Your first week in LeadWise

The order that works. One task a day for five days, ending with a real sequence going to real people.

The most common way to stall in a new CRM is to open everything at once, feel the weight of it, and go back to the spreadsheet. This is the order that works. One task a day, each one built on the last, ending with real emails to real people on Friday.

Day 1: Connect your mailbox

Nothing else works until this does. Connecting Gmail lets LeadWise send as you, see replies, and stop a sequence when someone answers.

While you are in settings, check the sending schedule and the daily limit. The default limits exist to protect your domain and are worth leaving alone until you have a reason.

Day 2: Get contacts in

Import the list you already have, even if it is imperfect. An empty CRM teaches you nothing and a populated one makes every other feature legible.

Import fifty rows first, look at the result, then do the rest. The preparation is most of the work.

Day 3: Build one segment

Not five. One, and make it the audience you would email this week if you had to pick.

Building it forces you to notice what your data can and cannot answer, which is the most useful thing you will learn all week. Static, dynamic or AI is the only decision that needs care.

Day 4: Write one template

A personal email, five sentences, one question. Resist the pull to write the whole sequence today.

Preview it against a real contact from yesterday's segment. If merge fields come out blank, the fix is in the data, not the template. The structure that works is short.

Day 5: Send a small sequence

Four steps, widening waits, reply as an exit condition. Enroll yourself, watch step one arrive, then enroll fifty people from your segment.

Fifty is the number on purpose. It is enough to learn from and small enough that a mistake is a lesson rather than an incident.

Week 2 and after

• Read the sequence report once the first pass completes, starting with bounces.
• Add the pipeline once you have replies worth tracking. Not before, or you will be maintaining empty stages.
• Invite the rest of the team once your own loop works. A process that works for one person is worth copying; one that does not is worth fixing first.

Do

• Do one thing a day and finish it.
• Import real data early, even if it is messy.
• Send a real sequence in week one. Nothing else teaches as fast.
• Start at fifty contacts.

Don't

• Do not spend the week configuring. A perfectly set up CRM with no sends has taught you nothing.
• Do not build eight segments before sending anything.
• Do not invite the whole team on day one.
• Do not raise the daily sending limit in your first week.

What if I do not have a contact list yet?

Start with the twenty accounts you already know you want. A real list of twenty beats a bought list of two thousand, and it will not bounce.

Should I set up the pipeline first?

No. The pipeline tracks conversations you have not started yet. Get the outreach working, then track what it produces.

How long until this is actually running?

A week to your first sends, two or three before the reports say anything reliable. Most of that is waiting for replies rather than working.