Language: English
Start 14-day free trial

Official skill · Sales

Sales follow-up email

v1.0.1 · Updated

Writes the follow-up after a sales call: a recap in the buyer's words, the next step with a date, one ask, plus day 3, day 7 and breakup nudges. Use it when you just finished a discovery call, demo, or meeting with a prospect.

Add to my team's pod Download SKILL.md

Works in Claude, ChatGPT, and coding agents. On Team and Business, the official skill in your pod updates itself when we improve it.

When to use it

What you give it

What you get

A ready-to-send email with subject, recap bullets, a dated next step, and one ask.

How it works

  1. Pick the variant Our default cadence: same-day recap if the call was in the last 48 hours; day 3 nudge after 1 unanswered email, day 7 after 2, breakup after 3. Never send a 5th.
  2. Pull the buyer's words Take 2–3 phrases the buyer said about their problem or goal and reuse them verbatim or close to it. Their words beat your product's words every time.
  3. Write the recap (same-day only) 3 bullets max: their problem, what they want by when, and what you agreed. No feature list. If they raised a concern, name it and say how you'll answer it.
  4. State the next step with a date One line: who does what, by when ("I'll send the security doc by Thursday; you'll book 30 minutes with Dana for next week"). If a meeting, offer 2 specific times, not "let me know when works": in Gong's data on deal emails, specific-time asks had a 37% success rate against 32% for open-ended ones.
  5. Make one ask One question or one action, at the end, easy to answer in a line. Boomerang found emails with 1–3 questions got about 50% more replies than emails with none; our default is exactly 1 so the reply is one line.
  6. Write the subject Same-day: "[Company] + [your company]: recap and next step". Nudges: reply in the same thread, keep the subject. Boomerang's data favours subjects of 3–4 words; keep yours close to that.
  7. Keep it short Boomerang's study of over 40 million emails found 50–125 words got the most replies. Our defaults: same-day under 150 words (the recap needs the room). Day 3 under 60. Day 7 under 50 and adds one new thing (a relevant example, a number, a resource), never "just checking in". Breakup under 50, gives them an easy out and keeps the door open.

The SKILL.md

The whole file, as your AI reads it. Download it

---
name: follow-up-email
description: Writes the follow-up email after a sales call or meeting - a recap in the buyer's words, the agreed next step with a date, and one ask - plus no-reply nudges for day 3, day 7, and a breakup email. Use when someone needs a follow-up, recap email, thank-you after a demo, or a nudge because the prospect went quiet or didn't reply.
---

# Sales follow-up email

A follow-up works when the buyer can forward it to their boss as the summary of the call. Recap their problem in their words, lock the next step with a date, and ask for exactly one thing. Nudges get shorter each time, never longer. Gong's analysis of 304,174 emails found that once a deal is active, asking for a specific day and time succeeds more often than an open question.

## When to use

- Same day after a discovery call, demo, or meeting with a prospect.
- When a prospect hasn't replied 3 or 7 days after your last email.
- When you're ready to close the loop with a breakup email.
- Not for first contact with someone you haven't spoken to: use cold-outreach-email.

## What you need

- Call notes or a transcript, or the rep's bullet recap. If missing, ask once for the 3 things the buyer said mattered most.
- The agreed next step and date. If none was agreed, propose one and mark it "[assumption]" for the rep.
- The variant: same-day recap, day 3 nudge, day 7 nudge, or breakup. If not said, write the same-day recap.
- For nudges: the last email sent and the date.

