How do you track prospects who ask for delayed follow-ups?
Keeping delayed prospects open artificially inflates the active pipeline and skews management forecasting, but closing them as lost is inaccurate when timing is the only issue. This leaves reps with nowhere to properly place future-quarter leads without messing up their current numbers.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Memory2 people mentionedDid this help you?
- 2Using a separate nurture stage in the systemDid this help you?
- 3Closing the deal and setting a manual reminder taskDid this help you?
- 4Assigning a next contact date field while letting deals sitDid this help you?
- 5Giving every open item three fields: owner, next action, and a date when the next action is due.Did this help you?
- 6Using a plain three-column list (waiting on me / waiting on them / done) with a next-action date.Did this help you?
- 7Putting the next step in the same sentence as the reply so it becomes a trackable promise.Did this help you?
- 8NotebooksDid this help you?
- 9ExcelDid this help you?
- 10Checking status the next morningDid this help you?
- 11SpreadsheetsDid this help you?
- 12CRMsDid this help you?
- 13Sticky notesDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“When a prospect says, "We're interested, but reach out next quarter,” where do you put them?”source ↗
“Keeping the deal open could make the active pipeline look bigger than it really is. Closing it as lost feels inaccurate when timing is the only issue.”source ↗
“The "active pipeline looks bigger" thing is real though, managers always want clean numbers for forecasting.”source ↗
“For me the time sink is not the initial task, it is the second and third follow-up.”source ↗
“Yes, but in my case it wasn't because nobody wrote it down.”source ↗
“Next morning I checked and it still hadn't gone out.”source ↗
“I’ve found the sneaky time sink is the tiny follow-up loop: someone asks for a quote, you reply, then spend the next week remembering who is waiting on what.”source ↗
“Someone says to call him back Thursday and by Thursday I've made 40 more calls and it's gone. Or I send a cold email, no reply, and I mean to follow up in 3 days and then two weeks pass.”source ↗
“I've tried a spreadsheet. It works until it doesn't. I only remember to check it if I remember to check it, which defeats the whole point.”source ↗
“If you have to remember to check it, it's already failing.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to automate lead follow-ups without sounding robotic
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- 2Why does my car act like it's in neutral after sitting?
- 2How to tell management a deadline is impossible
- 2When should you stop following up on a quote?
- 5Users not replying to follow-up questions on IT tickets