Quick start: from signup to your first reply

The fastest path from a new account to a conversation on a real job: set your market, get new projects delivered, find the right person, and let AI draft the first email.

This guide walks you through the whole loop once. After that, it runs itself: new projects arrive every morning and you spend your time on the ones worth a call.

You’ll need about 15 minutes. Step 4 needs a paid plan and step 5 needs Professional; we’ll point out where.

1. Show only the projects you’d chase

Click All Records in the left sidebar, then use the filters across the top to narrow it to your kind of work:

• If you build whole projects: set Class to Development and Status to the early stages (Pre-Entitlement through Permit Pending). These are projects still in planning or permitting, before a builder is locked in.
• If you’re a trade: set Class to Trade, pick your Trade, and set Status to Submitted for Permit, Permit Pending and Permit Issued. That’s the window when trades get picked.

Then add County / City and Market, and Value under More filters if size matters.

When the list looks like your kind of work, save it as a view: next to Views in the sidebar click + New, choose Custom, name it “My market”, set the same filters and click Create view.

Screenshot comingAll Records with Class set to Development, Status set to early stages, two counties and one market applied

More detail: Find projects.

2. Have new projects come to you

Instead of checking every day, turn those filters into a Smart Feed:

1. In the left sidebar, next to Smart Feeds, click + New.
2. Set the same filters, choose Daily, and click Next.
3. Check the preview. These are the projects the feed would send today. Click Looks right.
4. Under Send to, choose Add to a list (make a new list called “New leads”) and Email me.
5. Name the feed and click Create feed.

From tomorrow, new matches land in your “New leads” list and your inbox each morning around 8am.

More detail: Create a Smart Feed.

3. Pick the projects worth a call

Open your “New leads” list and click a project. Check three things:

• The stage on the Overview tab. Earlier is better: you want to be in the conversation before decisions are made. See Project stages.
• The scope and estimated value, to see if it’s your size of job.
• The Contacts tab, to see who’s on the project: the owner, architect, engineer or builder.

4. Get a way to reach them

On the Contacts tab, click Enrich + next to the person you want. ClearTract looks up a verified email and direct contact info. It costs 1 contact credit. Get mobile costs 10.

To do a whole list at once, open the list and use Enrich contacts. You’ll see the cost before anything runs.

Enrichment is on every paid plan. More detail: Contacts and enrichment.

5. Let AI draft the first email

Needs Professional Connect ClearTract to Claude, Codex or Cursor once (see AI & MCP). Then ask it to do the research and the first draft:

Look at my ClearTract list "New leads". For each project added this week,
get the project details and contacts. Draft a short, friendly email to the
best contact on each one: mention the address and what's being built, say
what we do (we're a concrete subcontractor in Orange County), and ask who's
handling bids. Keep each under 120 words.

Read every draft before it goes out, fix anything that’s off, and send it from your own email.

6. Keep track of what happened

When someone replies, open the project and use Add note on the Timeline tab, for example “Spoke to Maria, bids due 11/14”. Your team sees the same notes, so nobody calls the same person twice.

That’s the loop: feed → list → contacts → email → note. Once your feed is running, most days start at step 3.