We try not to let them sit in New indefinitely.
Our process is basically: make the initial contact quickly, follow up a few times, and then give the request a clear expiration point.
If they’ve received pricing or a quote and still haven’t responded, we’ll let the follow-up process run and then archive it after about 10 days rather than letting the pipeline fill up with dead leads.
I like keeping the active list focused on people who are actually still in play.
The big thing for me is making sure “cleaning up the list” doesn’t mean giving up after one attempt. A lot of people are busy, miss the first message, or need a couple touches before responding.
But eventually there needs to be an exit condition, otherwise your New requests stop being useful and just become a graveyard of old leads.
After they exit that flow, they're put in an endless nurture sequence with monthly or quarterly offers sent to them depending on the time of the year.
