Chief of Staff Network: The Ghosting Cure

The Problem (The Before)

The Client: A selective professional network and course provider.

The Environment: High demand, limited cohorts, manual application review process.

The Friction:

• The Bottleneck: The team interviewed every applicant to determine fit.
• The Ghosting: Qualified leads sat in the inbox for days and lost interest.
• Subjectivity: Fit was decided by gut feel, not data.

The Pain: Sales spent 40+ hours/week in qualification interviews while high-intent prospects went cold. Revenue velocity was throttled by human capacity.

The Plumbing (The Fix)

Strategy: Implement logic-based routing to remove humans from sorting.

The Stack: Application form (Typeform/Gravity Forms), automation layer (Zapier/Make), CRM.

The Execution:

1. The Audit: Analyze past successful students for key attributes (Title, Company Size, Years of Experience).
2. The Logic Buckets:
   • Bucket A (Auto-Accept): Meets all criteria → send payment link immediately.
   • Bucket B (Interview): Borderline cases → send calendar link for a 15-minute vet.
   • Bucket C (Auto-Reject): Does not meet criteria → send polite rejection + free resource.
3. Payment Defense: Automated follow-ups for Bucket A until payment was complete or objections surfaced.

Technical Approach:

• Forensic analysis of historical applicant data
• Rule-based routing logic in form submission workflows
• Automated comms sequences triggered by bucket assignment
• Removed the human bottleneck from 70% of applications

The Flow (Results & ROI)

Quantifiable Impact:

• Efficiency: Interview volume reduced by 50%.
• Revenue Velocity: Revenue increased 32% in one month by capturing peak-intent leads.
• Student Experience: Faster answers across the board created a premium feel.
• Time Savings: 20+ hours/week freed up for the sales team.

The Breakthrough: Codifying fit into logic eliminated the capacity constraint and captured revenue at peak intent.