructure.
Make
Fast builds on standard SaaS connectors. Operation-priced; the tier jump at scale is the thing to watch.
Zapier
Simple flows and teams already living in it. Task-priced and climbs fastest. Sometimes it is the right answer and needs no retainer.

Who runs it after launch

Retainer Monitoring on every workflow, alerting to your channel, a named response window in the contract, and a monthly improvement block.
Handover Runbooks and alerting, exported and documented. When it breaks on a Friday it is your team fixing it, and we say that plainly.

WHAT WE WILL NOT AUTOMATE

  • A process nobody can describe end to end. We will map it first, as a paid piece of work.
  • Approval steps that exist for a compliance reason, without your compliance owner signing off on the automated version.
  • Anything that would write to a system of record without a reconciliation path.
  • A workflow that should be deleted. We will say so.
  • A CRM migration you do not need. Rip and replace is a last resort, not a sales strategy.
For U.S. SLED prime contractors

Back-office automation, delivered as your subcontractor.

If your SLED scope includes process automation or systems integration, we build it behind the prime. The boundary is fixed on purpose.

NAICS 541511 541512 541519
See SLED Subcontracting

NDA-first, subcontract-only. We work behind the prime, under your brand. We do not pursue prime contracts and we never face the agency.

Secure API handling. Strict data governance and clear human-in-the-loop exception routing, the controls a procurement security review asks for.

Capability over claims. Workflow orchestration (n8n, Make) and ERP integration mapped to your bid's technical scope.

FAQ

The questions you were going to ask

What breaks, who fixes it, and whether the payback holds up in front of a CFO. We answer the hard ones first.

Ask the hard one

What breaks, and who fixes it?

Four causes and the response for each are published on the page. On retainer, us, inside an agreed window. Off retainer, your team, with runbooks and alerts.

Can I prove the payback to my CFO?

Yes. That is what the baseline measurement and the monthly 1-page report are for.

Will you try to sell me an agent?

Only when the promotion signal appears. If deterministic rules still handle your cases, we say so and keep taking the smaller retainer.

Do we own the automations?

Yes. Exported, documented, and yours. On self-hosted n8n they run on your infrastructure.

Can you automate our CRM without replacing it?

Yes. Rip and replace is a last resort.

Related work

Service Agentic engineering → Service Data and platform → Service AI consulting and readiness →

Start the conversation

Tellustheworkflow
someone repeats every day

That is where the first automation goes, and where the payback counter starts.

Scope an automation build
30 minutes the engineer who leads delivery no deck, no pitch