Chapter 06
Outreach playbook
The pack does the work. Everything in this chapter is scaffolding around it: who to ring, what to say when they pick up, and what to say when they push back.
- Two touches after the pack, then stop. A firm that has held a printed pack with their own logo on it and said nothing has told us something.
- Qualify out fast. The most common honest objection in this trade is "I'm turning work away", and arguing with it wastes the only asset we have, which is time.
- Answer the copyright question before it is asked. It is coming, it is fair, and a straight answer is a differentiator.
- Never send a pack in an installer's name to a member of the public without their agreement. Said once here and once in chapter 04, deliberately.
6.1 The five-question qualification gate
Ask these in the first call. Two "no" answers and the firm goes to a six-month list, not the pipeline. Knowing what to abandon is worth more than knowing what to chase.
| # | Question, as you would actually ask it | What a good answer sounds like | What a bad answer means |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Are you looking for more work at the minute, or are you booked out?" | Booked six to eight weeks, wants better jobs rather than more | Booked six months and happy. Disqualify. They do not want enquiries. |
| 2 | "Who does your marketing?" | The owner, their partner, or one part-time person | An agency on retainer. Slower, and the agency will treat us as a threat. |
| 3 | "How do people find you now?" | Word of mouth plus Checkatrade, and they resent paying for shared leads | Entirely repeat and referral, no paid channel ever. A hard first sale. |
| 4 | "When somebody rings, what do you show them?" | Photos of past jobs, and a wish they could show the customer's own room | "We do a 3D in Virtual Worlds at the appointment." Not a disqualifier, but the pitch changes: this is before the appointment, not instead of it. |
| 5 | "Do you fit yourselves, or do you sub it out?" | Own fitters, or a regular crew | Supply only, or "we introduce you to an installer". Disqualify. They are not the buyer. |
6.2 The sequence
Chapter 04 sets out the timings. This is the wording.
Day 5, the phone call
To the showroom number in working hours. The opening line is a question about the post, not a pitch. If the owner is not there, ask when they are and ring back. Do not leave a message on the first attempt.
Day 9, the email, only if the call did not connect
Subject line is the street name. Nothing else. Three lines, a photograph of the pack, no attachment, no links beyond one.
Day 18, stop
No third touch. Record the outcome against the demo row so the next fifty are chosen better.
6.3 The discovery call, when they say yes
Twenty minutes, six questions, in this order. The aim is to leave with a listing they chose, not with a signature.
- "Walk me through the last kitchen you did. Where did that customer come from?" The answer tells you their real channel mix and gives you the language to use for the rest of the call.
- "How many of your jobs are people who have just moved in?" If they say "most of them", the whole pitch is confirmation rather than persuasion. If they say "hardly any", ask why, and listen, because they may be right about their patch.
- "What does a job like that one bill out at?" You need their number, not the £17,500 national median.S12 Their number is what makes the arithmetic real.
- "What do you spend on getting work at the moment, all in?" This is the budget we are competing for, and it is almost always a Checkatrade or a MyBuilder line.S17
- "If I gave you twenty of these a month, who would post them?" The operational question everyone forgets. If the answer is nobody, the product will not get used and the account will churn at month three.
- "Pick me a house." Get them to choose a live listing on the call. Build the pack while they watch, or send it that afternoon. This is the close, and it is not a close, which is why it works.
6.4 Objection handling
The hard one, first
"Is this legal? That's the estate agent's photo."
Do not deflect. Answer it. It is the most intelligent question an installer can ask and answering it well is a differentiator, because nobody else in this category does.
"Fair question, and the honest answer is that the photograph belongs to whoever took it, usually a freelance the agent hired, not to you and not to us. The portals' terms say not to collect their content automatically, and we do not pretend otherwise. Here is what that means for you in practice. The pack credits the photograph to the listing agent and says it is an AI visualisation. You are choosing the listing and pasting the link, so nothing is being harvested in your name. And we are working on an agreement with an agency group so that at volume it runs off their feed with their permission rather than off the public page. If you want it in writing before you spend anything, I will send you our position and you can put it in front of whoever you use."
