Sales & CRM

How to build an outbound email sequence as Event Agency Founders

Sales & CRMFor Event Agency Founders3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

You run a 2-5 person events agency and your outbound process is a mess of copy-pasted Gmail drafts, a Dubsado or HoneyBook pipeline you half-set-up six months ago, and a spreadsheet tracking who got which follow-up email. When a corporate client submits an inquiry through your website, the first response might go out same day or might sit three days while you're on-site at a conference. Your sequences aren't really sequences — they're individual emails you remember to send when you have a quiet Tuesday. You lose proposals because you forgot the second follow-up after the discovery call. Building a real outbound sequence feels like a HubSpot project you don't have the budget or admin hours for.

Build this on Starch → See the apps used

Sales & CRMFor Event Agency Founders3 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A Starch CRM scoped to how your agency actually sells — event type, headcount range, venue preferences, budget bracket, and proposal status — so every active lead lives in one view instead of split across HoneyBook and a spreadsheet

An Email Agent that drafts your first-response note within minutes of an inquiry landing, writes follow-up emails in your voice after the discovery call, and sends you a reminder whenever a proposal has gone unanswered for more than five days

A LinkedIn Automation that identifies and connects with corporate event managers, HR leads, and office operations contacts who match the clients you actually want — running on a steady drip in the background while you're on-site

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

CRM Email Agent LinkedIn Automation

Data sources & config

Starch syncs your Gmail data on a schedule so the Email Agent reads your full inquiry thread history and attaches follow-up drafts directly to the right conversation. The CRM connects to Gmail through Starch's scheduled sync to pull in email thread history per deal — no manual logging. LinkedIn Automation runs through browser automation on your behalf, meaning no LinkedIn API is involved and activity looks like normal human-paced use. Google Calendar connects to Starch on a scheduled sync so the Email Agent knows when your discovery calls are scheduled and can time follow-up drafts accordingly.

Prompts to copy

Build me a CRM for my events agency. Each deal should have: event type (corporate offsite, conference, holiday party, private celebration), estimated headcount, estimated budget, venue status (not started, shortlisted, booked), proposal sent date, proposal status (not sent, sent, viewed, won, lost), and last contact date. My pipeline stages are: New Inquiry, Discovery Call Scheduled, Proposal Sent, Contract Out, Closed Won, Closed Lost. I want a view that shows every lead where a proposal has been sent but I haven't heard back in more than 5 days.

Set up an Email Agent for my events agency. When a new inquiry comes in through my Gmail, draft a first-response email that thanks them, confirms the event date and type from their message, asks two clarifying questions about headcount and venue preference, and ends with a Calendly link. Write in a warm but professional tone — not corporate. After a discovery call, draft a follow-up summarizing what we discussed and outlining next steps. Set a reminder for any proposal email thread that has had no reply in 5 days.

Set up a LinkedIn Automation targeting corporate event planners, executive assistants, office managers, and HR directors at companies with 100-500 employees in [my city]. Send connection requests with a short note referencing corporate events or team experiences. For people who accept, send a brief intro message about my agency. Also comment on posts from founders and office operations leads talking about company culture, team events, or off-sites.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Start with the CRM app from the Starch App Store and describe your agency's actual pipeline in plain English — event type, budget range, venue status, and the proposal-sent fields that matter to you. Starch builds the schema around your process, not a generic sales funnel.

2 Connect your Gmail to Starch (scheduled sync) so the CRM pulls in every existing thread automatically — every client email you've sent in the last year maps to the right deal without manual import.

3 Connect Google Calendar to Starch (scheduled sync) so discovery call dates populate the CRM deal record automatically and the Email Agent knows when a call happened.

4 Open the Email Agent and tell it how you want to respond to new inquiries — your tone, your two or three standard clarifying questions, your Calendly link. Starch drafts a template from your description and adapts it per actual inquiry details when emails arrive.

5 Set the Email Agent's follow-up rules: draft a post-discovery summary within an hour of a call ending; flag any proposal thread with no reply after five days; send you a morning digest of every open thread that needs action.

6 Install the LinkedIn Automation app and describe your ideal corporate client contact in plain English — job titles, company size, industry, and geography. Starch runs outbound connection requests through browser automation at a human-paced cadence that keeps your account safe.

7 Set the LinkedIn comment criteria — tell Starch which types of posts to engage with (team events, off-sites, company culture, new-hire announcements) and what tone to use. This warms up your profile with prospects before your connection request lands.

8 Wire the CRM and Email Agent together: when a lead moves from 'New Inquiry' to 'Discovery Call Scheduled,' Starch automatically queues the post-call follow-up draft so it's ready the moment the call ends.

9 Build a weekly CRM view that surfaces every deal with a proposal sent more than five days ago and no reply — this becomes your Monday morning outreach list, pulled from live data rather than a spreadsheet you have to remember to update.

10 Review the first week of Email Agent drafts and correct tone or phrasing where needed; Starch learns from your edits and applies them to future drafts without you having to re-describe from scratch.

11 Once LinkedIn connections start accepting, check the CRM weekly to see if any new connections match open leads or warm prospects — if they do, the Email Agent can draft a warm-intro email pulling context from the LinkedIn thread.

12 After 30 days, ask Starch to summarize your sequence performance: how many inquiries got a same-day first response, how many proposals converted after a second follow-up, which event types have the highest close rate. Use the answer to tighten your follow-up timing rules.

