From sale to success: The sales-to-delivery handoff playbook

Winning a new client feels like the finish line: the pitch went well, the proposal landed, and you finally got the “yes.” But for your client, that moment is just the beginning.

Right after a sale closes, clients expect the same energy, understanding, and clarity from your delivery team that they felt during the sales process. If they have to repeat themselves in kickoff or re-explain their goals to a new team, the trust you built evaporates fast. And once that trust is gone, the relationship becomes a lot harder to recover.

The truth is, the handoff between sales and delivery isn’t a procedural step, it’s a psychological one. It’s the point where a prospect becomes a partner. Do it right, and the client feels like you’ve got them. Do it wrong, and they start wondering if they made a mistake.

I’m Tim Kilroy, founder of WTF Agency Coaching. For more than a decade, I’ve helped agencies stop losing trust in the “messy middle” between sales and delivery. 

Together with Copper CRM, I’m laying out a step-by-step system you can put in place so every handoff feels smooth, professional, and confidence-building.

After every sale, the first thing your sales team should do is collect everything from the sales process — every conversation, every data point, every insight that gives the delivery team a full picture of who the client is and what they care about.

Think of this as a brain dump of everything that’s been said, promised, or implied during the deal cycle. If these notes aren’t already in your CRM, they should be entered immediately. You can organize them inside Copper, within each client record, or even a Notion page linked to the Copper record.

Here’s what those notes should include:

• Sales call recordings or transcriptions — nothing beats hearing how the client talks about their business.
  

• Names, contact info, and roles of everyone involved in the account.
  

• Current revenue and growth metrics — both the big picture (year-over-year) and the short-term (the last six months).
  

• Monthly media spend and allocation.
  

• List size or database size if it’s a marketing or media client.
  

• Customer behavior data — like what percentage of customers have purchased more than once.
  

• Promotions that worked (and why).
  

• Promotions that didn’t (and what the client learned).
  

• Non-revenue goals — like “increase full-price purchases,” “reduce time to second purchase,” or “grow repeat buyer percentage.”

These details tell the real story of what the client values and where the opportunities are.

And here’s where Copper makes this simple. Every email, meeting transcript, and attachment from Gmail, Calendar and Google Meet are automatically logged to the Opportunity record, so nothing slips through the cracks. You can add custom fields for things like “Media Spend,” “Revenue Trend,” or “Top-Performing Promotions” so your team always knows what to collect.

By centralizing this information in Copper, you’re not just organizing data, you’re giving delivery a head start. They can walk into kickoff already fluent in the client’s world.

And if you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but remembering to do it every time might be tough,” we’ve got you covered. You can actually automate this step — so Copper reminds your team or creates the task automatically after a deal closes. We’ll show you exactly how to set that up at the end of this playbook.

Once all the notes are gathered, it’s time to turn that information into a story. This is where the salesperson creates the handover brief — a short, narrative document meant specifically for the account manager or delivery team. It’s their quick way to understand the client before kickoff, without having to sit through every past sales call or scroll through a wall of CRM notes.

The brief bridges emotion and execution. Sales knows the client personally — their fears, ambitions, and expectations. Delivery needs that same context to show up confident and informed from day one. The handover brief connects those dots, turning data into understanding.

Here’s what every handover brief should include:

1. The narrative

Write a clear, conversational overview of the client’s business, goals, and challenges. Include what they’re excited about, what’s standing in their way, and what success looks like.

Example: “The client is a DTC apparel brand that’s grown 40% YoY but has stalled on repeat purchases. They’ve leaned on discounts, which hurt profit margins. Their CEO wants to increase loyalty without promos, and their marketing director is under pressure to show early wins.”

2. The tactical details

List what they want to accomplish (both revenue and non-revenue), what they’ve tried, and what they never want to see again. If they’ve said, “No more flash sales,” that belongs here.

3. The resource links

Drop in links to the Copper record, Drive folder, or Notion page with supporting materials. If things aren’t centralized, attach them right to the brief.

This document becomes the delivery team’s “cheat sheet.” It’s a narrative snapshot of the client that helps them walk into kickoff ready, informed, and aligned.

Once the brief is written, attach it to the Copper Project record so the entire team (from account managers to strategists to creatives) starts from the same story. That’s how you maintain trust and continuity from the pitch to the project.

