Catch every lead: a form that pings your phone the second someone enquires

What you'll have in half an hour: one link you can paste into your Instagram bio, your WhatsApp, or your website that captures every enquiry into a spreadsheet — and the moment someone fills it in, your phone buzzes with a Telegram message showing their name, number and what they want. No more discovering a hot enquiry three days late, buried under receipts and newsletters.

The reason this matters isn't a slogan, it's arithmetic: the longer a lead waits, the colder it gets. One owner put it plainly — "I kept losing deals not because of bad sales — but because I forgot to follow up" (Indie Hackers, Jun 2026). This playbook removes the forgetting.

Is this for you?

Build it if enquiries reach you through more than one channel (DMs, a form, people asking for a quote) and some slip through, or you copy them into a spreadsheet by hand. Skip it if you already run a CRM that captures and notifies (this is the free version of that). It suits services, F&B bookings, tuition, tradespeople — anyone who quotes before they sell.

What it costs

S$0 per month (verified 13 July 2026; free tiers change — check the links before you build):

Each enquiry costs about 2 Make operations, so the free 1,000/month covers roughly 500 leads a month before you'd pay anything.

Before you start (5 minutes)

You need a Google account, the Telegram app, and a free Make account. If you've built the receipt-to-sheet playbook, you already have the Telegram bot and Make account — reuse them, and this will take fifteen minutes, not thirty. If not, that playbook walks you through making a Telegram bot and a Make scenario click-by-click; skim its Steps 1 and 3 once and you'll fly through this.

Build it, step by step

Step 1 — Make the form (10 minutes)

Go to forms.google.com, start a blank form, and add the questions you actually need to act on a lead — keep it short, long forms scare people off. A good default: Name, Phone or WhatsApp, What do you need?, and How did you hear about us? Set Name and Phone to "required".

Now click the Responses tab → the green Sheets icon → Create a new spreadsheet. Every submission will now land as a row automatically. Finally, top-right Send → the link icon 🔗 → copy the short link. That's what goes in your bio.

Step 2 — Ping your phone with Make (15 minutes)

In Make, Create a new scenario with two modules (the flagship playbook explains adding and connecting modules if this is new):

Module 1 — Google Sheets → "Watch New Rows". Connect your Google account (expect the "allow Make to access Sheets" pop-up — that's normal; click Allow, and if it warns the app isn't verified, Advanced → Continue). Choose the spreadsheet your form created, and the sheet tab (usually "Form Responses 1"). Before mapping anything, submit one test entry to your own form and click Run once — this makes a real row appear so Make can show you the columns by name.

Module 2 — Telegram Bot → "Send a Message". Connect it with your bot token (from the flagship, or make a new bot via @BotFather). For Chat ID, send your bot any message in Telegram first, then pick your chat from the list. In the Text box, write your alert and drop in the fields from Module 1, like:

🔔 New lead: {{Name}} — {{Phone}} Wants: {{What do you need?}} Via: {{How did you hear about us?}}

Turn the scheduling toggle ON (bottom-left). Done.

Optional — keep it in a proper CRM instead of a sheet

If you'd rather your leads live in a free CRM with a follow-up reminder, HubSpot's CRM is free with no credit card (1,000 contacts). Point Module 2 at HubSpot's "Create a Contact" instead of, or as well as, Telegram. For most small firms the sheet-plus-buzz is plenty; add the CRM when a spreadsheet stops coping.

Test it works (2 minutes)

Open your form link in a private browser window, submit a fake enquiry, and click Run once in Make. Within a moment your Telegram should buzz with the alert, and the row should be in your sheet. Send a real link to yourself and try it from your phone, the way a customer would.

When it doesn't

• No Telegram buzz. The scheduling toggle is off, or the Chat ID is blank because you never messaged your bot. Message the bot once, re-pick the Chat ID, toggle ON, Run once.
• The alert shows {{Name}} instead of the actual name. You typed the field name instead of picking it from the list. Delete it and click the field from Module 1's blue tags so it becomes a proper tag.
• Rows land in the sheet but Make ignores them. "Watch New Rows" is pointed at the wrong tab. Check it's the "Form Responses" tab, not a blank Sheet1.

Your data

A lead's name and number are personal data under Singapore's PDPA. You're allowed to collect and use them for the purpose the person expects — you replying to their enquiry — but three habits keep you clean: say on the form what you'll use it for (one line: "We'll use your details only to reply to this enquiry"), restrict who can open the sheet, and don't tip those numbers into a marketing broadcast later without asking first — that's a different purpose that needs its own consent. More in our privacy approach.

Switch it off

Pause or delete the Make scenario and the buzzing stops instantly. The form and sheet are yours to keep, close, or delete. Nothing was ever charged, so there's nothing to cancel.

What's next

Grab the lead-intake form questions and alert template, build it this week, and put the link in your Instagram bio tonight. Once leads are landing reliably, the natural pair is the after-hours WhatsApp auto-reply so nobody who messages you at 11pm hears nothing back. And if you're weighing a paid "lead management system", run its price past our markup math first — you may have just built the core of it for nothing.

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