Why this works. It is true, it is specific, it does not pretend the risk away, and it ends with an offer that a cautious buyer will take up and an incautious one will wave off. Chapter 10 is the document you send.S38
The rest
| Objection | The answer | What not to say |
|---|---|---|
| "I'm turning work away as it is." | "Then this is the wrong month. Can I ring you in the spring? And out of interest, when you do have a gap, what fills it fastest?" Then leave. | Anything that argues. The trade has a skills shortage, not a work shortage, and they are telling the truth.S14 |
| "How many jobs will it get me?" | "I don't know, and anybody who gives you a number is guessing. Nobody has run this campaign. What I can tell you is what a pack costs and how many houses sell near you in a year. The rest is yours to find out at £29 a month." | A response rate. We do not have one. Inventing one is the fastest way to be found out.S15 |
| "We already do 3D at the appointment." | "Right, and this is before the appointment. Your CAD draws beautifully once they are sat in front of you. This is what gets them to sit down." | Criticising their CAD. They paid for it and a designer likes it. |
| "The kitchen in that render isn't one we'd fit." | "That's the point of the brand kit. You pick the products and the styles, and every render uses yours. Show me what you'd have put in and I'll rebuild it." | Defending the house styles. The signature style exists exactly for this.S5 |
| "The window's the wrong shape." | "Yes, and I would rather you spotted that than a customer. The renders drift on geometry, we measure it, and it is why the plan page is drawn from the floorplan rather than generated. It is a known problem with a known fix and we are not going to tell you it is not there." | "It looks fine to me." It does not, and they can see it.S6 |
| "You're one person." | "I am. So your data comes out whenever you want it, in one click, and there is nothing to unwind if you stop. If that is a problem for you it is a fair one, and it is a reason to start on the £29 band rather than the £89 one." | Implying a team that does not exist. It is checkable in ninety seconds. |
| "Send me something and I'll have a look." | "I already did, that's what the pack was. Did it not arrive?" If it genuinely has not, resend. If it has, they are being polite and the answer is no. | Sending a brochure. The pack is the brochure. |
| "What if a customer complains about the picture?" | "Then the picture was too ambitious, and that is on both of us. The rule is that a render only shows what you could genuinely fit in that room with the products you sell, and the pack says on it that it is an AI visualisation and indicative. If you ever want one changed before it goes, say so." | Anything suggesting the disclaimer covers it. It does not.S41 |
| "Can I have it for my whole postcode, exclusively?" | "Not yet. Let's find out whether it works for you first, and then we can talk about what exclusivity is worth." | Yes. Exclusivity given away before value is proven is value destroyed. |
| "Can you find the houses for me?" | "Not today. You paste the link, and honestly that is deliberate at this stage. Finding them automatically is where the portals' terms get difficult, and I would rather tell you that than build it quietly." | Promising it for next quarter. Chapter 10 explains why.S38 |
6.5 The pack-through-the-letterbox move, in the field
Chapter 04 is the strategy. Three field notes that only show up once you have done it.
Post it, do not hand it over
A pack handed across a showroom counter is a leaflet. A pack that arrives in the post is the product working. The whole demonstration is that it came through a letterbox without anybody doing anything.
Do not put a price on it
The demo pack carries no price, no plan comparison and no offer. The price conversation belongs to the call on day five, once they have decided the thing is real.
Get the trade right or do not send it
Sending a kitchen pack to a bathroom fitter is the one error a recipient spots instantly and never forgets. Chapter 05's trade column exists for this.
6.6 Warm routes, which are worth more than any of this
Cold post at £2 a go is the engine. These four are cheaper and land harder, and none of them is built yet.
The buying groups
KBBG already launched a consumer lead site for its member retailers, and PWS's Second Nature partner programme already promises retailers consumer leads from the brand's marketing.S47 The idea that a supplier should generate consumer leads for its trade customers is not novel to them. What is missing is the mover trigger and the picture of the buyer's actual room.
The suppliers
Chapter 07. A brand paying for packs on behalf of its dealers changes the unit economics completely, because the £5 stops being the installer's money.
The trade press
kbbreview and kbbfocus cover this sector closely and publish the market data this guide relies on.S13 "Somebody is posting new homeowners an AI render of their own kitchen" is a story before it is a product, and it is free.
6.7 What we do not do
- No cold calling before the pack. The pack is the reason the call is welcome. Reverse them and it is just another sales call.
- No email before a privacy notice is live. Non-negotiable.S40
- No claims about response rates. Not in an email, not on the website, not on a call, until fifty packs have been sent and counted.S15
- No naming another installer as a customer without written permission, and no "firms like yours are already using it" until firms like theirs actually are.
- No discounting to close. Move the band instead.
- No sending a pack in an installer's name to a member of the public without their agreement. Not once, not as a favour, not to prove a point.