How to follow up with clients without a CRM (and not lose any of them)

1. Use four or five stages, not twelve

A useful pipeline for a small business fits on one screen. Each stage should answer one question: what has to happen for this to move forward?

• Lead: someone showed interest (form, email, referral).
• Meeting: you've talked and understand what they need.
• Proposal: you've sent a quote or proposal in writing.
• Negotiation: there are questions, scope or price changes.
• Won / lost: always close, including lost deals, with a one-line reason.

2. A spreadsheet is enough if it has these columns

If you use nothing today, start with a shared sheet. The tool matters less than one rule: every row always has a dated next step.

• Client and contact person.
• Current stage.
• Rough value (a range is fine).
• Date of last contact.
• Concrete next step (“call to answer pricing questions”) with a date.
• Owner, if more than one person sells.

3. The follow-up rule: 3, 7 and 14 days

Decide in advance when you'll write again, so it doesn't depend on your mood that day. This cadence is a sensible starting point for B2B services; adapt it to your sales cycle.

• Day 3 after the proposal: a short, useful nudge (“any questions about point 2?”).
• Day 7: add something new (a similar case, a smaller option, a possible start date).
• Day 14: a direct, easy-to-answer question (“shall we park this for now or keep going?”).
• No reply after the third attempt? Mark it lost or paused and set a date to revisit.

4. A follow-up template people actually answer

The best follow-ups are short, mention something specific from your conversation and end with a yes/no question. An example to adapt:

• Subject: Re: Website redesign proposal
• “Hi Marta, following up on the proposal I sent on Monday. You mentioned launching in March; if we start before the 15th we'll have room to spare. Could we go through it for 15 minutes on Thursday? Best,”

5. Signs a deal is going cold

Scan your list every morning for these signals, not just dates:

• More days without a reply than usual in your previous exchanges.
• Your contact changes or someone new appears in CC.
• They want to “think about it” without saying what's holding them back.
• A meeting is postponed with no new date.

6. Common mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Most follow-ups fail for the same handful of reasons. Check whether any of these apply before blaming the client:

• Waiting to “hear back”: if there's no follow-up date written down, in practice there's no follow-up.
• Sending the same message again: each email needs to add something, even if it's a smaller option or a concrete date.
• Writing to the wrong person: if someone else decides, ask to be introduced instead of pushing harder.
• Never closing: a pipeline full of deals “in the air” is misleading. Marking a deal as lost is information too.
• Keeping context only in your head: if you went on holiday tomorrow, would anyone know where each client stands?

How Tessa automates it

Tessa does the spreadsheet work for you: it finds opportunities in your email and meetings, places them in a pipeline under Sales, keeps the last-contact date current and, when a deal stalls, alerts you and prepares the follow-up email with the context of the conversation.

You can also ask for it one-off: when you send a proposal, choose “If no reply in 3 days, follow up” and Tessa watches the thread. The draft never sends itself; you send it with one click, as is or edited.