How a wellness business should track enquiries: a simple lead sheet before a CRM

You do not need software to learn where your members come from. A sheet with a row per enquiry, plus the arithmetic below done on your own numbers, is enough. Four sums tell you which source fills your counter, which fills your floor and where replies are too slow. When the sums stop answering, choose a CRM. What follows is the worksheet, with a small example worked first.

Step one: eight columns, no more

Rule out anything that slows a row below a minute. The columns are date and time, name and number, source, interested in, time of first reply, next step with a date, outcome, and a late column called "still coming at month three". Source is a fixed word from a short printed list: Walk-in, Instagram, Google call, Referral, JustDial, Other. Free-typed sources cannot be counted, because "Insta", "IG" and "Instagram" are three sources to a formula.

Outcome is one of Joined, Trial booked, Not now, Lost, or Open. Never leave it blank. A blank means the lead is either alive or forgotten, and nobody can tell which.

Keep one sheet, shared on a phone. If the desk keeps one and the owner keeps another, neither is true.

Step two: the four sums

Run sums one to three once you have about six weeks of rows. Fewer than that and one odd week will mislead you. Sum four needs joiners who have been with you three months, so it comes later.

Sum one, the share of enquiries by source. Count rows per source and divide by the total. This is your volume.

Sum two, the join rate by source. For each source, rows marked Joined divided by rows from that source. This is your yield.

Sum three, the reply gap. Time of first reply minus the date and time of the enquiry, for each row. Look at the longest gaps and at which source they belong to.

Sum four, the stay rate by source. Of the people who joined from a source, how many are still coming at month three. This sum separates a source that fills the counter from one that fills the floor.

A worked example, then yours

Take an invented Pilates studio in Panaji with eighty-odd enquiries logged over a quarter. All numbers here are invented to show the method.

Instagram gives the most enquiries and the weakest yield. Referrals are the smallest source, yet seven of nine joined and all seven are still coming, which the owner had never known. Google calls are the quiet surprise.

Now the reply gap. In the invented sheet, the Instagram messages arrive after nine at night and are answered the next afternoon, while calls are picked up at once.

Your turn. Copy the table, replace the four rows with your own sources, and fill in the counts from the sheet. The blanks you cannot fill are the next thing to track.

What the numbers do and do not say

The studio reads the table and sees two things. Instagram is not failing on interest, since thirty-four people asked. It is failing on the gap between a night-time message and an afternoon reply. And the cheapest source it owns, member referrals, is the one it has never promoted.

The tempting move is to put more money into reels. The better one is to answer Instagram the same evening and give members a reason to bring a friend. But the sheet only points. A low join rate could mean slow replies, a price mismatch or a source that attracts window shoppers, and only a conversation with the people who dropped tells you which. Read the outcome notes, a line in their own words, before you decide.

With small numbers, be careful. Four joiners from one source is not a rate you can lean on, so treat a result as a lead for investigation until it repeats across a few months.

Three habits that quietly ruin a sheet

Rows entered from memory a week later. By then the reply times are guesses and the next steps are gone. Enter the row as the enquiry comes, even if it is half empty.

Leads that never get a next-step date. "Call back" is not a date. "Call on the 12th after 6" is.

A column nobody reads. If no one acts on Interested in, delete it. Reading the sheet aloud with the front desk for a few minutes now and then keeps the columns honest, since people fill in what the owner reads out.

When the sheet has done its job

Three signs say move on. Two people overwrite each other's edits to the same lead. The sheet is long enough that follow-ups get buried. Or you want reminders sent without anyone having to remember. Choosing a tool against the pattern your sheet has recorded is what CRM consulting and selection is for. For a version of the sheet aimed at professional firms, see a lead sheet for a firm with ten enquiries a month.

Fill in the first table today

Make the sheet with the eight columns, and enter the last twenty enquiries you can recall, even roughly. Mark each with its source and its outcome. Then draw the table above with your own sources and fill in what you know. If you want help with how enquiries move through your wellness and fitness business, tell us what you need.