How we helped a data and AI consultancy close $85,000 in new business in four months
We built Shapes + Numbers a repeatable cold outreach system that took Nik from referral-dependent to closing $85,000 across three new deals, all from agencies that had never heard of him.
$85,000
New Business
3
New Deals Closed
Industry: Data & AI Consultancy
Country: United Kingdom
Audience: Advertising Agencies
Company Size: 1-10
About Shapes + Numbers
Shapes + Numbers is a data and AI consultancy founded by Nik Lampropoulos, operating across London and New York. Its thesis is deliberately contrarian: while the industry obsesses over shiny AI tools, the firm argues the real competitive advantage is being built one level down, in the operating system. So instead of bolting another point solution onto a broken stack, Shapes + Numbers rebuilds how an agency works from the foundation up, with a single goal, to make modern advertising agencies measurably higher-performing and more profitable. That philosophy runs through both of its products. Nexus is a fully managed data infrastructure-as-a-service that consolidates an agency's fragmented stack, ERP, CRM, project management, media platforms and creative tools, into a single intelligent source of truth. Vector is an AI-powered financial intelligence layer that gives leaders real-time profitability by client, project and team, instant scenario modelling, and revenue and resourcing forecasts well in advance
What gives the firm its weight is Nik's own pedigree. An MIT Sloan alumnus, he spent years inside the media and advertising industry working alongside some of the world's most influential brands, and led the global Data, Insights and Analytics function at Hogarth, the production arm of WPP. It's why senior leaders who've worked with him, from Hogarth's global CTO to the global head of data and insights at TLC Worldwide, describe him as a true leader in the data field and a vital asset to any company, someone who builds data teams and capabilities from the ground up. In short, Shapes + Numbers isn't a generalist riding the AI wave; it's an enterprise-grade data practice led by someone who has actually run data at global-agency scale.
Client Challenges
For all that pedigree, Shapes + Numbers faced a problem that had nothing to do with capability and everything to do with reach. Nik's work is deep, technical and high-stakes, the kind of enterprise data and AI infrastructure that agencies run their operations on, and historically that work reached him the way it reaches most respected experts: through reputation, relationships and referrals. Before working with us, he was heavily reliant on referrals and his network.
That's the expert's trap, and it bites hardest at the top end of the market. Nik is exceptional at the work itself, but the work doesn't introduce itself to new agencies, and a referral, however glowing, can't be summoned in the week you actually need new business. It made growth lumpy and unpredictable: strong stretches followed by quiet ones, with no reliable way to start a conversation with an agency leader who simply hadn't crossed paths with him yet.
There was a credibility paradox to navigate too. Selling enterprise data and AI work means reaching senior, sceptical decision-makers who are bombarded with AI pitches and instinctively allergic to hype. Getting in front of them cold and being taken seriously, rather than lumped in with the noise, is its own discipline. What Nik needed wasn't more authority, he had plenty of that. He needed a system: a dependable way to reach exactly the right agency leaders, open a credible conversation, and turn it into a booked call, on demand, instead of waiting for the network to deliver.
Our Solutions
We built Shapes + Numbers a repeatable cold outreach system engineered to do one thing reliably: put Nik in front of the right agency decision-makers and turn cold contacts into booked calls, so growth no longer hinged on referrals or reputation.
1. Pinpointing the right agencies
We started by defining precisely who Shapes + Numbers should be reaching, the agency leaders, finance chiefs and operators living the exact pain that Nexus and Vector solve: fragmented data, invisible profitability, margins under pressure. Because Nik's offer is specific and high-value, precision mattered far more than volume; every message had to reach someone with both the problem and the authority to fix it.
2. A conversation-first, credibility-led approach
Senior buyers don't respond to pitches, so we didn't lead with one. We built messaging that opened a genuine conversation and led with the prospect's world rather than Nik's services, while quietly establishing his authority as someone who has run data at global-agency scale. That combination, real relevance plus real credibility, is what earns a reply from a busy executive instead of being dismissed as more AI noise.
3. A process built to turn cold into closed
Reaching the right person is only half the job. We wrapped a repeatable process around the entire journey, from first message to booked call to signed deal, with tighter qualification and a sharper sales conversation, so interest converted into revenue predictably rather than occasionally. The outcome was a system Shapes + Numbers could lean on to generate pipeline at will, instead of hoping the next introduction would land in time.
Project Results
In his first few months, Nik closed over $85,000 in new business, every dollar of it generated through cold outreach to agencies that had never heard of him. The wins broke into three deals: a workshop series worth around $15,000, a strategy engagement worth roughly $40,000, and an ongoing retainer at about $5,000 a month (worth around $30,000). And the bigger result is the one that compounds: Shapes + Numbers went from depending entirely on referrals to a predictable flow of new conversations and closed deals from cold outreach.
“One is for a series of workshops, which is about $15k. Another is more strategy-related, roughly a couple of months, that’s about $40k. The third is a retainer, about 15 hours a month, around $5k per month (worth $30k).”
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