The difference between a client saying, “These people really get us,” and “These people don’t listen,” often comes down to whether sales and delivery talked before kickoff.

This step takes 15 minutes. It’s the simplest, most powerful fix you can make — yet 90% of agencies skip it.

Here’s how it should go: before kickoff, the salesperson and the account manager (or project lead) meet to review the brief together. Delivery asks questions like, “When they said they want to grow 30% YoY, did they mean gross or net?” Sales adds nuance: “They’re sensitive about cost-per-acquisition — it burned them last year. Don’t lead with spend.”

These are the subtleties that turn a decent kickoff into a brilliant one.

Use Copper’s Calendar integration to attach the pre-kickoff meeting invite to the Project record so anyone can see when it happened, who attended, and what was discussed.  And if remembering to do this step every time sounds like one more thing to manage, don’t worry — you can automate it, too. We’ll show you exactly how to set that up later in the playbook.

You can tell instantly if a handoff worked by how kickoff begins.

If the delivery team opens with, “So, tell us about your business,” you’ve lost points. If they open with, “Here’s what we’ve learned about your business so far, and here’s how we plan to help,” you’ve already won the room.

Clients don’t need to relive the sales process — they need to see continuity. They need to feel that the people delivering their project understand them as deeply as the person who sold them.

That’s the purpose of a strong handoff: it transforms kickoff from a restart into a continuation.

To make this seamless, use Copper to connect your sales and project pipelines. The moment the deal moves to “Closed-Won,” Copper can duplicate it into a “Project” pipeline where your delivery team takes over (and complete with all notes, attachments, and context). 

Inside the Project pipeline, set up your first few stages like this:

• Kickoff Prep: Where the brief and sync live.

• Kickoff Complete: After the meeting and notes are shared.

• Delivery in Progress: Where the real work begins.

And because Copper integrates with Google Drive, you can attach kickoff decks, shared docs, and onboarding assets right to the Project record. Everyone, from sales to delivery to leadership, sees the same story unfold in one place.

A great kickoff isn’t the end, it’s really the midpoint.

One to two weeks after kickoff, the salesperson and account manager should check in to evaluate how it went. Did the client feel understood? Were expectations clear? Are we delivering what they were promised in the sales phase?

And because even the best teams get busy, you can set Copper to handle this follow-up automatically, creating a reminder or task so this step never slips through the cracks. We’ll show you how to set that up later in the playbook.

This is your calibration point. Without it, issues fester quietly. With it, you catch them early and fix them fast.

Use that post-kickoff meeting to learn. Update your handoff brief template if you missed key context. Add new fields to Copper if clients keep bringing up the same topics. Refine your process with each deal. Over time, you’ll build a machine that makes every client feel like your only client.

Instead of chasing teammates or relying on “don’t forget” reminders, you can use Copper’s Workflow Automations to make your process self-sustaining. Each workflow triggers the right tasks, at the right time, with zero manual effort. 

Before you start, you’ll want to set up two Pipelines: one for your sales process, and one for Service Delivery. Copper offers templates of both pipelines you can use to start.

Find the Pipelines heading in the Copper navigation and click “+”. Then select “Agency Sales” and the “Service Delivery” templates.

Next, it’s time to create the three automations that power this entire playbook.

Automation 1: A reminder to create the handover brief and set up the 15 min sync

Your first automation kicks off right when the salesperson moves a deal to Closed-Won in the Agency Sales pipeline. You’ll be prompted to create a project in your “Service Delivery” pipeline. 

Once this project is created, a workflow automation will create two key tasks: one to complete the handover brief and another to schedule the sales-to-delivery sync.

To set up the workflow:

1. Go to Automations → Workflow Automation →  Add Workflow

2. Name: Sales-to-Delivery Handoff Tasks

3. Trigger: Pipeline record → When a Pipeline record is created

4. Trigger conditions:

   • Pipeline → Equals → Service Delivery (or your delivery pipeline name)

5. Filter conditions:

   • Select “All of the conditions are met (AND)”

Next, we add actions:

Action 1 — Create Task

• First, click “Advanced Creation”

• Name: Handover Brief – Complete & Attach Materials

• Owner: Select the dropdown where it says “Standard” and select “Use a Formula” → assignee_id (this will assign the task to whoever closed the deal)

• Due Date: Use a Formula → DATEADD(date_created, 1)

• Due Time: 9:00 AM

• Reminder Date: Use a Formula → DATEADD(date_created, 1)

• Reminder Time: 2:00 PM

• Activity Type: To-Do
  

Next, add a second action.

