Featured guide
Where leads
go missing
You probably don't have a lead problem. You have a leak problem. This 12-point check walks your website, phone, inbox and follow-up the way a new customer would, and shows you which fix will win back the most work.
Plug the leaks before you buy more leads
Our rule
Before anyone spends another dollar on ads, we follow a new inquiry from start to finish and watch where it slips.
More traffic into a leaky process doesn't bring in more work. It brings in more leakage. And leaks are easy to miss, because you never see them:
A missed call doesn't leave a note saying "went with someone else".
A form that stopped sending alerts doesn't send an error.
A great review nobody replied to doesn't complain.
When Harvard Business Review audited 2,241 US companies by sending each a web inquiry, 23% never responded at all. The companies that did reply within an hour were nearly seven times more likely to qualify the lead than those that replied later.
Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington · Harvard Business Review, 2011The good news: these leads were already yours. Fixing a leak recovers business you've already paid to attract.
How to run the check
Set aside 20 minutes and act like a customer who has never heard of you. You'll need a phone number that isn't saved in your business contacts, a personal email address and a timer.
Score each checkpoint
Works well, as a customer would hope.
Works, but slowly, clumsily or only sometimes.
Broken, missing, or you're not sure.
Be honest. "I think it works" scores 0 until you've tested it.
The 12 checkpoints
Getting found and getting in touch
Is the next step obvious?
Open your homepage on your phone. In five seconds, could a stranger tell what you do, who it's for, and how to contact you?
A plain-language headline, one clear button, and a phone number you can tap.
Do form inquiries actually arrive?
Fill in your own contact form with your personal email. Time how long it takes to reach the person who'll act on it: not a shared inbox, not spam.
The alert reaches a named person within a minute, and you get an acknowledgement back.
What happens when you can't answer the phone?
Call your business line from the unsaved number while you're busy.
If nobody picks up, the caller gets a friendly text within a minute saying who you are and when you'll call back.
What happens after hours?
Send an inquiry at 8pm on a Saturday.
An immediate reply that says when a person will follow up, plus a way to book a time.
Responding
Are your messages watched?
List every place a customer can message you: email, Facebook, Instagram, your Google Business Profile, text. Who checks each one, and how often?
Everything lands in one inbox that a named person watches.
How fast does a human reply?
From your tests above, note the time until a person replied, not an automatic acknowledgement.
Minutes during working hours; the next morning at the latest for after-hours inquiries.
Following up
Does every quote get followed up?
Look at your last five quotes. Did each one get a second and a third touch if the customer went quiet?
A planned follow-up at around day 2, day 5 and day 10, then a polite close.
Are appointments confirmed and reminded?
A confirmation when it's booked, a reminder the day before, and an easy way to reschedule.
Knowing what works
Do you know where last month's jobs came from?
You can name the source of most won jobs without guessing.
Is every lead in one place, with an owner?
One CRM, every open lead has a stage and a named owner, and nothing lives only on a sticky note or in someone's texts.
Being trusted
Do strangers see proof?
Search your business on Google as a customer would.
Recent reviews, each with a personal reply; real photos of your work and your team; a named person behind the business.
Nearly every customer checks. 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and half say they're unlikely to choose a business that uses templated replies.
BrightLocal · Local Consumer Review Survey, 2026 Follow-up message templates →Does your business look like people?
Look at your website and your last ten social posts. Would a stranger see real faces, real projects and a real voice, or stock photos and slogans?
The people and the work are visible.
People buy from people they trust. Authenticity and relatability are the two traits consumers value most from brands, and trust now counts as much as price and quality when people choose who to buy from.
Sprout Social Index, 2025 · Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, 2025 The five-second homepage test →Reading your score
Add up your points, out of 24.
Tight. Your basics are solid. Spend your energy on growth.
Leaking. Two or three gaps are costing you real work. Start with your lowest-scoring checkpoint.
Fix first. Hold off on new marketing spend until the basics are working.
Where to start
Fix the lowest score in the Responding group first. It affects every lead, from every source.
An example
An established remodeling company, around 15 people, with a good reputation and a website that looks the part. Calls during jobs go to voicemail, nobody replies after hours, and web inquiries land in a shared inbox the office manager checks between other work.
The website isn't their problem. Their response is. The first fix is one inbox with a named owner, plus an instant text-back for missed calls. It costs them no new leads, only the ones they were already getting.
A composite based on businesses like the ones we work with; details are illustrative.Want a second pair of eyes?
Book a free 30-minute strategy call and we'll walk through your score with you, then show you the one or two fixes we'd make first.
Get the printable scorecard
Score your business on paper and share it with your team. Every checkpoint, what good looks like, and a worksheet for your first three fixes.
Related resources
Nate designs custom websites and the CRM, automation and reporting behind them as one system, for builders, makers and established teams that have outgrown their setup.
Sources
Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington. "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads." Harvard Business Review, March 2011.
BrightLocal. Local Consumer Review Survey 2026.
Sprout Social. The 2025 Sprout Social Index.
Edelman. 2025 Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Trust, From We to Me.
The Lead Leak Scorecard
Four printable pages to score your business with your team.
Get the scorecard