Lead Capture — How-To Guide

Prerequisites: SMF Works Pro subscription active. Setup complete (see SETUP.md).

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Table of Contents

1. How to Capture a New Lead
2. How to List and Review Your Leads
3. How to Export Leads for Your CRM
4. How to View Lead Statistics
5. Automating with Cron
6. Troubleshooting Common Issues
7. Tips & Best Practices

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1. How to Capture a New Lead

What this does: Runs an interactive form prompting for lead details and saves to local storage.

When to use it: Immediately after a sales call, demo, or networking event.

Steps

Step 1 — Navigate to the skill.

cd ~/smfworks-skills/skills/lead-capture

Step 2 — Run capture.

python3 main.py capture

Step 3 — Fill in the details.

📋 New Lead Capture
────────────────────
Name: Jane Smith
Email: jane@acmecorp.com
Company: Acme Corp
Phone (optional): +1 555 0100
Interest/Notes: Interested in Pro plan, asked about API pricing

✅ Lead saved: Jane Smith (Acme Corp)

Result: Lead is saved to ~/.smf/leads/leads.json immediately.

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2. How to List and Review Your Leads

When to use it: Before a follow-up session to remind yourself who you need to contact.

Steps

python3 main.py list 20

Output:

📋 Leads (20 most recent):

1. Jane Smith — jane@acmecorp.com — Acme Corp
   Captured: 2024-03-15 09:42
   Notes: Interested in Pro plan, asked about API pricing

2. Bob Jones — bob@techco.io — TechCo
   Captured: 2024-03-14 14:21
   Notes: Demo request, budget approved Q2
...

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3. How to Export Leads for Your CRM

When to use it: Weekly, to import fresh leads into your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.).

Steps

Step 1 — Export to CSV.

python3 main.py export csv

Output:

✅ Exported 47 leads to leads-2024-03-15.csv

Step 2 — Import into your CRM.

Most CRMs have a "Import CSV" option. Upload the exported file. Column headers match standard CRM fields.

Step 3 — Or export to JSON for custom processing.

python3 main.py export json

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4. How to View Lead Statistics

python3 main.py stats

Output:

📊 Lead Statistics
────────────────────
Total leads: 47
This week: 8
This month: 23
Avg per day (30d): 0.8

Top companies:
  Acme Corp: 3 leads
  TechCo: 2 leads

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5. Automating with Cron

Example: Auto-export leads every Sunday

0 9 * * 0 python3 /home/yourname/smfworks-skills/skills/lead-capture/main.py export csv >> /home/yourname/logs/lead-capture.log 2>&1

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6. Troubleshooting Common Issues

Error: SMF Works Pro subscription required

Fix: Subscribe at smfworks.com/subscribe and re-authenticate.

Error: Invalid email format

Fix: Enter a valid email with @ and domain.

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7. Tips & Best Practices

Capture leads immediately — don't wait until end of day. Details are freshest right after the conversation.

Use the Notes field liberally — capture context: budget, timeline, decision-makers, objections. This makes follow-ups far more effective.

Export weekly — build a habit of exporting every Monday morning and importing to your CRM. Never let more than a week of leads pile up un-synced.

Review your stats monthly — the stats command reveals your lead generation trends. If this week's count is down, investigate what changed.

Back up your leads file periodically. Your leads are stored at ~/.smf/leads/leads.json. Copy it to a safe location regularly:

cp ~/.smf/leads/leads.json ~/Backups/leads-backup-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).json

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Combining with Other Skills

Lead Capture + CSV Converter: Export leads as JSON, then convert to Excel for your team:

python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/lead-capture/main.py export json
python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/csv-converter/main.py json-to-csv leads-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).json leads.csv
python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/csv-converter/main.py csv-to-excel leads.csv leads-report.xlsx

Lead Capture + Report Generator: Generate a monthly leads report:

python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/lead-capture/main.py export csv
python3 ~/smfworks-skills/skills/report-generator/main.py create --data leads-$(date +%Y-%m-%d).csv --title "Monthly Leads"

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Understanding the Data

Leads are stored in ~/.smf/leads/leads.json as a JSON array. Each lead looks like:

{
  "id": "LEAD-20240315-a1b2c3",
  "name": "Jane Smith",
  "email": "jane@acmecorp.com",
  "company": "Acme Corp",
  "phone": "+1 555 0100",
  "notes": "Interested in Pro plan",
  "captured_at": "2024-03-15T09:42:11"
}

You can view or edit this file directly in any text editor if you need to:

• Correct a typo in a lead
• Add leads from another source
• Delete a duplicate
• Add custom fields

# View the raw data
cat ~/.smf/leads/leads.json | python3 -m json.tool | head -30