Notion CRM follow-up reminders in Slack (or by email)

Building a CRM follow-up habit is key

The most important activity we do as bootstrapped entrepreneurs is to speak to people about our product and get as much honest feedback as we can. We are religious about getting feedback frequently from our users (I highly recommend reading The Mom Test to learn how to ask your users the right questions).

But, building a strong "user feedback machine" requires building strong habits. After we built our CRM in Notion, I kept on forgetting to check on whom I should follow up with and when.

And that led to missed opportunities and to an inconsistent interaction schedule.  So I asked myself: how can I get Notion to push reminders to me anytime I should ping someone, either by email or by slack?

Setting up reminders to follow-up

With a bit of formula magic, I set up an automation that will trigger a notification whenever I need to follow up with someone. Here's to set up this automation:

Overview

1. Your CRM system should consist of a CRM database, an Interaction Log DB, and a Relation between them
2. Create a rollup to check the latest interaction with your contact
3. Create a formula that turns true if you haven't interacted with a contact for X days (we will use 10 days for our example)
4. Create a the:gist rule to get triggered when the formula turns true
5. Send a webhook to Integromat (or Zapier, or other automaton) to send a notification to Slack
6. Or, get a daily email with your follow-ups
7. Always stay on top of your CRM :)

Set up CRM + Interaction Log databases

The first step is to make sure your CRM tracks the "last interaction".

1. Create an Interaction Log DB, with a relation to CRM
2. Log every interaction with a contact

Then, roll up the latest interaction:

Create a formula to turn on when you need to follow up

The formula I use is very simple, checking if it's been 10 days since we last interacted:

dateBetween(now(), prop("Last Interaction"), "days") > 10

Now the checkbox is checked whenever I need to follow up!

Get your notifications on Slack rather than Email

"I would love to get some more emails", said no one ever.

I love working with Slack bots to get reminders. I like to set up channels with bots sending notifications into them.

Once I set up my the:gist rule, I choose to "call a webhook" and send the data to Integromat, where I set up a simple scenario that pushes the notification to Slack.

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Create a the:gist rule to get triggered when the formula turns true

Next is to set up a simple rule in the:gist to get an email whenever the formula turns true. Since we are counting days (and not hours), if a bunch of contacts turn true at once you will get an email with all the contacts you need to follow up with.

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Turn everything on and watch it in action

Last two important things to do:

1. Turn on Scheduling in Integromat (to make sure the scenario is on)
2. Click Create in the:gist

If you want some of this in your life, you're welcome to sign up at the:gist, or join our Slack community to chat with more fans of Notion + automation.

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