01
CRM & Sales Process
For a turnkey business this is almost always the highest-return work. A visible pipeline changes decisions that advertising cannot reach.
Build the pipeline
For turnkey interior companies
When One Lost Opportunity Changes the Quarter, the Pipeline Has to Be Visible.
Turnkey projects are large, slow and decided by more than one person. That makes disciplined qualification and follow-up worth far more than additional lead volume.
The economics
At This Deal Size, Lead Volume Stops Being the Interesting Number.
A business winning eight turnkey projects a year does not have a traffic problem. It has a conversion and pipeline-management problem. Doubling enquiries from forty to eighty changes very little if the same proportion still stall at the proposal stage.
Three characteristics make turnkey selling different from every other category we work in.
The decision involves several people
A husband and wife rarely agree at the same speed. A parent may be funding part of it. On commercial fit-outs there is a facilities lead, a finance approver and often an architect with their own view. Your proposal has to survive conversations you are not in.
The cycle runs for months
From first enquiry to signed contract is commonly two to six months, sometimes longer when it is tied to a construction timeline. Any follow-up process built around a two-week sales cycle will lose most of these opportunities by simply going quiet.
Proposal effort is a real cost
A turnkey proposal involves site measurement, design concepts, material selection and detailed costing — often days of senior time. Producing three of those for opportunities that were never funded is expensive in a way a cost-per-lead report never shows.
The pattern
Where Turnkey Opportunities Actually Get Lost.
- Budget is never established before the proposal. Days of design work go into an opportunity that was funded at a third of the number.
- Only one decision-maker is ever spoken to. The proposal is then presented, second-hand, to the person who actually signs.
- Follow-up stops at week three. On a four-month cycle, that means going silent for the entire period when the decision is actually being made.
- The pipeline lives in someone's head. No one can say how many live opportunities exist or what they are collectively worth.
- Lost deals are never coded with a reason. So nobody learns whether the losses were price, timeline, trust or simply silence.
- Marketing is measured on enquiries. While the business is actually judged on signed contracts.
The fix is rarely more advertising. It is making the pipeline visible and the follow-up survive the length of the real sales cycle.
How we approach it
Fewer, Better Opportunities — Tracked Properly.
01
Target project scale, not category
Campaigns aimed at full-home and full-fit-out intent — property types, development stages and search terms that indicate scale — rather than general interior interest.
What changes: fewer enquiries, more of them at the size you want.
02
Qualify hard, and early
Including the question most businesses avoid: who else is involved in this decision. Knowing that on day one changes how the whole opportunity is handled.
What changes: proposal effort goes to opportunities that are real and funded.
03
Structure the pipeline in stages
Enquiry, qualified, site visit, concept, proposal, negotiation, won or lost — each with an owner, a value and a next action, so the pipeline can actually be reviewed.
What changes: you can see what is live, what it is worth and what is stuck.
04
Follow up across months, not weeks
A cadence built for a four-month decision, carrying something of value each time rather than repeated requests for an update.
What changes: you are still present when the decision finally happens.
05
Code every loss
Recording why each opportunity was lost, and at which stage. Six months of that data is worth more than any amount of campaign optimisation.
What changes: the pattern behind lost projects becomes visible and fixable.
06
Report on pipeline, not leads
Reporting in the terms the business is actually run on — what is in the pipeline, what proportion closes, and how long it takes.
What changes: marketing and sales are finally looking at the same numbers.
Components
Where the Return Usually Is.
02
Google Ads
Capture homeowners and businesses searching with genuine full-project intent, not general browsing.
Search strategy
03
Conversion Tracking
Follow each opportunity from source through to signed contract, so attribution reflects revenue rather than form fills.
Attribution approach
04
Website & Landing Pages
Pages that carry the credibility a large project demands: completed work, process clarity, scale and delivery capability.
See the approach
Questions
Common Questions From Turnkey Companies.
We only need six to eight projects a year. Is digital marketing even relevant?
It is relevant precisely because the number is small. At that volume, converting two more of the opportunities you already have is worth more than any increase in lead flow — which is why we usually start with CRM, qualification and follow-up rather than with advertising. Advertising then becomes a controlled way to add opportunities to a pipeline that can actually handle them.
Our sales cycle is four to six months. How do you measure anything in that time?
By measuring the leading indicators rather than only the outcome: qualified opportunities created, site visits, proposals issued and pipeline value, all attributed to source. Those move within weeks. Signed contracts confirm the picture later. Judging a long-cycle business on closed revenue alone means waiting two quarters to learn anything.
We also take commercial fit-out work. Same approach?
The pipeline discipline is identical, but the demand generation is not. Commercial work is won through search, referral networks and direct relationships far more than through social advertising, and the decision unit is formal rather than domestic. We would usually treat them as two connected but separate systems.
How much of this depends on our own team?
A great deal, and it is worth being direct about that. We can build the qualification, the CRM structure and the follow-up cadence — but somebody in your business has to update the pipeline and make the calls. Where a client is not willing to maintain that, we will say so rather than implement a system that quietly stops being used.
Let's Look at Your Pipeline.
A free review of how opportunities reach you, how they are tracked and where they stall.