A lead follow-up system for a business with no sales team

In most small service businesses, nobody's job is "sales". The owner answers inquiries between jobs, a quote goes out when there is a free evening, and follow-up happens if someone remembers. That works while demand is high. It stops working the first quiet month, when you realize how many inquiries you let slip.

You do not need a sales team or a complicated CRM to fix this. You need four things: one place for every inquiry, a fast first reply, a next step on everything, and a short weekly review.

One place for every inquiry

Inquiries arrive by phone, email, your website, social messages and word of mouth. If they stay where they arrived, some will be forgotten. The first rule is that every inquiry, however it came in, gets written into one list the whole team can see.

For each one, record:

• who it is and how to reach them;
• what they want, in a sentence;
• roughly what it is worth;
• where it came from;
• the next step, and the date for it.

That last field is the one that matters. An inquiry with no next step is an inquiry you have decided to forget.

Reply fast, even if you cannot quote yet

The first reply wins more work than any other step, because it sets the tone. It does not need to be a quote. It needs to say: we have your request, here is what happens next, and here is when.

Thanks for getting in touch about your bathroom. I can come and measure up on Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Which suits you? I will have a written quote to you within two days of the visit.

Aim to reply the same working day. A client who hears back from you first, clearly, has already started to trust you.

Give every lead a stage

Stages turn a list into a pipeline, and a pipeline tells you what next month looks like. Keep them few and name them for your own work. A typical set for a service business:

With a value on each lead, you can see how much work is quoted but not yet won, and whether it is enough.

Follow up on a schedule

Most lost quotes are not rejected; they drift. The client meant to reply and did not. A short, fixed follow-up routine catches them.

1. Two or three days after the quote: "Did it arrive, and do you have any questions?"
2. One week after: "Is there anything you need from me to decide? My next start date is the 14th."
3. Before the quote expires: "Just so you know, the price is valid until Friday. Happy to hold it if you need a few more days."
4. After that: mark it lost, and ask what decided it.

Three touches is not pestering. It is what a client who is busy but interested would want. Our article on how to write a quote that wins the job covers what the quote itself should contain.

What to say when a lead goes quiet

Silence rarely means no. It usually means busy, undecided or waiting on someone else. The aim of a follow-up is to make replying easy.

• Ask a question that is easy to answer. "Would the week of the 14th or the 21st suit you better?" gets more replies than "Just checking in."
• Offer something useful. A photo of a similar finished job, an answer to a question they asked on the visit, or a note that a material price is about to change.
• Give them an easy out. "If you have decided to go another way, no problem at all, just let me know so I can close this off." Many people reply to that, and some reply with a yes.

Referrals: the leads you do not chase

The best leads arrive already trusting you, because someone they know recommended you. They are also the easiest to grow, because they depend on something you control: how happy your last client was.

1. Ask at the right moment, right after a job the client is clearly pleased with, not months later.
2. Make it specific. "If you know anyone planning a bathroom this year, I would be grateful for an introduction" works better than "tell your friends".
3. Record the source, so you know which clients send you work, and thank them when a referral turns into a job.

Know where your work comes from

Record a source on every lead: the website, a referral, a directory, a sign on a van. After a few months you can see which sources bring inquiries, and more usefully, which bring work you actually win at a price you like. Spend your marketing time and money there, and drop what does not pay.

A fifteen-minute weekly review

Systems fail when they depend on a good day. Put fifteen minutes in the calendar every week, same day, same time, and walk the pipeline:

• Every new inquiry has had a reply.
• Every lead has a next step with a date that has not passed.
• Every quote older than a week has been followed up.
• Every stale lead has been closed as lost, with a reason.

Fifteen minutes a week is the whole cost of a sales process for most small businesses, and it pays for itself with the first job it saves.

From won lead to job

When a lead is won, the worst thing you can do is retype it. The client, the scope and the quoted price should carry straight into the job, so nothing is lost between yes and the first visit. That handover is where many small businesses drop details, and where the client first sees how organized you are.

How grewray helps

grewray's leads pipeline is built for exactly this. Every inquiry goes in one place with its source, value and a next step, and a reminder arrives when that step is due. Stages are yours to name, the pipeline shows its value by stage, quotes go out with a link the client can accept online, and a won lead becomes a job in one click, with nothing retyped.

See how leads work, or move a lead to won yourself in the interactive demo.