Day 5: Build a Complete Lead Management System

Design Before You Build

Complex automations built without a plan become unmaintainable spaghetti. Before opening Make.com, answer four questions on paper:

1. What is the trigger?
   → Form submission via Typeform/Google Forms

2. What is the happy path?
   → Qualified lead gets personalized email + enters CRM

3. What can go wrong?
   → Spam submission, API failure, malformed JSON

4. What does success look like?
   → Lead in CRM + team notified + reply sent within 5 min

Drawing a quick flowchart before building saves hours of backtracking. The whole thing takes 10 minutes and prevents building into a dead end.

AI Lead Qualification

The highest-value thing AI can do in a lead system is qualify leads consistently. You define the criteria once; AI applies them to every submission the same way every time — no fatigue, no bias based on whether it's your first or fiftieth inquiry of the day.

Evaluate this business inquiry. Return JSON only.

Criteria:
- Budget signal: Do they suggest budget over $5K?
- Timeline: Starting within 3 months?
- Fit: Does their need match AI training services?

{
  "score": 1-10,
  "tier": "hot | warm | cold",
  "reasoning": "1 sentence",
  "reply_urgency": "immediate | same-day | this-week"
}

Inquiry: {{inquiry}}

The score + tier combination lets you route the workflow without ambiguity. Your router conditions become simple: tier = "hot", tier = "warm", tier = "cold".

Build the Complete Pipeline

Here's the full scenario, module by module:

Module 1: Trigger. Google Forms or Typeform — Watch New Submissions. Your contact form feeds this.

Module 2: AI Qualification. OpenAI — score the lead. Parse the JSON output.

Module 3: Router. Add a Router (the diamond icon). Create three filter conditions:

• Branch A: tier = "hot"
• Branch B: tier = "warm"
• Branch C: else (cold)

Branch A (Hot): Fast reply + priority CRM + instant Slack alert
Add an OpenAI step: "Write a warm, specific reply to this inquiry. Reference what they said. Keep it under 130 words. Close with a calendar link offer." Pass the original inquiry + your services description.
Gmail — Send Email with the AI-drafted reply. CC yourself.
CRM entry (Notion/Airtable/HubSpot) with tag: Priority.
Slack — post to #leads: "🔥 HOT LEAD — [name] — Score [score] — [reasoning]"

Branch B (Warm): Standard reply + CRM
Similar AI reply step but prompt says "professional and warm, less urgent tone."
CRM entry with tag: Follow-up.
Slack — daily digest mention (not immediate alert).

Branch C (Cold): CRM only
CRM entry with tag: Low Priority. No reply sent, no notification.