Lead-to-Kickoff Automation

THE PROBLEM

Cakewalk is a white-glove elopement planning company in New York City, owned and operated by Lia Seremetis. In the early days of Cakewalk, Lia was running the entire client intake system out of email and Google Drive. New inquiries came in and Lia replied manually — which meant leads were easy to miss and easy to lose. Converting an interested prospect into a signed client required creating a new contract each time, chasing down signatures, and creating payment requests manually. Every step was its own task. Every task had room for human error.

THE SOLUTION

We built a fully structured intake system that takes a new inquiry — from a website form or an inbound email — and moves it through consultation scheduling, agreement generation, e-signature, and deposit invoicing without requiring Lia to manage any of it manually. Now, Lia conducts the consultation call when the time comes, fills in a few custom fields in the CRM for the client agreement, and clicks send. Everything else runs on its own.

WHAT HAPPENS AUTOMATICALLY

Once a new inquiry is submitted, the system manages the rest of the workflow behind the scenes, including:

• Creating a CRM record

• Sending follow-up emails if no consultation is scheduled

• Generating a calendar invite and updating the CRM when a consultation is booked — including handling reschedules and cancellations

• Sending 24-hour and 2-hour reminders before the call

Once the consultation is executed, Lia fills out a few customizable fields and in less than 2 minutes clicks “Send Agreement,” at which point the rest is automatic, including:

• Generating and sending the scope of work as a sign-able agreement

• Creating the client as a customer in the payment system and issuing a deposit invoice once the agreement is signed

• Sending up to three deposit payment reminders if the invoice goes unpaid

• Triggering the engagement kickoff email when the deposit clears

IN ACTION

THE RESULT

• Reduced administrative time on client intake by 90%

• End-to-end intake handled with just two manual touchpoints: the consultation call and the send agreement workflow

• No manual contract assembly, no room for human error in the handoff

• No separate invoice creation or follow-up tracking

• Deposit payment and kickoff sequenced automatically — nothing falls through

• More leads converted, and Cakewalk gets paid faster

SYSTEM FLEXIBILITY

This architecture works with any combination of form, CRM, e-signature, and payment tools depending on what's already in place. If a structured CRM doesn't exist yet, that foundation is typically the starting point.