1 October 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
A kitchen enquiry is not a hot lead
The gap between first enquiry and signed order in this trade is routinely three to six months, and the thinking started long before the enquiry. A company that treats the enquiry as hot, rings twice and moves on has paid to generate a customer it then abandons two months before they were ready.
Why it takes so long
It is expensive, it is disruptive, it usually needs two people to agree, and it frequently waits on something else — an extension, a bonus, a child finishing school.
None of that is reluctance. It is a sensible person making a large decision at a sensible pace.
Keep a list and work it
Who enquired, what room, what stage, when to contact next. Without it, follow-up depends on memory and nothing is followed up at all.
The companies that do this consistently look busier than their advertising explains.
Give them something useful between contacts
A guide on planning the layout, a piece on what drives the price, photographs of a room like theirs. Useful rather than promotional.
It keeps you present without pressure and it is read by the partner who was not on the call, which is frequently the person who has not been convinced.
Seasonality is predictable
Enquiries cluster after Christmas, when people have had a houseful and noticed everything the kitchen cannot do, and again in late summer.
An enquiry that goes quiet in March is often an order in September. Writing it off in April is writing off the sale.
Last year's unconverted list is this year's revenue
People who were not ready are now ready. They have already met you and already liked you enough to enquire.
A short, warm message to that list is the highest-return campaign most kitchen companies could run and almost none of them do it.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.