Keeping the thread through Durga Puja: close, park and restart your open enquiries

"Everything stops for Puja and we lose the thread." The quotations sent in the fortnight before Mahalaya sit unanswered through the holidays. By the time the office reopens after Lakshmi Puja, nobody remembers who asked for what, and some of those buyers have ordered from someone who phoned during Navami. Keeping the thread takes three moves. Sweep every open enquiry before Mahalaya and close, park or drop each one. Tell each parked buyer, in writing, when you reopen and who will call. Then restart on the first working day with a prepared message.

Before Mahalaya: the sweep

Two weeks before Mahalaya, gather every open enquiry into one list. Look in the enquiry register if you keep one, in the WhatsApp chats on every phone in the office, in IndiaMART, and in the missed-call log. A salesperson's personal phone counts too. If they leave during the holidays, their chats leave with them.

For each enquiry, write five things: who it is, what they want, roughly what it is worth, when you last spoke, and what happens next. Then put every enquiry in one of three piles:

• Close now. The buyer is close to a decision. Send the final quotation and ask, plainly, whether they can confirm before Shashthi.
• Park, with a date. The buyer will not decide before Puja, and that is fine. Fix the date you will call after the break, and tell them.
• Let go. No reply since well before the sweep, or a clear no. Do not carry it into November out of hope.

The middle pile is the one the rest of this routine protects.

The message every parked buyer gets

Send it from the business number, not a personal one, before the office closes. Change the brackets for each buyer:

Namaskar [name]. Our office is closed for Puja from [date] and reopens on [date]. Your quotation for [item] stays valid until [date]. [Staff name] will call you on [date] to take it forward. For anything urgent during the break, please call [number]. Shubho Sharodiya.

The validity date matters. Set it after your reopening day, so the buyer can decide during the holidays without fearing a new price. If your material costs might move over the break, say so now, not when you call.

For new enquiries during the break, set an away message in the WhatsApp Business app with the same dates and the urgent number.

During Puja: one person on watch

Nobody needs to sell during Puja. But one person should check the business phone once a day, reply to anything new with a line and a date, and add it to the list. Buyers in Mumbai, Bengaluru or Dubai may not stop for Puja at all. A contractor with a deadline does not stop either.

On reopening day: the Bijoya message

Bijoya greetings give you a natural reason to write. Use it, but put the open item in the same message, or it is only a greeting:

Shubho Bijoya, [name]. We are back at work. Before Puja you asked about [item, size, quantity]. The quotation is attached again and is valid until [date]. Can [staff name] come for the site measurement on [day] or [day]?

Then call, in order of value, starting with the buyers you promised a date to. Keep the promise to the day. A buyer who was told "[name] will call you on the 18th" and gets the call on the 18th has just learnt something about how you deliver.

A window maker who restarted from memory

Imagine a maker of aluminium windows and partitions with a workshop off the EM Bypass in Kolkata. The details are illustrative. In the fortnight before Puja the firm sent fourteen quotations, to families finishing new flats and to two small builders in New Town. Then it closed for twelve days.

After Lakshmi Puja, the owner started calling from memory. Half the numbers were in the phone of a salesperson who had left during the holidays. One builder had already given the job to a fabricator who rang during Navami. Two families were still deciding. They had heard nothing and assumed the firm was too busy for them.

The next season, the firm ran the sweep two weeks before Mahalaya, from one shared register and one business WhatsApp number. Every parked buyer got the closing message with a call date. A family member checked the business phone each morning of the holidays, and the Bijoya message went out on reopening day with the quotation attached. Of the fourteen, six answered, two confirmed and one had already gone elsewhere. The rest stayed quiet, as some always will. Nobody had to remember anything, though the sweep cost two evenings of the owner's time.

Enquiries already lost in past Pujas are a separate job, covered under missed and dormant lead recovery.

When to leave it alone

Do not push a buyer to decide before Shashthi with a discount. It teaches them to wait for the next festival offer. If your buyers are shops in their own Puja rush, park their non-urgent enquiries without fuss. Nobody decides on windows or packaging while the counter is full. And do not send the Bijoya message to every number in your phone. Send it to buyers with an open enquiry and to customers who know you. A greeting to everyone fits Poila Baisakh better, when many West Bengal traders open the new year's account book anyway.

Build the open list before anyone asks for leave

Start the list now, whatever the date. Open every WhatsApp chat on the office phones, every salesperson's included, and write down each enquiry still waiting for a reply. If that takes more than an afternoon, the sweep before Mahalaya will take longer, so begin it earlier. For the register, the Puja messages and a follow-up routine set up for your office, see lead response and follow-up or tell us what you need.