Find every “check back in June” in your inbox

What it does

“Not now, check back after the holidays.” “Reach out in Q3.” Buyers hand you the exact date they’ll be ready, and most of those dates pass with no email. It’s the warmest follow-up you can send: they asked for it, and you’re the one who remembered.

What you need

• Your inbox
• Your CRM notes
• Claude or ChatGPT, to pull the dates out of the threads

How it works

1. 1

   Search your inbox for the phrases

   Gmail search: paste into the search bar

   ("check back" OR "reach back" OR "reach out in" OR "circle back" OR "touch base" OR "next quarter" OR "after the holidays" OR "early next year" OR "in the new year") newer_than:2y

   Run the same words through your CRM notes too. Most CRMs let you search notes.

2. 2

   Pull out who and when

   Prompt for Claude or ChatGPT, with the threads pasted in

   Below are email threads with prospects. For each thread, find any time the prospect told us when to get back in touch.
   
   For each one, give me:
   - the person and the company
   - the exact sentence, quoted
   - the date it was sent
   - the date or period they gave, as a real date (for "Q3", the first day of the quarter; for "after the holidays", the first working day of January)
   - whether anyone wrote to them after that date
   
   Only list real requests from the prospect. Skip our own "I'll follow up" lines.

3. 3

   Sort by date

   Dates that have passed with no email go to the top. Dates still to come get a dated task in your CRM or calendar, with the note written now, while you still remember the context.

4. 4

   Write to the ones that have passed

   Email: reply in the old thread

   Subject: Re: [THE OLD THREAD'S SUBJECT]
   
   Hi [FIRST NAME],
   
   In [MONTH] you asked me to check back in [WHEN THEY SAID]. [ONE LINE ON WHAT'S CHANGED ON YOUR SIDE, IF ANYTHING HAS.]
   
   Has anything changed on your end, and is it worth a quick call?
   
   [YOUR NAME]

   Reply in the old thread, so they see the history. If you’re late, say so. “I’m four months late” reads better than pretending you aren’t.

5. 5

   Stop it happening again

   From now on, every “check back in...” gets a dated task the day you read it.

What good looks like

Every date a buyer gave you is either in your calendar or has had an email.

Mistakes to skip

• Writing “just checking in”. Name the date they gave you. It’s the whole reason the note works.
• Starting a new thread. The old one carries the context and shows you were listening.
• Treating every “not now” as a date. “Maybe next year” with no reason is often a polite no.