Proposal Follow-Up & Decision Recovery
Every proposal gets a value, an age, an owner and a dated next action, and the follow-up branches on why the client has not decided rather than sending the same reminder three times.
- