How I put my follow-ups on a schedule

The Operator's Log / The Build

How I put my follow-ups on a schedule

This is the whole thing. A list, two follow-ups, and one message every morning telling me who is due. Takes about ten minutes to set up.

I built it to book podcast guests. It works the same for price quotes you sent and never heard back on, job applicants, unpaid invoices, or customers who went quiet.

Step 1

Make the list

One spreadsheet, or a view in whatever CRM you already pay for. Eight columns:

Name and company
Email
What you sent them (quote, invite, offer, invoice)
Date you first reached out
Follow-up 1 sent (date)
Follow-up 2 sent (date)
Status: open, replied, or closed

That is the entire database. If it needs more columns than this, you will stop updating it by week two.

Step 2

Two follow-ups, then stop

Day 4: short reply on the same email thread. Three sentences. Do not restate your pitch, just ask a question they can answer in one line.
Day 10: the last one. Say plainly it is the last one and that you will not keep asking.
After that: mark them closed and remove them from the list. No third try, ever.

Why the cap matters. Most people either send one email and quietly give up, or chase somebody for a month and feel like a pest. Two and done is a rule you will actually keep, which means the number it produces is honest.

Step 3

The words I actually send

Follow-up 1, day 4:

Hi [Name], following up on the note below. Is this something you would want to look at, or is it not a fit right now? Either answer is genuinely fine.

Follow-up 2, day 10:

Hi [Name], last time you will hear from me on this. If it is a no, no hard feelings at all. If the timing is just wrong, tell me when and I will come back then.

Short is the point. A long follow-up reads like pressure. A one-question follow-up reads like a person.

Step 4

Have something read the list to you every morning

You can do this by hand in five minutes a day. I have it done for me, so the list gets read whether I feel like it or not. This is the prompt I use:

Copy this prompt into Viktor

You run my follow-up list.

Here is my list: [paste the list, or connect the sheet/CRM where it lives]
Fields: name, company, email, what I sent them, date I first reached out, follow-up 1 sent (date), follow-up 2 sent (date), status.

Every weekday morning, tell me:
1. Who is due for follow-up 1 today (4 days after first contact) and who is due for follow-up 2 (10 days after first contact).
2. For each one, write the follow-up email. Three sentences, no pitch restated, one clear question at the end.
3. Who has now had two follow-ups. Mark them closed and take them off the list.
4. Anyone who replied since yesterday, pulled out and listed first.

Rules: never a third follow-up. Never send without showing me the drafts first. If the list has nobody due, say "nothing due today" and stop.

The two rules

What keeps this from turning into noise

Never a third follow-up. The cap is what makes you willing to do the first two.
Be picky about who gets on the list. A follow-up system does not fix a bad list. Last week I sent 18 follow-ups and got zero yeses, and the emails were not the problem. The people on the list were never a fit.

Want me to look at your whole company this way? I am doing five free AI operations audits: three weeks, I talk to you and your managers, map how work actually moves through your business, and hand you a list of the jobs a computer should be doing instead of a person. Details and how to apply.

Scott

How I put my follow-ups on a schedule