From scattered leads to a working sales system

THE CHALLENGE

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A professional services company with 12 people was generating consistent inbound interest. They had a steady flow of contact form submissions, event leads, and referrals. The team was motivated, and the service offering was strong. But their close rate sat at 14%.

When we examined what happened after a lead came in, the problem was clear. There was no system in place. Leads landed in an inbox and got forwarded manually to the right person. Follow-up depended entirely on whoever checked their email that day.

The average response time to a new lead was over three hours. Follow-up after no response was inconsistent. Sometimes it happened; often, it didn't. There was no visibility into where leads stood, how long they'd been waiting, or which ones had gone quiet.

The team wasn't failing because they didn't care. They were failing because they were doing manually what should have been running automatically.

THE APPROACH

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Week 1 - Mapping and Tool Setup

Before building anything, we mapped the full lead journey from first contact to signed agreement. This surfaced three distinct lead sources: contact form, event referral, and direct email. Each had different data and follow-up needs. We set up HubSpot as the central CRM and connected all three sources via Make workflows.

Week 2 - Qualification and Routing

We built an automatic qualification layer. When a lead came in, Make pulled the form data, applied a simple scoring logic based on company size, message content, and source, and routed it to the right team member within 90 seconds. The assigned person received a Slack notification with the lead summary and a one-click link to the contact in HubSpot.

A personalized first-response email went out automatically within five minutes of submission. This wasn't a generic autoresponder. It was a message that referenced the specific service area the lead had enquired about.

Week 3 - Follow-Up Sequences and Deal Monitoring

We built three follow-up sequences in HubSpot—one for each lead source. Each sequence had three touchpoints over 14 days, stopping automatically the moment a reply came in or a meeting was booked. No more manual chasing. No leads falling through the cracks.

A deal monitoring workflow flagged any open opportunity that hadn't moved in seven days. It created a task in HubSpot and sent an internal Slack alert. The sales team could now see at a glance what needed attention—without checking every contact manually.

Week 4 - Reporting and Handoff

We built a simple weekly report that pulled automatically from HubSpot. This report included leads by source, response times, conversion at each stage, and open deals by age. It was delivered to the founder every Monday morning, with no manual input required. We ran the full system in parallel for one week before switching off the manual process entirely.

THE RESULT

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The improvement in close rate came almost entirely from two changes: faster first response and consistent follow-up. The team didn't change. The service didn't change. The system did.

A secondary benefit emerged. The founder stopped being the default fallback for every sales question. With clear pipeline visibility and automated alerts, the team managed their own leads independently.

Same team. Same leads. Same service. A system that actually worked.

Tools Used

• Make - workflow automation and system connections

• HubSpot - CRM, deal pipeline, email sequences

• Slack - internal alerts and task notifications

• Typeform - lead capture (connected via Make)

• Google Sheets - weekly reporting export

  
  

Timeline

Four weeks from the first call to a fully live system. One week of parallel running before full handover. Ongoing monitoring for 30 days post-launch.

Conclusion

In the end, the system transformed how the team operated. They moved from chaos to clarity. They stopped relying on manual processes that drained their energy and time. Instead, they embraced automation. This shift allowed them to focus on what truly mattered: closing deals and serving clients.

If you're tired of manual processes and want to see similar results, consider implementing a system that works for you. It's time to stop doing things the hard way.