See this running on Starch

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Worked example

April 2026 corporate offsite pipeline — 11 active leads

Sample numbers from a real run

TechCo offsite inquiry (150 pax, $45,000 budget)	45,000
SaaS company holiday party (80 pax, $18,000 budget)	18,000
Financial firm Q3 off-site (60 pax, $28,000 budget)	28,000
Proposal sent, no reply — 7 days (marketing agency, 40 pax)	12,000
Discovery call scheduled — day-of brief pending	0

On a Monday morning in April, you have 11 active leads in your Starch CRM. The Email Agent flagged three proposals that have been out more than five days with no reply — one of them is a $28,000 financial firm off-site that felt solid after the discovery call. Starch drafts a check-in email for each: not a generic 'just following up' but a note referencing the specific venue you shortlisted and the date pressure they mentioned. You review and send all three in under four minutes. Meanwhile, LinkedIn Automation connected with 23 new HR directors and office managers in your city this week; six accepted. For the two whose profiles mention upcoming company anniversaries, Starch flags them in your CRM as warm prospects and drafts a short intro email. You had no idea either of them existed a week ago. The $45,000 TechCo inquiry came in on a Friday evening — by Saturday morning the Email Agent had drafted and queued a first-response that confirmed their October dates, asked about dietary restrictions and AV requirements, and included your Calendly link. The client responded before you got back to your desk Monday. None of this required you to open a Gmail draft template, update a spreadsheet, or remember who needed a follow-up.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

First-response time on new inquiries (target: under 2 hours regardless of day or whether you're on-site)

Proposal follow-up rate — percentage of sent proposals that receive at least two follow-up touches before being marked lost

Inquiry-to-discovery-call conversion rate by event type (corporate offsite vs. holiday party vs. private celebration)

Pipeline value of proposals currently out, broken down by event type and estimated headcount bracket

LinkedIn outbound acceptance rate and how many accepted connections convert to a discovery call within 30 days

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

HubSpot Starter

HubSpot gives you a real CRM and email sequences but costs $50-$100/month before you add seats, requires meaningful admin time to configure for an events-specific pipeline, and won't build surfaces in plain English — you're configuring fields and workflows manually or hiring someone who knows the tool.

Dubsado or HoneyBook

Great for proposals, contracts, and client portals inside active projects, but weak on outbound prospecting — there's no built-in way to manage a cold or warm outbound sequence, and LinkedIn outreach is completely outside their scope.

Apollo.io + Gmail sequences

Apollo is strong for volume outbound to cold contacts and lets you build email steps, but it doesn't know your CRM pipeline or event-specific context, so sequences are generic rather than referencing the venue you shortlisted or the date pressure your prospect mentioned.

Spreadsheet + Gmail drafts (current state)

Zero cost and total flexibility, but the follow-ups only happen when you remember to check the spreadsheet, first responses go out whenever you have a free moment (not within hours), and there's no outbound motion at all unless you carve out time for it.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — crm, email agent, linkedin automation all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can Starch read inquiry emails from my actual contact form, or does it only see Gmail?

If your inquiry form sends a notification to Gmail — which most forms built on Typeform, Google Forms, your website builder, or Dubsado do — Starch sees it through the Gmail scheduled sync. The Email Agent reads the notification email, extracts the event details, and drafts your first response. If your form goes somewhere else entirely, tell Starch which email address receives the notifications and it works from there.

Will the Email Agent send emails automatically, or do I review them first?

You choose. You can set it to queue drafts for your review and one-click send, or you can set it to auto-send on messages where you've approved the template pattern. For cold inquiries where tone matters, most agency owners start with the review-first mode and move to auto-send after a few weeks once the drafts feel right.

Is the LinkedIn Automation safe to use on my real account?

LinkedIn Automation runs through browser automation — meaning Starch controls a browser session that behaves like a human using LinkedIn normally, not an API call that LinkedIn's systems flag as a bot. Connection requests and comments go out at a human-paced cadence. That said, no tool can guarantee LinkedIn won't change their detection logic, so we recommend staying within reasonable daily volumes, which Starch sets conservatively by default.

Can I connect my HoneyBook or Dubsado client records to the CRM so I'm not starting from scratch?

HoneyBook and Dubsado export client data as CSVs. You can import that into the Starch CRM and describe how you want the fields mapped — Starch handles the cleanup. Both platforms are also web-reachable, so Starch can automate pulling data through your browser if a CSV export isn't available for the specific records you need. Neither HoneyBook nor Dubsado has a scheduled-sync integration with Starch today, so the import path is the cleanest option right now.

Does Starch store my Gmail data permanently?

Starch syncs your Gmail messages on a schedule — this means message data lives in Starch's database to power the Email Agent and CRM thread history. Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today, which is worth knowing if you're handling sensitive corporate client communications. That certification is on the roadmap. If your agency works with clients who have strict data-handling requirements, ask us directly before connecting Gmail.

Can I build separate email sequences for different event types — one for corporate off-sites, one for holiday parties?

Yes. Tell Starch: 'Build me a follow-up sequence for corporate off-site inquiries — three touches over ten days, each referencing venue logistics and group size. Build a separate sequence for holiday party inquiries — two touches over five days, focused on availability and catering.' Starch builds each as a distinct workflow. The Email Agent applies the right sequence based on the event type field in your CRM.