For AEs, CSMs, and customers

Twelve weeks, week by week. What the customer does. What the team does.

The thirty-day playbook on the next page over is the high-level version. This page is the tactical schedule. For each of the first twelve weeks: what should be on the customer's plate, what should be on the team's plate, the most common place customers get stuck, and the trigger that says it is time to escalate.

How to use this page

Twelve weeks because that is when the data starts to speak honestly.

Sales Connector is a slow-burn motion. Real conversion data arrives somewhere between week six and week ten. Before that, you are seeing connection rates and conversation rates, which are leading indicators, not lagging. The plan below assumes you will not have an honest read on whether the campaign is working until somewhere in the back half. Plan accordingly.

01

Set up, sync, and the very first connection requests.

Foundation

Customer should

  • Sign up for Sales Navigator if not already on it.
  • Confirm two-factor authentication on LinkedIn is configured.
  • Make sure the LinkedIn profile photo, headline, and about section are clean. People will look.
  • Send the AE a list of five to ten ideal-prospect profiles, with real LinkedIn URLs.
  • Provide a short list of companies and people to exclude from outreach.

Team should

  • Run the onboarding call, sync LinkedIn with Sales Connector, install the browser extension.
  • Build the first Sales Navigator search from the customer's example profiles.
  • Apply the customer's exclusion list at the search level, not after the fact.
  • Load the four-step opener sequence with the customer's voice in mind.
  • Confirm Calendly or another scheduler is integrated so meetings can be tracked.
The most common week-one stuck point. The customer logs into LinkedIn from a different browser, which kills the sync. Happens to about a quarter of new accounts. Fix: walk them through re-syncing on the call. Do not let them try alone.
02

The first connections start landing. The customer wants numbers.

First reads

Customer should

  • Resist the temptation to read every connection request at this stage.
  • Watch for the first three to five replies. Do not respond to them yourself.
  • Check the dashboard once, just to know it exists.
  • Send the AE notes on any prospect that is clearly off-target.

Team should

  • Send a friendly status note at end of week one that names early connection-rate signal.
  • Begin handling replies in the inbox, in the customer's voice.
  • Tag any obvious mismatches and surface them in the next call.
  • Watch for any account-safety signals from LinkedIn. Pause if anything looks off.
The most common week-two stuck point. The customer panics that the connection rate is too low because only a few have come in yet. The volume builds non-linearly. Fix: tell them ahead of time that week two is too early to read the numbers honestly.
03

The first refresh of the search. First small adjustments.

Tuning

Customer should

  • Look at the first ten or twenty connections that have come in.
  • Identify any patterns of mismatch, not individual misses.
  • Send back a short note: titles to add to the exclusion list, companies to drop.
  • If something is working unexpectedly well, name it.

Team should

  • Run the first formal check-in call, schedule weekly thereafter.
  • Refresh the Sales Navigator search based on customer feedback, not gut.
  • Begin the need-assist queue for replies that require the customer's judgment.
  • Rewrite any opener phrasing that the customer has flagged as not their voice.
The most common week-three stuck point. The customer sees one bad connection and asks for a complete search rebuild. Resist this. One miss is not a pattern. Fix: ask for three concrete examples of the mismatch before rebuilding anything.
04

The first calendar bookings. The customer feels real motion.

First wins

Customer should

  • Take any calendared meetings personally, even if the booking flow was automated.
  • Show up on time. Show up prepared. The first three meetings set the customer's confidence.
  • Write a one-line note back to the team after each meeting: was the prospect a fit, what would have made them more of one.

Team should

  • Watch for the first booking and celebrate it on the customer's behalf.
  • Capture the prospect profile that booked, so the search can lean into similar shapes.
  • Begin a tally file of what the customer's time-to-meeting looks like.
  • Send a soft note if the customer no-shows their own meeting. It happens.
The most common week-four stuck point. The first booking is lower-quality than the customer hoped, and they assume the campaign is broken. Fix: name the funnel arithmetic out loud. The first ten bookings are statistically not the average.
05

The middle. The campaign is real but boring.

Steady state

Customer should

  • Do nothing. Resist the urge to tweak.
  • Forward the team any out-of-band signals: a prospect mentioned a competitor, a question came up twice, a phrase felt off.
  • Glance at the dashboard once. Move on.

Team should

  • Hold the line. The customer is not the audience. The audience is the audience.
  • Track meeting-to-customer rate quietly. Do not surface it yet.
  • Write up any pattern of pre-vet failure for the next strategy session.
The most common week-five stuck point. Boredom. The customer wants the campaign to feel exciting. It is not supposed to. The boredom is the product working. Fix: explain that exciting outreach is usually loud outreach, which gets banned.
06

First half-time review. The data is finally real.

Mid-engagement

Customer should

  • Show up to the strategy session prepared, with a list of wins, near-wins, and clear misses.
  • Be honest about whether anyone has actually become a customer yet, or if it is too early.
  • Offer one sentence of new ICP language if anything has clicked.

