This is the most important section in the workbook. Everything you have done up to this point — selecting the right workshop, creating the event, inviting the right customers, attending the day, and capturing the data — only pays off if you execute a disciplined follow-up motion. This section gives you the playbook.

Key Content

Within 48 hours of the workshop, contact every hot lead personally. Use the phone or a personalized email — not a generic templated message. The customer has just spent half a day or more with Cisco; a templated follow-up undermines the relationship you have just built. Reference specific moments from the workshop in your outreach to demonstrate that you were present and engaged. A line like "When you were working through the threat hunting lab, you mentioned that your team is currently struggling with alert volume — I'd love to set up 30 minutes to walk through how XDR could help" is dramatically more effective than "Thanks for attending our workshop; let me know if you'd like to learn more."

For Trial and POV requests, coordinate immediately with your SE to scope and schedule the engagement. These are the highest intent leads you will ever receive from a workshop, and the customer's openness to a deeper engagement is at its peak in the first 48 hours. For warm leads, send a tailored information packet within one week and propose a follow-up meeting. The packet should be specific to the products or solutions the customer expressed interest in — not a generic Cisco overview.

Why does the 48-hour window matter so much? Ten years of workshop data shows that leads followed up on within 48 hours convert at a meaningfully higher rate than those contacted later. After 48 hours, customers often forget the workshop context and the urgency dissipates; the lead becomes just another inbound touchpoint rather than a hot, time-sensitive opportunity. Block time in your calendar for follow-up during the two business days following any workshop you run — treat it as non-negotiable.

Steps to Execute Your Follow-Up Motion

  1. The day after the workshop, download the Product Information Request survey results and finalize your leads.
  2. Block two hours in your calendar for each of the two business days following the workshop, labelled "Workshop Follow-Up — Hot Leads."
  3. Within 48 hours of the event, contact every hot lead personally — by phone or a tailored email — referencing specific moments from the workshop.
  4. For Trial/POV requests, loop in your SE the same day to scope the engagement and propose dates.
  5. Within one week of the event, send tailored information packets to all warm leads (product and solution interest) and propose a follow-up meeting.
  6. Track conversion of each lead over the following 90 days to build your workshop ROI evidence.