FinElevate

FinElevate is a Fractional CFO service for entrepreneurs.  We help clients achieve freedom and financial clarity in their business and execute a playbook to increase profitability, and improve cash flow.

Founder and CEO

Abacus Unlimited

Managing Partner

Unified Supply

Chairman of the Board

Chief Executive Officer

Vice President and CFO

B&W Cabinets

B&W has provided quality custom cabinets to the DFW Metroplex for over 45 years. The 3rd-Generation family business focuses on empowering our team, and providing excellent support to our builders and remodelers.

Partner and Board Member

AESI - Airport Equipment Specialists

Founder at FinElevate | Fractional CFO Service for Entrepreneurs | EOS Visionary | Strategic Coach 10x Member

Colin Sanburg

Pipeline Upgrade®

Chief Operating Officer

PropUp Corporate

Marketing Director

NFON

Senior Software Engineer

Verivox GmbH

Verado

Chief Technology Officer

Langwiser

Founder

https://www.linkedin.com/redir/suspicious-page?url=tankards%2eru

I help financial leaders generate leads with AI on LinkedIn | LinkedIn Marketing Specialist

Growing an IT services business should not feel like guesswork. 

Most providers still rely on referrals or wait for inbound leads which leaves their pipeline empty and competitors ahead.

The truth is:
→ Buyers are already choosing providers before you reach them
→ Renewal cycles, migrations and security projects are happening without you in the room
→ Every missed lead is lost revenue your competitors collect

At Pipeline Upgrade, we replace uncertainty with a pay-on-results outbound growth system designed for IT firms:
✅ Verified, qualified leads and decision-maker meetings.
✅ Precision targeting around buying triggers such as contract renewals
✅ Predictable, scalable pipeline from 10 to 100 opportunities per month

Imagine starting each week with a calendar and CRM already filled with IT buyers ready to talk. 

That is what our clients experience: 
→ consistent growth
→ stronger authority
→ freedom from the referral trap

Ready to take control of your pipeline?

→ Click below 👇

Tim Sergeev

Most business owners build systems for perfect people.

But perfect people don't exist.

Here's the truth:

Your team has three types of people.

→ Task-driven who follow every step
→ People-driven who skip the checklist
→ Big-picture players who ignore details

And all of them need to follow the same process.

That's the real challenge in operations.

You're not building systems for robots.
You're building them for humans.

So instead of perfect documentation, I focus on this:

→ Build constraint into the system
→ Make the right path the easiest path
→ Design for the worst case

The person who ignores details?
↳ They still hit validation points.

The person who skips steps?
↳ The system catches them.

The person who follows everything?
↳ They move faster.

You don't hire people for your systems.
You hire them for the job.

The system just makes sure they all deliver it the same way.

So here's the question for you.

Are you building systems for perfect people or designing constraint that works for everyone?

---

Tim Sergeev
COO @ Pipeline Upgrade
I make business run smoothly

Predictable Pipeline for UK IT Providers | 2,500+ Meetings Delivered | £5M+ Client Revenue | COO @ Pipeline Upgrade

Most business owners confuse operations with delivery.

They think it's the same but it's not even close.

Operations is the railway. Delivery is the train.

Without tracks, the train goes nowhere.
Without delivery, the tracks are empty.

In operations you:
→ Define systems
→ Outline processes
→ Set sequences and validations

In delivery you:
→ Execute the work
→ Follow the systems
→ Produce the output

Operations ensures everyone works predictably.

With the right operations in place:
1️⃣ Teams know what to do
2️⃣ Output becomes predictable
3️⃣ Chaos disappears

Operations is invisible but essential. 
It’s the backbone of every scalable business.

So here's the question for you.

Do you have the right tracks laid or are you hoping the train will figure it out on its own?

---

Tim Sergeev
COO @ Pipeline Upgrade
I make business run smoothly

Most people think they have resilience.  

Until they actually need to use it.

Here is what usually happens:

→ 7 days with no results  
Motivation drops

→ 14 days with no visible progress  
Doubt kicks in

→ 30 days still at zero  
They quit completely

But nothing meaningful works on that timeline.

- Skills compound slowly  
- Pipelines warm up gradually  
- Systems need cycles to settle  
- Trust builds long before it pays off

The winners are not the most talented.  
They are the ones who survive the quiet stretch.

The stretch where:
1. Nothing moves  
2. No one notices  
3. You question yourself every single day

However if you can keep going when the scoreboard shows zero  
You will eventually pass everyone who stopped early.

Stick through the quiet part and everything changes.
Always remember: most never make it that far.

- Tim

P.S. Wishing you the resilience to achieve your goals.

🚨 Calling all software engineers

The way people find information is changing.

Less search
More AI
And the gap is widening every month.

That's why I'm excited about what my friend Domien Van Dammei s building.

His project Visiblie just secured seed funding and they are looking for a Product Engineer to join the team.

If you want to enter the fast-growing AI market and help shape the future of it, send him a DM.

Or tag someone who should see this.

More info is in the first link in the comments 👇

Most sales teams fail long before the outreach even starts.

Not because they're bad but because their targets are impossible.

A lot of business owners set KPIs that look ambitious on paper but feel hopeless in real life.

Here is what actually happens:

→ SDR sees an unreachable number
→ Stress goes up
→ Motivation drops 
→ Output collapses
→ Pipeline dies

Targets are not motivational if they feel like fiction.

