The 90-Day Follow-Up Framework

The 90-Day Follow-Up Framework is a CRM-driven system that takes every enquiry through an instant response, a named owner, and a structured series of touches spread over 90 days — because most firms stop following up at 2 touches while B2B deals typically need 5 or more. It replaces memory with mechanism: every touch is scheduled by the system, logged in the CRM, and swept monthly so nothing goes quietly cold. This guide sets out the full framework, the post-proposal sequence, and the line between what to automate and what to keep human.

Follow-up is the highest-leverage fix in most service firms we look at, because the leads already exist and the cost of losing them is already paid. Before any new marketing spend, fix what happens after someone puts their hand up.

Why do leads actually go cold?

Rarely because the buyer chose a competitor on merit. Leads go cold for mechanical reasons:

• The first response was slow. Contact rates drop roughly 8x after five minutes — an industry rule of thumb, but one that matches what firms see when they measure it. The mechanism behind the 5-minute rule is simple: intent decays and competitors answer faster.
• The follow-up stopped early. Most firms manage one reply and one nudge, then stop — the follow-up cliff — while deals typically need five or more touches to close.
• Nobody owned it. An enquiry that belongs to "the team" belongs to no one.
• Memory was the system. The intention to follow up existed; the trigger did not.

None of these is a sales-skill problem. All of them are systems problems, which is why they respond to a framework rather than to motivation.

Why is speed the first component?

Because a lead's value is highest in the minutes after they enquire and falls from there. A buyer who fills in a form is, at that moment, thinking about the problem, at their desk, willing to talk. An hour later they are in a meeting; a day later they have spoken to someone else. The widely-cited finding that contact rates drop around 8x after five minutes should be treated as a rule of thumb rather than a law, but the direction is not in doubt.

No human team answers in five minutes reliably — people are in meetings, on jobs, on leave. So the first component of the framework is automated: when an enquiry lands, then the system acknowledges it in seconds and puts the first human touch on someone's schedule. This is precisely what our Inbound Engine installs.

What does the framework look like, step by step?

The mechanism runs in six stages. When an enquiry enters the system, then:

1. Instant response. An automated acknowledgement goes out within seconds — confirming receipt, setting expectations, ideally offering a booking link. Not a sale; a signal that the firm is awake.
2. Assignment. The lead is assigned to a named owner in the CRM immediately. One name, visible to everyone.
3. Structured touches over 90 days. A pre-planned series of touches — typically 6 to 10 across the 90 days, front-loaded in the first two weeks and spacing out from there — mixing value (a relevant article, a useful observation about their situation) with plain check-ins. The schedule exists before the lead arrives; nobody designs it per-lead.
4. CRM-driven, not memory-driven. Each touch is a task the CRM raises on the right day. The owner's job is to execute the touch well, not to remember that it is due.
5. Every touch logged. Calls, emails, voicemails — all recorded against the contact. The record is what makes touch six coherent with touch two.
6. Monthly reactivation sweep. Once a month, the system surfaces every lead with no activity in 30 days and every lead whose sequence lapsed, and they are either re-entered or deliberately closed. Leads may go cold; they are not allowed to go missing.

What is the post-proposal sequence?

Proposals deserve their own tighter sequence, because a live proposal is the most expensive thing a firm lets drift. Ours is fixed: touches on day 0, 2, 5, 9 and 14 — then stop.

• Day 0 — the proposal itself, plus confirmation it arrived and a named next step.
• Day 2 — a short check: any questions on the numbers or scope?
• Day 5 — something additive: a clarification, an option, a relevant example.
• Day 9 — a direct question about the decision and its timing.
• Day 14 — a clean closing note: the door stays open, the chasing ends.

Then stop. Never chase past five touches on a proposal. By that point the silence is the answer, and a sixth chase converts a professional impression into a desperate one. The contact goes back into the long-cycle nurture register instead — not-now is not the same as no.

What is the difference between the nurture register and the sales register?

Treating every contact as an active deal is how pipelines turn into noise. The framework keeps two registers:

• Sales register — leads with a live buying signal: an enquiry, a proposal out, a stated timeline. These get the structured 90-day treatment and the owner's active attention.
• Nurture register — everyone else worth keeping: not-nows, past enquiries, closed-lost with good fit. These get low-frequency, value-only touches, typically monthly or quarterly, with no asks.

Movement between registers is event-driven. When a nurture contact replies, clicks a proposal link or re-enquires, then they move to the sales register and the 90-day clock starts. When a sales lead completes the sequence with no signal, then they move to nurture rather than being deleted. The registers make the MD's dashboard honest too: pipeline numbers only count the sales register, so the forecast stops being decorated with hope.

What should you automate, and what must stay human?

The dividing line is simple: automate the triggering, keep the judgement human.

Automate:

• the instant acknowledgement;
• assignment and task creation;
• the schedule of touches and their reminders;
• logging, where the tooling allows it;
• the monthly sweep that surfaces silent leads.

Keep human:

• the actual conversations — calls and any email beyond the acknowledgement;
• the content of value touches, which must be genuinely relevant to that buyer;
• the judgement call to close a lead or move it between registers;
• proposals and pricing, always.

Firms fail in both directions. Fully manual follow-up collapses within weeks because humans forget and find chasing awkward. Fully automated follow-up gets executed perfectly and reads like a machine, because it is one. The system's job is to make sure the human shows up on the right day with the right context — not to replace them.

How does this connect to the rest of the growth system?

Follow-up is one loop in a larger machine. Outbound fills the top of the system — the UK B2B outbound playbook covers that side — and the follow-up framework makes sure nothing that enters, from any source, leaks back out unworked. In our experience the leak is usually bigger than the intake problem: a firm generating 20 enquiries a month and working each one to five-plus touches will typically beat a firm generating 40 and dropping them after two.

The framework needs a CRM, a handful of automations and a fixed set of sequences. It does not need more staff — which matters when the alternative is a hire at £35k+ a year to do, in effect, remembering.

What breaks the framework once it is running?

Four failure modes account for most breakdowns, and all four are preventable:

• Touches logged as done but not actually done. Ticking the CRM task without making the call. The monthly sweep catches the pattern — leads with full activity logs and no replies anywhere — but the real fix is cultural: the log is the record of work, not the work.
• Value touches degrading into check-ins. Under time pressure, "here is something relevant to your situation" collapses into "just following up". The defence is preparing the value content centrally — a small library of articles, examples and observations per sub-vertical — so the owner assembles rather than composes.
• The sweep getting skipped. The monthly reactivation sweep is the least urgent task in any given week, which is why it must be a scheduled, owned event rather than a good intention. When the sweep lapses, then the framework quietly reverts to memory-driven within a quarter.
• New lead sources bypassing entry. A referral taken on the phone, an enquiry to a partner's personal inbox — anything that does not enter the CRM never gets a sequence. Every route in must land in the same front door.

Where do you start?

Measure the leak first. Pull the last 90 days of enquiries and count, for each one: response time, number of touches, and current status in the CRM — if it is in the CRM at all. Most MDs who run this exercise find the follow-up cliff in their own data within an hour, and the fix writes itself from there: instant response first, assignment second, the touch schedule third.

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Next step: the Growth System Audit — £450, seven days, credited against any build — maps where your growth system leaks and what to build first.