30 September 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
This enquiry converts in six months, not six days
Somebody enquiring about a garage conversion has usually been thinking about it for a year and will take several more months to commit. They are discussing it with a partner, looking at what it costs, and weighing it against moving. A specialist who treats that enquiry as hot, rings twice and writes it off has thrown away almost everything they paid to generate.
The enquiry is the start of a conversation
It is rarely a decision. It is somebody gathering information, frequently before they have fully agreed with their partner that they are doing it at all.
Pushing produces a polite no. Treating it as the opening of a months-long conversation produces a job, often in the next quarter.
Two calls is not a follow-up
Most specialists ring, ring again, and stop. The customer who was busy both times is gone, along with the cost of acquiring them.
A sequence that runs over weeks — a call, a message, something useful to read, another call a fortnight later — recovers a real share of them. None of it is clever, which is exactly why so few do it.
Give them something for the kitchen table
The person you spoke to has to convince somebody else. A short document with photographs of a similar house, the stages and the timeline is far more persuasive in that conversation than a remembered phone call.
It also keeps your name in the discussion rather than the competitor who sent a price and nothing else.
The seasonal pattern is real
Enquiries cluster when people are indoors and aware of the space: after Christmas, and again when the evenings close in.
An enquiry that goes quiet in March is frequently a job in September. The list of unconverted enquiries from last winter is one of the most valuable things a specialist owns and it is usually sitting unused in an inbox.
Keep track of them
Name, date, what stage, when to make contact again. A spreadsheet is enough.
Without it, follow-up depends on remembering, and nobody remembers in October what they quoted in April.
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.