How Activate the Magic Closed a $60K Monthly Cash Gap with Bridges

$60K/mo

cash gap closed

+59%

increase in ACV

+22%

increase in gross profit margin

Bridges helped me learn my business at a deeper level. I always knew I was doing great work for clients. What I couldn't see was what that work was actually worth, or what it was costing me. Now I can. That changes everything about how I make decisions — and how I sleep.

Jacki Leahy, Founder & CEO, Activate the Magic

Challenge

Activate the Magic needed to shift from fighting cash flow gaps to building a sustainable business.

Activate the Magic had built a strong reputation delivering revenue operations services to B2B SaaS companies. Jacki Leahy had built a strong reputation and grown the agency through client referrals. The work was real. The demand was real. The team was delivering.

But Jacki was running the business entirely off her cash balance. The books ran on cash-based accounting, which masked everything that mattered — clients paying quarterly made some months look flush and others look empty, team costs were outpacing recognized revenue without any clear signal, and the profitability of individual accounts was invisible. The breaking point arrived when two large clients failed payments and announced they were churning — the same week Jacki had over $150K in salaries due.

"I kept finding myself in cash flow crunches every month. I had clients paying $100K+ and I was still hand-to-mouth. It didn't make sense."

Solution

How Bridges Turned Financial Fog into Decisions Jacki Could Actually Make

Bridges came in without judgment and without a generic fix. The first move was converting Activate the Magic from cash-based to accrual accounting — establishing the truth of the business, even when that truth was hard. Revenue recognized in the month services were delivered. Deferred revenue properly held on the balance sheet for prepaid retainers. A real chart of accounts, built for a revenue operations agency: retainer revenue separated from project-based work, client delivery payroll in cost of sales, management and operations above the line.

What that revealed was a B2B SaaS agency healthier in reputation than in structure. Gross margin was running well below the 50% industry standard. Roughly 25% of revenue was project-based and non-recurring — but Jacki had been staffing as if it were all retainer. And scattered across her client list were accounts from the early days, still on $6,000/month legacy pricing, consuming as much senior team time as clients paying three times that amount.

Client profitability analysis revealed which accounts were quietly bleeding cash

For the first time, Jacki could see exactly what each client was actually costing her.

Gross profit and margin per account made the pattern undeniable: smallest clients were the least profitable — and consumed the most senior team time
QBRs with underperforming accounts surfaced opportunities to upgrade contracts; those who wouldn't move were offboarded
The $6K pricing tier was retired; $12K became the new floor; a $25K/mo top tier was introduced for the high-complexity RevOps work Activate the Magic was already known for

Average contract value increased 59%.

A staffing mismatch was hiding margin — and fixing it freed capacity

Reorganizing the team around profitability — not familiarity — opened up room to grow without a single new hire.

Mapping utilization and seniority against account size revealed senior RevOps specialists locked into small, custom-heavy accounts
Junior team members were maintaining the larger, more stable accounts they could own independently
Senior talent was reassigned to new client onboarding and high-value B2B SaaS accounts; juniors stepped into steadier work they were ready for

Gross profit margin increased 22%. Capacity that had been buried in low-margin work became available for the backlog.

Small billing changes front-loaded cash — and eliminated the crunch

Instead of more financing, Bridges restructured when existing cash came in.

Clients with 2+ year tenures were offered a 5–10% discount to shift from monthly to quarterly or semi-annual billing
Clients who already trusted the work accepted — advance cash was in the bank before new hires were made
Payment terms, pricing, and billing cycles were tightened across new contracts

"Nothing big or dramatic — just little levers. Payment terms, pricing, billing cycles. Rejiggering when cash flows in and out changed my life."

Results

Activate the Magic Closes a $60K Monthly Cash Gap — and Builds a Business Jacki Can See

Within two billing cycles, the monthly shortfall was gone.