Keeping Leads Moving
How fast CeremonySync expects a lead to progress, what it does when one stalls, and how to work the pipeline so nothing goes quiet.
Most lost bookings are not lost to a competitor. They are lost to silence — a lead that came in on a Tuesday, got a reply on Friday, and had already booked somewhere else.
CeremonySync watches for that. Every lead carries a running clock, and when one goes quiet for too long it says so and tells you what to do next. This article is about what those timings are and how to work with them.
The first hour matters most
A brand new inquiry is judged on how fast you reply, not on what stage it is in.
| Waiting | What it means |
|---|---|
| Under 1 hour | On track |
| Over 1 hour | Getting urgent |
| Over 4 hours | Warning |
| Over 24 hours | Critical |
Nothing else in the pipeline is measured this tightly, and that is deliberate. Whoever replies first usually gets the tour.
Tip: If inquiries arrive outside your working hours, decide in advance who checks them and when. A lead that lands at 9pm and is answered at 9am is a one-hour reply in practice — but only if someone actually looks.
After first contact, each stage has its own pace
Once a lead is moving, CeremonySync measures the time since anything last happened on it — a contact logged, a tour, a follow-up. Each stage has two thresholds:
| Stage | Needs a nudge after | Going cold after | What it wants next |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contacted | 3 days | 7 days | Book a tour |
| Meet | 2 days | 5 days | Send a proposal |
| Proposal | 3 days | 7 days | Follow up on the proposal |
Meet is the tightest, and that is the point. Someone who has just walked your venue is as warm as they will ever be. Two days later they are comparing you against the other two places they saw that week.
New and Booked are not measured this way — a new lead is on the reply clock above, and a booked one has stopped being a lead.
What you actually see
A lead that has gone quiet is labeled with the reason, not just a color:
- Needs a nudge — past the first threshold
- Going cold — past the second
- Waiting on a reply / No reply yet — a new inquiry you have not answered
Each one comes with the next action for that stage, so you are never left deciding what the follow-up should be. Stalled leads sort to the top, worst first.
Working it in practice
Clear the reply clock first. Anything marked "No reply yet" outranks everything else on the board. It is the cheapest booking you will ever make.
Log contact when you make it. The clock resets on activity — a logged contact, a tour, a follow-up. If you call someone and do not record it, CeremonySync still thinks they are waiting, and will keep telling you so.
Move the stage when reality moves. The thresholds are per stage, so a lead sitting in Contacted long after the tour happened is being measured against the wrong deadline.
Use "going cold" as a decision point, not a nag. Seven days past a proposal with no reply is a signal to either make a real attempt — a call rather than another email — or mark it Lost with a reason. Leads that linger in the pipeline forever make every count on your dashboard less honest.
Note: Marking a lead Lost is not failure, and it is worth doing properly. The reason you record is what later tells you whether you are losing on price, on date availability, or to one particular competitor.
If the timings do not suit your venue
They are defaults, not rules. A venue booking eighteen months out works to a different rhythm than one filling next month's Saturdays.
Read them as a floor rather than a target: they describe the point at which a lead is measurably at risk, not the pace you should aim for. If your pipeline is consistently amber, the answer is usually more follow-up capacity, not slower thresholds.
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