Team should

  • Run the half-time strategy session with numbers in hand.
  • Surface meeting-to-customer ratio, even if low. Honesty wins long-term.
  • Propose one tactical change for the second half: search shape, opener line, or pre-vet question. One change, not three.
  • Document the change and the date, so the impact can be measured.
The most common week-six stuck point. The customer has not closed a deal yet and starts asking whether the tool actually works. Fix: walk them through the math of a B2B sales cycle. Six weeks is not a sales cycle for most products.
If by week six the connection rate is below fifteen percent, escalate to a senior CSM. The search is broken, not the customer.
07

The first deal closes, or the customer starts thinking about pausing.

Inflection

Customer should

  • If a deal closed: tell the team how much, when, and what kind of follow-up loop made it work.
  • If no deal closed: be specific about which meetings did not convert and why.
  • Decide whether to keep running on current settings or to make the change proposed in week six.

Team should

  • Watch for the first quiet customer at this stage. Reach for them by phone.
  • If the customer mentions pausing for the first time, treat it as feedback, not a request.
  • Document the closed deal in the customer's tally file. It is the new credibility for the next search.
The most common week-seven stuck point. The customer hits a personal-life thing or a busy week and disappears for ten days. Fix: do not assume the silence is a signal. Most of the time it is just a vacation.
08

The change from week six is implemented. Watch what happens.

Adjustment window

Customer should

  • Give the change two full weeks before forming an opinion.
  • Note any qualitative shift in reply tone. Numbers will lag the tone change.
  • Continue the ten-minute weekly review.

Team should

  • Run the change cleanly. Do not stack a second change on top.
  • Track the old number and new number side by side.
  • Plan to report findings in week ten, not before.
The most common week-eight stuck point. The customer wants a second change, immediately, on top of the first. Fix: refuse politely. Two simultaneous changes destroy the ability to attribute.
09

The customer either grows or shrinks the engagement.

Expansion or contraction

Customer should

  • Decide whether to add a second seat, a second campaign, or to scale down.
  • If the customer has a teammate who could co-run the campaign, introduce them now.
  • Be honest about budget pressure. The team has solutions if the conversation is open.

Team should

  • Surface the expansion conversation only if the data justifies it.
  • If the customer is hinting at pause, name it directly. Better to address it now than at month four.
  • Offer the suspended-account tier as a real option, not a save tactic.
The most common week-nine stuck point. The customer asks for an expansion before the first deal has closed. Do not sell more until the first deal is documented. Fix: pause the expansion conversation, accelerate the first deal close.
10

Two-thirds review. Second wave of tactical adjustments.

Refinement

Customer should

  • Read the dashboard before the meeting. Come with one question.
  • Bring three observations that have nothing to do with numbers. Tone, language, fit.
  • Decide whether the original ICP is still right or has drifted in the customer's mind.

Team should

  • Compare week-eight numbers to week-six numbers. Was the change worth it?
  • Propose either a new search lane, a new copy variant, or steady-state hold.
  • Bring the meeting-to-customer rate. If it is still under five percent, the issue is not the campaign.
The most common week-ten stuck point. The customer does not show up to the strategy session. Two strategy sessions in a row missed is the real warning. Fix: send a personal note, no booking link. Just the question, are we still helping?
If by week ten zero meetings have converted to next steps, escalate. Either the offer is broken or the search is wrong, but it is not the campaign mechanics.
11

The renewal conversation, or the wind-down conversation.

Decision

Customer should

  • Decide whether the engagement renews, scales, pauses, or ends.
  • If renewing, reset the goals for the next twelve weeks. The original goals are stale.
  • If pausing, agree on a clear restart plan and a specific trigger.
  • If ending, ask for the export of all conversation history.

Team should

  • Lead with the data, not with a renewal pitch.
  • Be willing to lose the renewal honestly. The customer who returns later is more valuable than the one retained against their will.
  • Document the decision in the customer's tally file, with reasoning.
  • Offer a six-month check-in regardless of decision.
The most common week-eleven stuck point. The customer says yes to renewal but with reservations they will not name. Fix: ask one direct question. What would you change about the next quarter if you could change one thing?
12

Quiet handoff to steady state, or graceful close.

Settle

Customer should

  • If continuing: settle into the new cadence. Cut the weekly call if it has stopped earning its place.
  • If closing: send a referral. The exits that send referrals are the strongest brand signal we have.
  • Share one thing that surprised them about the engagement.

Team should

  • Reset the engagement plan for the next twelve weeks if the customer is continuing.
  • Run a clean export and a goodbye note if the customer is closing.
  • Add the customer to the six-month return-check list.
  • Capture the surprise from the customer in the team's pattern file.
The most common week-twelve stuck point. Both sides relax too soon. The first week of steady-state is where customers slip into not opening the dashboard ever, and then six weeks later they are surprised that they have lost touch with their own pipeline. Fix: the ten-minute weekly habit becomes a thirty-minute monthly habit at this stage. Not zero.

Twelve weeks is the floor, not the ceiling.

The customers who get the most out of Sales Connector treat the first twelve weeks as the foundation, not the engagement. The campaign that works in month four was almost always set up correctly in week one. The customers who try to fix month four by tearing up week one usually fail twice. Trust the boring schedule.

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