## Steps

1. **Pick the variant.** Our default cadence: same-day recap if the call was in the last 48 hours; day 3 nudge after 1 unanswered email, day 7 after 2, breakup after 3. Never send a 5th.
2. **Pull the buyer's words.** Take 2–3 phrases the buyer said about their problem or goal and reuse them verbatim or close to it. Their words beat your product's words every time.
3. **Write the recap (same-day only).** 3 bullets max: their problem, what they want by when, and what you agreed. No feature list. If they raised a concern, name it and say how you'll answer it.
4. **State the next step with a date.** One line: who does what, by when ("I'll send the security doc by Thursday; you'll book 30 minutes with Dana for next week"). If a meeting, offer 2 specific times, not "let me know when works": in Gong's data on deal emails, specific-time asks had a 37% success rate against 32% for open-ended ones.
5. **Make one ask.** One question or one action, at the end, easy to answer in a line. Boomerang found emails with 1–3 questions got about 50% more replies than emails with none; our default is exactly 1 so the reply is one line.
6. **Write the subject.** Same-day: "[Company] + [your company]: recap and next step". Nudges: reply in the same thread, keep the subject. Boomerang's data favours subjects of 3–4 words; keep yours close to that.
7. **Keep it short.** Boomerang's study of over 40 million emails found 50–125 words got the most replies. Our defaults: same-day under 150 words (the recap needs the room). Day 3 under 60. Day 7 under 50 and adds one new thing (a relevant example, a number, a resource), never "just checking in". Breakup under 50, gives them an easy out and keeps the door open.

## Output format

```markdown
**Variant:** [Same-day recap / Day 3 nudge / Day 7 nudge / Breakup]
**Subject:** [subject, or "reply in thread"]

Hi [first name],

[1 sentence: thanks + the one thing that stood out, in their words]

[Recap bullets — same-day only:]
- [Their problem, their words]
- [What they want, by when]
- [What we agreed / concern and how we'll answer it]

**Next step:** [who does what by when]

[One ask, as a question]

[Sign-off]
[Name]

---
**For the rep:** [anything marked assumption, or a fact to confirm]
```

## Example

**Input:** Demo with Marta Ruiz, Head of Ops at Calloway Dental (12 clinics). She said: "Our front desks spend the first hour every morning calling no-shows from yesterday." Wants it fixed before their busy season in January. Concern: does it work with their booking system, DentaBook? Agreed: rep sends the DentaBook integration notes by Wednesday; Marta brings her IT lead to a 30-minute call next week (rep is free Tuesday 11 am or Thursday 2 pm). For a later nudge, the rep has a customer result still to be cleared for sharing: Pinegrove Dental (8 clinics, also on DentaBook) cut morning no-show calls to 15 minutes in their first month.

**Output:**

```markdown
**Variant:** Same-day recap
**Subject:** Calloway Dental + Remindly: recap and next step

Hi Marta,

Thanks for today. The line that stuck with me: your front desks spend the first hour every morning calling yesterday's no-shows.

- 12 clinics, each losing that first hour to no-show calls.
- You want it fixed before the January busy season.
- Your open question is DentaBook: I'll show exactly how we connect.

**Next step:** I'll send the DentaBook integration notes by Wednesday. You'll bring your IT lead to a 30-minute call next week.

Does Tuesday 11 am or Thursday 2 pm work for that call?

Best,
Jonah
```

Day 7 nudge for the same deal:

```markdown
**Variant:** Day 7 nudge
**Subject:** reply in thread

Hi Marta,

One thing since my last note: Pinegrove Dental (8 clinics, also on DentaBook) cut morning no-show calls to 15 minutes in their first month.

Still worth a 30-minute call with your IT lead before January?

Jonah

---
**For the rep:** confirm the Pinegrove result is approved for sharing.
```

## Checks before you send

- [ ] At least one phrase is the buyer's own words, not product language.
- [ ] The next step has a person, an action, and a date.
- [ ] There is exactly one ask, and it's the last line before the sign-off.
- [ ] Word count is under the variant's limit.
- [ ] No fact, customer result, or price that isn't in the notes; anything else is flagged for the rep.
- [ ] Nudges add something new and never say "just checking in" or "bumping this".

## Common mistakes

- Recapping your demo instead of their problem. They remember their pain, not your slides.
- "Let me know if you have any questions" as the ask. It asks for nothing.
- A breakup email that guilt-trips. Keep it light: "I'll assume the timing's off and stop here."

Share it with your team

Add it to an AI Skill Pod and everyone on the team, contractors included, uses the same version from their own AI. Read the best ways to share AI skills with a team

Add to my team's pod

Changelog

Sources

  1. 7 Tips for Getting More Responses to Your Emails (With Data!) (read 2026-11-04)
  2. Cold Email CTA That Books More Meetings: Surprising Insights (read 2026-11-04)