Find the revenue already sitting in your CRM

What it does

Your next month of revenue is probably already in your CRM: deals that went quiet after a good call, buyers who told you to check back in June, and lost deals whose reason has since changed. Nobody works them, because digging through every deal, email and note by hand takes weeks.

It costs more than it looks. In Ebsta’s 2024 sales benchmarks (the H1 update, built on $57bn of revenue), deals that went more than seven days with no activity and nothing scheduled had win rates 65% lower. This playbook ranks every deal in a week and drafts the next step for the ones worth working now.

What you need

• An export of every open deal, and everything closed-lost in the last 12 months
• Your inbox and call recordings, for what the CRM doesn’t hold
• A spreadsheet, or the free template on this page
• Claude or ChatGPT to read the threads and draft

How it works

1. 1

   Pull every deal (day 1)

   Export every open deal, plus everything closed-lost in the last 12 months: stage, value, dates, owner, last activity, next step, notes, loss reason and contacts. Then pull what sits outside the CRM: the email threads with those contacts (the last message, who wrote last, and anything promised, like “check back in June”), call recordings, and meetings that never got a follow-up. List what’s missing, like loss reasons, or notes kept in someone’s head.

2. 2

   Check what changed since the last touch (day 2)

   For each deal: the company’s news, hiring and funding, whether your contact still works there, and any of your buying signals. Write one “why now” line per deal, or “nothing dated”.

3. 3

   Score every deal (day 3)

   Score = value × likelihood × timing. Each one is high (3), medium (2) or low (1), so scores run from 1 to 27.

   • Value: how well it fits your aim, and the deal size.
   • Likelihood: how far it got, and whether the reason it stalled still holds.
   • Timing: anything that says now. A date they gave has arrived or passed, a fresh signal, or it’s gone quiet well past your normal sales cycle.

   Google Sheets: paste into A1, then fill row 2 down, one row per deal

   Deal	Value, 1 to 3	Likelihood, 1 to 3	Timing, 1 to 3	Score	Why now	Bucket
   [DEAL]	3	2	3	=B2*C2*D2	[ONE LINE, OR "NOTHING DATED"]	

4. 4

   Put each deal in one bucket

   • Work now: the top of the list, down to where a personal note stops being worth sending. A date the buyer gave that has passed always makes it.
   • Hold: a dated reason that still holds, like a busy season or another vendor’s contract. Set the date, and write the note for then.
   • Keep warm: it fits, but there’s no reason to write personally now. It goes into your long-term campaign until a signal fires.
   • Close out: a clear no, opted out, not the buyer, or an autoresponder. Mark it lost, with a reason.
5. 5

   Draft the next step for every Work-now deal (days 4 and 5)

   Two lines of context and one question, in your voice. Open with why you’re writing now: the date they gave, what changed, or the question they asked. Pick up where the conversation stopped, in the same thread. No prices, discounts or new promises.

   Prompt for Claude or ChatGPT, once per deal, with the record, the thread and the notes pasted in

   Here's everything on one deal: the CRM record, the email thread and any call notes.
   
   Write the next email from me to [CONTACT NAME]. Rules:
   - Two lines of context, then one question.
   - Open with why I'm writing now: the date they gave, what changed, or a question they asked that I never answered.
   - Pick up where the conversation stopped. It's a reply in the same thread.
   - Write the way I talk: short, plain, no sales phrases.
   - No prices, discounts or new promises.
   
   Then, on a separate line, quote the exact line in the thread or notes that the "why now" comes from. If there's no real reason to write now, say so instead of drafting.

6. 6

   Read the first five out loud (day 6)

   If one doesn’t sound like you wrote it to that person, rewrite it. If more than one in five needs rewriting, fix your instructions and redraft the whole batch, rather than patching drafts one by one. Then check that nobody who opted out is on the list, and check the rules where your buyers are (Canada’s CASL, for one).

7. 7

   Send from your own inbox (day 7)

   In the existing thread, never from a campaign domain. After three unanswered emails in a row, switch channel: a LinkedIn message, a text or a call. Log every send in the CRM, and fix what the run turned up: missing loss reasons, wrong stages, opt-outs that never made the blocklist.

What good looks like

Every deal sits in exactly one bucket, and the counts add up to the total you pulled. Every draft matches its source: names, dates and quotes. And every Work-now note reads like you wrote it to that one person, because you did.

Mistakes to skip

• Patching bad drafts one by one. If more than one in five needs rewriting, the instructions are wrong. Fix them, and redraft the batch.
• Sending from a campaign domain. These people know you. Write from your own inbox, in the old thread.
• Leaving out closed-lost deals. The reason you lost may have changed.
• Skipping the opt-out check. One email to someone who asked you to stop costs more than the deal.