Hey there! Happy Memorial Day. 

A few years ago, my business coach (who previously served in the Marines) shared what Memorial Day really meant. He lost close friends in war, and so Memorial Day is very heavy for him. After sharing his knowledge, I REALLY understood why we celebrate Memorial Day.

To remember the fallen.

So if you’re camping, grilling, or simply hanging out with family and friends, let’s all be remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

This Memorial Day weekend email was auto-scheduled a couple of weeks early because I’m currently at the Grand Sand Dunes National Park. 

As you know, people are traveling. Plans are being made. Calendars are full. Everything looks active.

And in business, a lot of teams operate the same way.

The CRM is full. Campaigns are running. SDRs are sending follow-ups. Meetings are happening.

From the outside, it looks like momentum. But activity does not always mean progress.

A lot of companies are staring at soft pipeline and assuming the problem starts at the top.

They say they need more leads. More traffic. More outbound. More meetings. More names in the funnel.

Sometimes that is true. A lot of the time, it is not.

A lot of the time, the real problem is what happens after someone actually shows interest.

I believe that is where pipeline quietly dies. Not because the funnel is broken. But because the follow-up is essentially nonexistent.

And, I have seen this play out up close.

In a previous in-house role, we were not just trying to create more demand. We were trying to get the right demand and stop wasting the people who were already raising their hands.

Once we tightened the targeting, the messaging got better. Once the messaging got better, the follow-up system got sharper. And once the follow-up system got sharper, the back end of the funnel started behaving like a real revenue lever instead of an afterthought.

That system ended up driving more than $2 million a year because we stopped treating follow-up like admin work and started treating it like part of the sales motion.

Here is what changed.

When a lead came in, the sales team got on it fast. Usually within about an hour.

If they did not connect, an automated text would go out to create a hand-raiser and reopen the conversation.

The next day, we would trigger another message built around availability and urgency. Something simple. A spot had opened up. Did they want it?

That one move alone generated a surprisingly high response rate. Roughly 40% to 50% in some windows.

For the first 7 to 8 days, the system was sales-driven. The goal was simple. Create the appointment, create the conversation, create movement.

After that, the next couple of weeks shifted into indoctrination.

Still sales-led. Still coming from the sales team. But more focused on education, trust, and helping people feel comfortable taking the next step.

At the same time, regular marketing emails continued in the background to reinforce the story, support credibility, and keep the brand familiar.

And then there was one more piece that a lot of teams miss.

If a lead sat too long without being moved into the right stage, it did not just die in Hubspot.

It got recycled.

That lead would get reassigned to another AE and worked like a fresh opportunity.

That created another wave of conversations from demand that otherwise would have been treated like dead weight.

The numbers were what made the lesson stick.

Roughly 50% of closed business happened inside the first 7 days.

But the long tail played a huge role, too.

Anything beyond 30 days still accounted for about 30% of closed business.

That means 2 things can be true at once. Speed matters. And nurture matters.

That is the part a lot of teams get wrong. They either chase speed and ignore the long tail. Or they build fluffy nurture and ignore the urgency required to convert real interest while it is still warm.

The best systems do both.

They create fast follow-up when intent is highest. Then they create enough structure to keep the conversation alive after the first window passes. That is why I push back when teams say they need more leads.

Maybe they do. But before I believe that, I want to know 4 things.

How quickly does a real person respond when someone raises their hand?

Not an automated confirmation. A real response.

Speed still matters more than most teams want to admit. When someone fills out a form, replies to an email, or asks for more information, they are giving you a short window where attention is high and intent is fresh. The longer that gap goes untouched, the colder the opportunity becomes.

Does the message reflect what the buyer actually did, asked, or cared about?

Or is it just another version of “just checking in” with a calendar link attached?

This is where a lot of follow-up falls apart. Buyers can feel when they are getting a generic sequence instead of a real continuation of the conversation. Good follow-up should feel connected to their action, their context, and their timing. It should move the conversation forward, not just remind them that your sales team exists.

When marketing passes something to sales, is there enough context to make the next conversation sharper?

Or does the buyer have to start over from scratch every time they move one step deeper?

Bad handoffs create friction fast. If sales has no context around what the lead downloaded, clicked, asked, or responded to, the buyer ends up repeating themselves. That makes the experience feel disconnected and lowers confidence immediately. A strong handoff should make the next conversation feel smarter, not colder.

What happens to the people who are interested but not ready?

Do they get thoughtful follow-up that matches their stage and timing? Or do they disappear until somebody remembers to recycle the list 60 days later?

Not every good lead is ready right now. That does not make them a bad lead. It just means the timing is different. Teams that handle this well do not force every opportunity into the same immediate sales path. They create follow-up that keeps the relationship warm until the timing lines up.

That is usually where the truth is. Not in lead volume. In the quality and consistency of what happens next.

If you want a simple place to start, I would tighten these 5 things this week.

Most teams have more opportunity sitting inside their existing funnel than they think.

They just are not treating follow-up like a strategic lever.

If that sounds familiar, I would not ask how to get more leads first. I would ask where warm demand is getting wasted right now.

Because once that gets fixed, the whole funnel usually starts feeling healthier without adding nearly as much noise.

If you want help spotting where your follow-up process is leaking good opportunities, reply with "FOLLOW-UP" and I will send you the quick audit I would run first.

Best,

Javy

P.S. — Is there a topic or strategy that you’d like me to unpack? Drop me a line. Let me know what you’re thinking of. And, I’ll get it queued up for an upcoming newsletter.

I recently joined Lance Cottrell on Feel the Boot to talk about a pattern I see all the time with founders: they try to do too much marketing at once, spread themselves across too many channels, and then wonder why nothing compounds.

In the conversation, we got into why I would rather build one GTM motion that actually works before piling on more tactics, how better targeting can completely change the quality of pipeline, and why founders need to stop chasing cheap leads if those leads have no business being in the funnel. 

We also talked about signal clarity, channel focus, and the discipline it takes to double down on what is already showing real traction instead of creating random acts of marketing.

If your team is doing a little bit of everything but not getting enough leverage from any one motion, this one is worth your time.

Listen on Apple Podcast or watch on YouTube.

A lot of teams are drowning in dashboards but still cannot answer the only question leadership really cares about: is marketing helping create revenue?

That is why I like this playbook. It pushes past the vanity-metric trap and gets back to 2 numbers that actually matter. Pipeline and revenue. Because once those 2 are clear, the rest of the reporting starts making a lot more sense. 

It becomes easier to see what channels are producing qualified opportunities, where handoffs are breaking down, and whether marketing is creating business impact or just creating activity.

If your team is stuck in reporting debates every week, this is a good reset.

Read it here