They need to sit in the sweet spot hard enough to stretch the person but close enough to feel achievable.

↗ Too high and the team gives up.
↘ Too low and they never grow.

In our business we avoid this problem by using data, not wishes.

We look at:  
→ Historical conversion rates
→ Average reply numbers
→ Meeting ratios across industries
→ Volume benchmarks from previous SDRs

When we set a KPI we know it has been achieved by others so the new SDR sees it as a challenge, not a punishment.

That small shift changes everything.

1️⃣ Realistic targets build confidence.
2️⃣ Confidence creates consistency.
3️⃣ Consistency produces results.

Now tell me this: are your KPIs helping your team win or making them fail before they start?

---

Pipeline Upgrade
Predictable pipeline for UK IT providers with zero upfront risk.

This quote hit me hard.

Because I've seen both sides.

---

I've seen systems with 30+ tools.

I've seen systems with 5.

The 5-tool system always wins.

---

Here's what actually happens with complex infrastructure:

Most people think:
→ More tools = more capability
→ More integrations = better automation
→ More complexity = more professional

Reality:
→ More tools = more data loss
→ More integrations = more failure points
→ More complexity = more overhead

---

I spent 10+ years as a software engineer.

I've seen codebases where 90% could be deleted and the app would work better.

The same principle applies to business systems.

The math is simple:

30 tools = 30 places data gets lost, mutated, or corrupted
↳ No single source of truth
↳ Constant firefighting
↳ 50% overhead minimum

5 tools = Clear data flow
↳ One source of truth
↳ Predictable outcomes
↳ Actual scalability

---

Every connection is a point of failure.

Every integration needs maintenance.

Every tool costs money and attention.

Most businesses are paying thousands per month for complexity they don't need.

---

Here's what I tell people:

Your goal isn't the most sophisticated setup.

Your goal is the minimum viable infrastructure that actually works.

Ask yourself:
→ Which tools are redundant?
→ Where is data getting lost right now?
→ What could be consolidated?

Strip it down to what matters.

---

I know it's tempting to share your 30-tool stack.

But it takes more courage to say "we run everything on 5 tools and it works."

Simplicity is hard.

Complexity is easy.

---

How many tools are you currently using to run your business?

PS. Curious to hear if anyone else has simplified their stack and seen the difference.

Most business owners confuse documentation with operations.

They write SOPs.
Store them in folders.
Tell the team to follow them.

And wonder why everything still breaks.

Here's the truth:

SOPs tell people what to do.
But they don't stop people doing it wrong.

People want shortcuts.
People get tired.
People assume.

Not because they're bad but because they're human.

So instead of writing more procedures and adding quality control layers, I focus on this:

→ Build systems that reject wrong inputs
→ Add validation before the next step can start
→ Make the correct path the only path

Not through rules but through structure.

Operations isn't about writing procedures.

It's about building railways, not roadmaps.

The railway doesn't ask the train to stay on track.
It makes staying on track the only option.

That's how we approach every system we build.

So here's the question for you.

Do you rely on documentation or do you build constraint into your systems?

---

Tim Sergeev
COO @ Pipeline Upgrade
I make business run smoothly

Most people think operations is just automations.

- Move data from A to B.
- Trigger a workflow.
- Send a notification.

But real operations sit on three layers.
And if even one of them is weak, the whole system collapses.

Here is how it actually works.

→ Layer 1: Data
This is the foundation.
Data must be consistent, structured and clean.
If the data model is messy, everything becomes unstable.

→ Layer 2: Process
This is where most people stop.
Automations, workflows, logic, rules.
But this layer only works if the data layer is solid.
Otherwise you simply automate chaos faster.

→ Layer 3: Display
This is what the team sees.
Dashboards, tables, views, permissions, insights.
If the first two layers are wrong, this one becomes noise instead of clarity.

Think of it like this:
1️⃣ Data at the centre.
2️⃣ Process wrapped around it.
3️⃣ Display wrapped around everything.

Get all three right and the business runs like an engine.
Get one wrong and the entire thing shakes.

Do you agree with this?

---

Tim Sergeev
COO Pipeline Upgrade
I make business run smoothly

Haha... This is first joke of AI which I like ))

At the beginning of this year, we couldn't handle 5 clients.

Each onboarding made the business harder to run.

Every new client meant more spreadsheets.
↗ More reports.
↗ More manual work.
↗ More stress.

That is the opposite of how a business should scale.

So we stopped pushing harder and started fixing operations.

Here is what changed:

→ Clear systems everyone follows
→ Defined processes for every step
→ Fewer tools, less noise
→ Automations where they actually matter

Nothing fancy. Just structure.

Fast forward to today.

We are delivering results for 19 clients.

With:
↘ Fewer people.
↘ Lower overheads.
↘ And far less stress.

= Same team.
= Same time.
↗ Much higher throughput.

That is the power of operations.

Most founders think operations are a nice to have.
They are not.

Operations are the fastest way to scale revenue without burning yourself or your team.

If your business feels heavy the problem is rarely demand.

It is usually broken operations.

Fix the bottlenecks.
One by one.
And reinvest the time you get back.

That is leverage.

---

Tim Sergeev
COO Pipeline Upgrade
I make business run smoothly

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