Action 2 — Create Task

• Name: Schedule 15-Min Sales ↔ Delivery Sync

• Owner: Use a Formula → assignee_id (or assign to the Account Manager or person taking over the relationship)

• Due Date: Use a Formula → DATEADD(date_created, 3)

• Due Time: 10:30 AM

• Reminder Date: Use a Formula → DATEADD(date_created, 2)

• Reminder Time: 2:00 PM
  

• Activity Type: To-Do
  

Click Save changes, then toggle the workflow ON.

Test the workflow

Mark a deal as Closed-Won in your Sales pipeline. The new Project record should automatically appear in your Project pipeline with both tasks assigned: one for completing the handover brief and one for scheduling the sales-to-delivery sync.

Automation 2: Pre-kickoff handoff meeting

This workflow ensures that your pre-kickoff sync actually happens, not just “gets scheduled someday.” It makes sure the sales and delivery teams are fully aligned before the client ever walks into the kickoff meeting.

To set up the workflow:

1. Go to Automations → Workflow Automation →  Add Workflow

2. Name: Pre-Kickoff Sync Reminder
   Trigger: Pipeline record → When a Pipeline record is created

3. Trigger conditions: Pipeline → Equals → Service Delivery
4. Filter conditions: “All of the conditions are met (AND)”

Add actions:

Create Task

• First, click “Advanced Creation”

• Name: Confirm Sales-to-Delivery Sync Completed

• Owner: Use a Formula → assignee_id (or assign to Project Manager)

• Due Date: Use a Formula → DATEADD(date_created, 2)

• Reminder Date: Use a Formula → DATEADD(date_created, 1)

• Activity Type: To-Do

Click Save changes, then toggle ON.

Test the workflow

Move a test Project into your “Kickoff Prep” stage. You should see a new task prompting the delivery lead to confirm that the pre-kickoff sync has been completed.

Automation 3: 14-day post-kickoff review meeting

This final workflow creates accountability for follow-up: a 14-day post-kickoff review between sales, the account manager, and the client. It ensures that every project gets a built-in feedback loop to catch issues early and celebrate quick wins.

To set up the workflow:

1. Go to Automations → Workflow Automation →  Add Workflow

2. Name: Post-Kickoff Review

3. Trigger: Pipeline record → When a specific field is updated on a Pipeline record

4. Trigger conditions:

   • Owner → Equals → Sales Lead

   • Owner → Equals → Account Manager

   • Post-Kickoff task created? → Equals → false

5. Filter conditions: Choose Custom Logic and set (1 OR 2) AND 3

Add actions:

Action 1 — Create Task

• First, click “Advanced Creation”

• Name: 14-Day Review: Sales + AM + Client

• Owner: Use a Formula → assignee_id (or assign to Account Manager)

• Due Date: Use a Formula → DATEADD(date_created, 14)

• Activity Type: To-Do
  

Action 2 — Update Pipeline Record

• Field: Post-Kickoff task created? → Change to → Checked (☑)

Click Save changes, then toggle ON.

When a project moves into the “Kickoff Complete” stage, Copper should automatically create the follow-up review task and mark the “Post-Kickoff task created?” field as complete.

With these three workflows in place, your sales-to-delivery process runs itself. Each stage happens automatically and on time.

No more “Did anyone remember to schedule that?” or “Who’s supposed to send the follow-up?” Copper handles every detail in the background, making sure every client transition feels professional, consistent, and confidence-building.

Growth gets easier when your tools stop dropping the ball. With Copper, every handoff hits the mark — no chaos, no chasing, just flow. Try it for 14 days for free and see the difference for yourself.

Need hands-on guidance to build a stronger, more profitable agency? Connect with WTF Agency Coaching for a free zero-pressure call, and learn how to fix what’s broken, grow the right way, and finally build an agency that doesn’t depend on you being in every meeting.