How a solo consultant uses a sales and pipeline agent

What belongs in the pipeline?

Keep the list small and real. A person you spoke with, a proposal you sent, and a date you promised to write back. A name from a newsletter is not a conversation yet.

Give each row a status you already use. For example: talk booked, proposal out, waiting on them, waiting on you, closed. If you need more than those, you will not update the list.

What does a good follow-up draft look like?

It names the last thing you discussed, the one question still open, and a single next step. It is short enough to send after a light edit. It does not reopen the whole pitch.

Paste the last email and your note from the call. The agent should quote the open question from those sources. If the draft invents a promise you did not make, delete that line and add the real note to the examples.

How do you stop the list from going stale?

Run it on Monday from the mail and the notes of the past week. Archive a row when the work starts, when they say no, or when you decide to stop. A long list of maybes makes the next follow-up worse.

How do you set up the sales agent?

1. Write the statuses. Use the words you already say. Five statuses are plenty. Put them in the persona.
2. Paste the live rows. Include the person, the last touch, the date, and what you owe them. Ten rows is a full first run.
3. Add two sent follow-ups. Choose notes you were glad you sent. The agent should sound like those, not like a template library.
4. Ask for the next action only. One draft per open row that needs you. Skip rows that are waiting on them unless the date you set has passed.
5. Check the facts. Match every claim to the last email or your note. Cut anything you cannot point to.
6. Send it yourself. Copy the final note into your mail. The agent does not get the send button.

What does a sales routine look like?

What are the approval rules?

The sales agent may list conversations and draft the next note. You decide who is in the pipeline and what is sent. That decision is the approval gate.

It may not email a prospect, book a meeting, or change a proposal. Those actions stay with you.

It may not invent a budget, a timeline, or a verbal yes. If your note does not say it, the draft should not say it.

It may not add people you have not met or written to. Cold names belong in a separate list you build on purpose, if you build one at all.

A follow-up that pressures, flatters, or apologizes for existing gets rewritten or dropped.

Common questions