The professional services snapshot

Most firms like yours run their practice system well and their sales on memory. The result is a partner who can't say where last year's work came from. It's also a proposal that sat for a month with no reply, because nobody owned the follow-up.

The setup below is the smallest set of objects that fixes that. Nobody has to change how they do the actual work.

1. Pipeline stages

• Enquiry received (10%), Fit or conflict check (20%), Consultation booked (40%), Consultation held (55%), Proposal sent (70%), Engagement signed, Declined, Not a fit.
• Two loss stages, not one. When they say no and when you say no are different outcomes. Mixing them ruins the numbers.

2. Fields and dispositions

• Referral source, as a custom field with a fixed list, not free text. Existing client, professional referrer, directory, website, event, other.
• Matter or work type, at the level your firm reports on.
• Consultation outcome: engaged, thinking, not a fit, referred elsewhere.
• Decline reason: fee, timing, conflict, capacity, not our area.

3. Segments

• Proposals sent more than five days ago with no reply.
• Consultations held with no decision after two weeks.
• Professional referrers with no contact in ninety days.
• Existing clients using only one service line, for the cross-sell conversation.
• Past clients whose matter closed more than a year ago.

4. Cadences

• Enquiry response, three steps over five days, starting immediately.
• Proposal follow-up, four steps over twenty-one days, ending with an easy no. The proposal itself goes out as a quote with line items and a typed e-signature, and a signed quote moves the deal to Engagement signed.
• Referrer nurture, quarterly, four touches a year, none of them a pitch.
• Cross-sell, two steps, sent only outside your busy season.
• Past client re-engagement, two steps timed to the anniversary of the closed matter.

5. Channels

• The enquiries mailbox, linked over IMAP and shared, not sitting with one person.
• The website enquiry form pointed at the inbound endpoint.
• The booking link, linked up so each booking becomes a meeting with its source logged.
• SLA timers on the shared inbox. In this line of work, an enquiry left unanswered is the whole problem.

6. Knowledge base

• Service lines and what each covers, in the words a client would use.
• Fee structure at the level you are willing to state before a consultation.
• What you do not do, which prevents drafts from promising work you would refuse.
• Jurisdictions or geographies you practise in.

7. Agent policy and access

• Inbox agent in review, drafting acknowledgements and scheduling replies only.
• No matter detail in the knowledge base, so drafts cannot repeat something confidential.
• Access scoped by area, so a fee earner sees their own enquiries, not the whole firm's.
• MCP tokens scoped the same way and revoked when someone leaves.
• Every tool call in the audit log. That's what lets you answer a secrecy question with facts, not debate.

Keep the line clear. Enquiry and scheduling details live here. Case, matter or client details live in your practice system. You make that call once, in setup. Nobody has to make it under time pressure.

Your profession's governing body also has rules on how firms can advertise and seek work. Those rules differ by country and by profession. Read the ones that apply to you before you run outbound. This page is not legal advice.

Every object above is created through the app or an MCP tool. Once the first office is right, export the setup as a snapshot and apply it to the next office or practice group in one action.