Most solo consultants do not need a full CRM on day one. They need a place to see who matters, what was promised, and what needs follow-up before the thread goes cold.

This is the first Automation Lab anchor because it is small enough to build quickly, painful enough to matter, and flexible enough to become a template, a service offer, or a niche-site content series.

The Operating Problem

Follow-up usually fails in three places:

• the next action is not written down
• the due date is not visible during the workday
• the pipeline is reviewed only when panic arrives

The minimum useful system is a Google Sheet with clear stages, a follow-up date, and a short automation that surfaces what needs attention.

Artifact: CRM Build Checklist

Use one sheet called Opportunities with these columns:

• Contact
• Company
• Offer
• Stage
• Last Touch
• Next Follow-Up
• Next Action
• Value
• Source
• Notes

Use these starter stages:

• Lead
• Contacted
• Conversation
• Proposal
• Won
• Lost
• Nurture

Then add one filtered view for each day:

• overdue follow-ups
• due today
• proposals waiting on a reply
• nurture contacts older than 30 days

Starter Apps Script

This script finds rows due today or earlier and writes a short summary that can be adapted for email, Slack, or a daily dashboard.

function getFollowUpsDue() {
  const sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getSheetByName("Opportunities");
  const values = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();
  const headers = values.shift();
  const followUpIndex = headers.indexOf("Next Follow-Up");
  const contactIndex = headers.indexOf("Contact");
  const actionIndex = headers.indexOf("Next Action");
  const stageIndex = headers.indexOf("Stage");
  const today = new Date();
  today.setHours(0, 0, 0, 0);

  return values
    .filter((row) => {
      const followUpDate = row[followUpIndex];
      return followUpDate instanceof Date && followUpDate <= today;
    })
    .map((row) => ({
      contact: row[contactIndex],
      stage: row[stageIndex],
      action: row[actionIndex],
      followUpDate: row[followUpIndex],
    }));
}

What Makes This A Good Niche Pilot

This is not a generic "best CRM tools" article. It is a working workflow. A useful version can turn into:

• a downloadable Google Sheet template
• a setup checklist
• a client intake service
• a before-and-after case study
• a small library of Apps Script recipes

The test is simple: does the artifact help one operator see and act on the next follow-up faster than they could yesterday?

Next Lab Step

The next build is a daily follow-up digest: the sheet checks due items each morning and sends a concise summary to Gmail or Slack. That turns the CRM from a storage place into an operating rhythm.