Every brokerage has a graveyard: quotes that went out, got a polite “let me think about it,” and never got touched again. The instinct is to treat those as losses. The data says they’re inventory.
The window is real
Car moves are driven by life events — a job start date, a lease ending, a snowbird season. Those dates slip, but they rarely vanish. When we tagged every “not right now” with the reason, 7 in 10 had a concrete future trigger the customer volunteered without being asked.
The customer told you when to call back. The CRM just didn’t have a field for it.
The cadence that works
Four touches, spread across four months. Day 3: a short check-in while the quote is fresh. Day 21: a rate refresh — lanes move, and a new number is a reason to talk. Day 60: the season touch, tied to whatever trigger they mentioned. Day 110: the last call before you genuinely archive it.
Make it automatic
None of this survives as a sticky-note system. The follow-ups have to be scheduled the moment the lead goes cold, assigned to a person, and surfaced on the day — or the graveyard wins again.
Work the window. The leads you already paid for are the cheapest ones you will ever get.