The fourth eBook in the Sales and Leads category. Most small businesses either run their entire customer list out of memory and a chaotic inbox, or they buy expensive customer list software they never log into. This eBook is the calm middle path: a small system, the right size for a business of one to ten people, that you will still be using in twelve months.
Members ebook·7 chapters· 35 minute read
Chapter 4
Reminders and Follow-Up Dates
A list with no reminders is a list nobody acts on. This chapter sets up a reminder system that fires on the right person at the right time and survives a busy week.
A customer list with no reminders is a museum. It tells you who came through the door, when, and what they bought, and it does nothing to prompt the next conversation. The thing that turns the list from a record into a working system is reminders - a date next to every active contact that tells you when to get back in touch, and a way of those dates appearing in front of the right person at the right time.
Most small businesses get this part wrong in one of two directions. Either they set no reminders at all, in which case the list is decorative, or they set so many that the reminder list becomes its own source of guilt, with thirty overdue items every Monday morning and the owner ignoring it altogether. The right system is small, honest and survives the busy weeks.
By the end of this chapter you should have a reminder approach that you trust, a sensible default for how often to check back with different kinds of contacts and a way of clearing the reminder list each week without running for cover.
The full chapter covers the next-action column, sensible default intervals by contact type, the rule for handling overdue reminders honestly and the choice between calendar reminders and customer list product reminders.
The next-action column
Whatever container you are using - spreadsheet or software - every active contact needs two simple fields next to it: next action (a verb-led sentence like 'send updated quote' or 'call to confirm date') and next action date (a real date, not 'soon'). Together they tell you what to do for that contact and when. Without them, the list is a record of contacts; with them, it is a list of actions. The shift is small and the difference in how the system feels to use is large.
Keep the language simple. 'Follow up' is not a next action; it is a category of next actions. Write 'send case study' or 'reply to wedding date question' or 'invite to studio visit' - something specific enough that you could do it in five minutes if you sat down. Vague next actions are next actions you will not do.
Default intervals by contact type
Different kinds of contacts need different default check-in intervals. Active customers in the middle of a project: weekly or as the project demands. Recent paying customers (last three months): touch once at the right moment - a thank you, a check-in, a request for a review. Past customers (three to twelve months ago): check in quarterly with something useful. Dormant customers (over a year): twice a year. Active opportunities in the pipeline: governed by the pipeline stage and the agreed next step. Suppliers and partners: only when you need them.
Reminder rules that survive busy weeks
Every active contact has a next action and a date
Next actions are specific verbs, not 'follow up'
Default intervals match the contact type
Overdue reminders are reset, not ignored
The reminder list is cleared in the weekly review
Handling overdue reminders honestly
There will be weeks where you do not get to a reminder. The right response is to reset the date - reschedule the next action for the realistic next slot - not to ignore it and hope it scrolls off the screen. An overdue reminder that has been overdue for a month is more demoralising than the original task ever was, and it teaches the brain that the system is fictional. Resetting honestly takes ten seconds and keeps the system alive.
If a contact's reminder has been reset four or five times without action, that is information. Either the contact is no longer worth the next action, in which case move them to dormant, or the next action is wrong and needs to change to something you actually will do. Either way, the system tells you to make a decision rather than letting the reminder rot.
Calendar reminders versus list reminders
Some owners prefer to keep all reminders in their main calendar so they appear next to other commitments. Others prefer the customer list product to handle them in its own view. Either is fine; what matters is that one of them is the source of truth and the other is empty. Splitting reminders across both creates a system where neither is trustworthy. We tend to prefer the customer list view for context (you see the full history with the contact alongside the reminder) but the choice is personal.
What to do this week
Open your list and add a next action and a date to every contact in the active and opportunity tabs. For contacts you genuinely do not know what to do with next, set a fortnight from now and write 'decide what to do next' as the action. That removes the guilt of leaving the field blank and forces a small decision soon.
The previous chapter set the stages contacts move through; this chapter sets the dates that move them. The next chapter Keeping the System Simple is about resisting the urge to over-engineer a system that is just starting to work. Recurring principle: follow up quickly and consistently.
The rest of this chapter walks through the practical steps, the templates and the checklists you need to put it into action. It includes worked examples, copy frameworks and the small decisions that make the difference between a plan that sits in a drive and one that gets used.
Inside you'll find a step-by-step playbook, a downloadable template, a checklist you can run this week and a short list of common mistakes to avoid before you start.
The full action plan, broken into weekly steps.
Ready-to-use scripts, templates and checklists.
Worked examples for different sized businesses.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them.
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