Add MarketSharp leads from email and book the sales appointment

1. In MarketSharp, open the Contacts tab, go to Leads Record View and click Add New Lead.
2. Search for duplicates first; MarketSharp's own guide says the less information you type in that search, the better. Only when nothing matches, click Create New and enter the contact information.
3. Click Save and Add Inquiry, then fill in the inquiry: Lead Source Primary, product interest and notes. MarketSharp does not allow an appointment without an inquiry.
4. Click Save and Add Appointment, set Appt Set By, Appt Date/Time, Salesperson 1 and Appt Type, and check the Sales Calendar or the Slot Scheduler for an open time.
5. Repeat for the next email. Leads from providers wired into Custom Lead Capture arrive on their own, but anything that lands in an inbox or on the phone is retyped by hand, and a lead keyed in twice splits its history across two records.

Go through the lead emails that came in since yesterday. For each homeowner, check MarketSharp for an existing contact, add new ones as leads with the right lead source and product interest, and book a sales appointment with the salesperson I name, at a time that does not clash with their calendar.

1. 01

   Pull the homeowner out of each message

   The agent reads each lead email or note and extracts first and last name, phone, email, address, the product the person asked about and where the lead came from. A message without a first and last name plus a phone or an email is set aside, because create_lead cannot write a lead without them.

2. 02

   Check for an existing contact before creating one

   search_contacts runs with the phone number first, then the last name and street, since a short query matches more reliably. A hit that is already a customer is treated as repeat business: the agent opens it with get_contact and books on the existing inquiry with schedule_appointment instead of creating a second person, or asks you when the latest inquiry is for a different product.

3. 03

   Match source and product to your lists

   Lead Source and product interest must be values already in your MarketSharp drop-down lists. The agent maps "found us on Angi" to your own source name, and when nothing fits it asks instead of guessing, because a wrong source skews every marketing report later.

4. 04

   Pick a time the rep can make

   Before booking, the agent calls list_appointments for the requested day and the salesperson you name, and avoids times that overlap an existing visit. If the homeowner asked for "Thursday morning" and the rep is full, it proposes the nearest open slot and waits for your answer.

5. 05

   Create the lead, then book the rep

   For a new person, create_lead writes the contact with its inquiry, source and product interest. schedule_appointment then books the visit on that inquiry with the salesperson you named, because create_lead alone does not take a salesperson. You approve each write. The agent reports which messages became leads, which matched existing contacts and which it could not place.

Lead emails read: 6
New leads with appointment: Dana Miller, Kitchen, Thu 15 Oct 10:00 with jsmith (source: Website); Rob Alvarez, Roofing, Thu 15 Oct 14:00 with kpatel (source: Angi)
Existing contact, appointment on current inquiry: Carla Nguyen (customer since 2024), Windows, Fri 16 Oct 09:30 with jsmith
Already in MarketSharp with an open appointment, skipped: Tom Reed
Needs you: Lisa Park mentioned "my neighbor's contractor", no matching lead source
Needs you: voicemail from 555-0198, no name given

• MarketSharp will not add an appointment on a contact record until the contact has an inquiry, so Add Lead Inquiry always comes before the sales visit.
• MarketSharp Inquiry Rules (Admin > Automation Rules > Inquiry Rules) can start an Activity Process from an Inquiry Status, for example a call to set the appointment or a thank-you email to a new lead.
• Lead Source Primary and product interest values in MarketSharp come from Editable Drop Down Lists, which an admin edits in bulk under Admin > Company Setup; an inactivated item stays on historical records but can no longer be selected.
• MarketSharp reports "No Matching Product Interest" in Detailed Marketing and Detailed Sales Reports when the product a lead asked about differs from what was sold, so the product interest entered with the lead matters later.

create_lead and schedule_appointment ask for your OK by default. To run it daily without you, switch confirmation off for those tools in your dashboard.

Sources: MarketSharp: Add a Lead · MarketSharp: Adding or Editing Appointments · MarketSharp: Custom Lead Capture · MarketSharp: Inquiry Rules · MarketSharp: Editable Drop Down Lists · MarketSharp: No Matching Product Interest

curl https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/marketsharp/create_lead \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"first_name":"Dana","last_name":"Miller","phone":"555-0142","primary_source":"Website","product_interests":["Kitchen"],"inquiry_notes":"Wants a quote for a kitchen remodel, prefers mornings."}'

{
  "contact_id": "3e9b1d44-0c27-4f5a-8e13-6a2b9c0d7f58",
  "inquiry_id": "i_204",
  "appointment_id": "a7f3c2e1-5b8d-4e0a-9c61-2d4f8b7e1a90",
  "contact_type": "lead",
  "status": "created"
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the tool is marketsharp_create_lead. Example data.

• Result MarketSharp sales appointments and log what happened
• MarketSharp API and MCP server: every tool
• All use cases