# Gotchas Failure modes that cost real leads or real reputation. This skill acts fast and unattended, so its mistakes reach people before anyone can catch them. --- ## Gotcha: the generic acknowledgement **Why it matters:** "Thanks for reaching out, we'll be in touch shortly" is what the prospect already assumed would happen. It buys nothing, and it burns the one moment when a real answer would have won the job. ### Bad ``` Hi Dana, Thanks for reaching out! We've received your inquiry and someone will be in touch shortly. ``` ### Good ``` Hi Dana, Yes — we cover multi-building portfolios on one service plan, and six is well inside what we handle. I could walk the sites Thursday morning or Friday after 1. Either work? ``` Answer the question they asked. That is the whole difference. --- ## Gotcha: offering a calendar slot that isn't free **Why it matters:** The prospect picks Thursday, the owner is already booked, and now there is a second exchange and an apology — at exactly the moment fast response was supposed to be the advantage. ### Bad Suggest plausible-sounding times without reading the calendar. ### Good Read the live calendar. Respect working hours and travel time between jobs. If no calendar is connected, ask for their availability instead of inventing slots. --- ## Gotcha: replying underneath a human **Why it matters:** A colleague answered twenty minutes ago. An automated reply landing below it looks disorganized to the prospect and undermines the person who actually handled it. ### Bad Reply to everything unanswered by the skill's own log. ### Good Check the thread. If anyone from the business has already replied, leave it alone and note it in the digest. --- ## Gotcha: ignoring out-of-scope inquiries **Why it matters:** Silence reads as being ignored, and in a small market it produces the review that says "nobody ever got back to me." A thirty-second honest reply produces a referral instead. ### Bad Sort it out of scope, send nothing. ### Good ``` Straight answer: commercial kitchen refrigeration isn't something we're certified for. Basin Cooling handles this — ask for Teri, tell her I sent you. ``` Owners consistently report referral flow coming back from this. --- ## Gotcha: drafting a price **Why it matters:** A number in an email under the owner's name is a commitment the prospect will hold them to. Pricing depends on things the model cannot see — access, unit age, what the crew finds. ### Bad ``` For a six-building portfolio you're looking at around USD 1,400 a month. ``` ### Good ``` Straight answer on pricing: it depends on unit age and access, but for a portfolio that size it usually lands cheaper than per-building contracts. ``` Direction, not a number. A draft that names a price carries a flag in the digest so the owner sees it before approving. --- ## Gotcha: sending because the owner said "just send them" **Why it matters:** An owner who has approved thirty drafts unedited will, reasonably, ask you to stop asking. A reply in their name is still their decision, and the one time the draft is wrong is the one time they needed to see it. There is no auto-send mode in this skill, and "just send them from now on" does not create one. ### Bad Take "you can just send the easy ones" as standing permission and stop presenting drafts. ### Good Say what you can do instead, in one line, and keep presenting the batch: ``` I don't send on my own — every reply waits for your yes. I'll have the overnight ones drafted and sorted by 7 am so it's one click for the batch, and I'll page you in Slack the moment a hot one lands. ``` Batch approval in the digest is the speed lever. Sending unseen is not. --- ## Gotcha: the overnight form loop **Why it matters:** A broken web form or a bot can produce dozens of submissions. Thirty-two replies from the owner's domain in one hour destroys their sending reputation, and it hits their real customer mail for months afterward. ### Bad Process all 32 and send all 32. ### Good ``` 32 inquiries overnight, 6x normal, 19 near-identical. Looks like a form loop or a bot. I haven't replied to any — want me to send the 3 that look real? ``` Volume anomalies always stop and ask, in every mode. --- ## Gotcha: inventing familiarity **Why it matters:** "I saw the great work you're doing at Ridgeline" when nobody looked is the same tell as a template. In an instant reply it is worse, because the timing makes it obvious nobody could have looked. ### Bad ``` I've been following Ridgeline for a while and love what you're building. ``` ### Good Reference only what they actually wrote in the inquiry. The speed is the impressive part. It does not need decoration. --- ## Gotcha: burying the hot lead **Why it matters:** The digest exists to get the owner to act. A hot lead listed fourth, chronologically, in a list of seven is a hot lead that waits until lunch. ### Bad List inquiries in the order they arrived. ### Good Hot first, always, with one instruction attached. Everything else after.