How to Follow Up on a Quote Without Sounding Desperate

By Liz August, founder of Simplify, Simplify LLC and 17hats Ambassador. Adapted from her feature in the October 2026 issue of The Journey.

A quote goes out on Tuesday. Wednesday you refresh your inbox. Thursday, nothing. By Friday you’re wondering whether you priced it too high or misread what they wanted, and you send a check-in that lands somewhere between desperate and apologetic.

The quote is still sitting there. They haven’t ghosted you. According to Liz August, they’re just stuck.

Liz runs Simplify, Simplify, where she builds CRMs and tech stacks for service providers, and she’s watched plenty of owners respond to a quiet quote by cutting their rates or rewriting the proposal. Her view is that the price was rarely the problem. If you want her system in one line: send three short emails over 14 days (on day 3, day 7 and day 14), make each one easier to answer than the last, and then actually stop.

Why do good leads go quiet?

Deciding is tiring. Someone can want to work with you and still not have the energy this week to commit money and time to a project. Life is loud. Your quote sits in their inbox as something they should deal with, never quite urgent enough to deal with today, and without some structure “later” turns into never.

So Liz treats follow-up as a courtesy rather than a sales tactic. Each email reminds them, cuts down the number of decisions they have to make, and makes the next step obvious.

Here’s how the sequence runs:

Day 3: a friendly check-in

Keep it warm and curious. You aren’t writing because they’re late. Proposals get buried and questions come up, and you want to make sure nothing is in their way.

Liz’s version:

Hey [Name], I wanted to check in and see if you’ve had a chance to review the proposal. Do you have any questions or anything you’d like me to clarify?

That’s the whole email. No explanation of why you’re writing, no “I know you’re busy.”

Day 7: gentle urgency

By the end of the first week the conversation shifts a little. Instead of “here’s what I quoted,” the question becomes whether this makes sense for where they are right now.

I haven’t heard back on the proposal yet, and I want to be respectful of your time. If this isn’t the right fit or timing, that’s completely okay. I just want to know where things stand so I’m not leaving you hanging.

Some people go quiet because they don’t know how to say no politely. This email hands them the words. You’d be surprised how often a “no thanks, we went another way” is a relief on both ends, and you can close the project instead of carrying it around in your head.

Day 14: “Last one!”

This is the one Liz is known for. She gets more results from the subject line “Last one!” than from any other email she sends, and some people have thanked her for sending it because otherwise they wouldn’t have acted.

It works because it’s honest. Liz steers clear of lines like “Final chance to work together” or “Don’t miss out.” Hers just tells the lead she won’t keep emailing after this, which happens to be true.

In an effort not to flood your inbox, just saying hello and that this is my last attempt to (insert details about your service). You’ll still be on my mailing list for general newsletters. My availability can be found here (insert your scheduling link) if you’d still like to work together.

Look at how much that short email is doing. It names the intention (not to spam), it’s clear that this is the final follow-up, it keeps the relationship intact because they stay on the newsletter, and the scheduling link sits right there so saying yes takes one click.

For Liz, the response rate on this third email is consistently higher than the first two. She credits that to people respecting the honesty, more than any clever pitch.

Setting it up in 17hats

Liz builds this as a Workflow that starts when a quote is sent:

1. Create a Workflow triggered by sending a quote, and tag the lead “Quote Sent.”
2. Add three email steps with delays of 3, 7 and 14 days.
3. Personalize with the [Project Name] and [Name] fields using 17hats merge tags.
4. Keep the copy conversational and short. Her advice is to avoid templates that sound like templates.

One optional addition, since it’s new this month: the Texting Action workflow step can send a text as part of the same workflow. For clients who live in their texts more than their inbox, a short nudge on day 7 might do more than the email. If the client hasn’t opted in to SMS, 17hats creates a to-do for you instead. (That one’s our suggestion, not Liz’s, so try it on a few leads before rolling it out to everyone.)

Why it keeps working

The emails aren’t perfect, and they don’t need to be. The sequence works because it’s consistent, it respects the lead’s time, and it takes the work out of deciding how to respond. Three emails over two weeks, each with a clear message and a real deadline behind it.

Most abandoned quotes aren’t abandoned because of you. Someone got stuck and nobody nudged them. A structured sequence does the nudging without being annoying about it, and it does it whether or not you remembered that Thursday.

A few questions people ask

How long should I wait to follow up on a quote?
Three days is a good first check-in. It’s soon enough that the proposal is still fresh and long enough that it doesn’t feel like you’re hovering.

How many times should you follow up?
Liz stops at three. More than that starts to feel like pressure, and the third email’s whole power comes from it really being the last one. They stay on your newsletter, so the door isn’t closed.

Should I offer a discount in the follow-up?
Probably not as a reflex. If the lead is stuck in inertia, a lower price doesn’t make the decision any easier, and you’ve trained them to wait. A clear next step and an easy way out tend to work better. (Some businesses do add a fast-action incentive up front, which is a different thing. Jamie Rapavy writes about that in the same issue.)

About the author

Liz August is a 17hats Ambassador and founder of Simplify, Simplify LLC, where she helps online service providers get their tech out of the way and back to work. From email marketing setup to CRM builds, websites, full tech stack implementation, and general admin virtual assistance, she handles the backend so her clients don’t have to.

Connect at simplifysimplify.me.

This post is adapted from Liz August’s feature in the October 2026 issue of The Journey, 17hats’ magazine for solo business owners. The whole issue is about the stretch from inquiry to paid invoice, and you can read it here. Workflows, tags and email templates are all included in 17hats if you’d like to build this sequence yourself; the free trial runs 7 days.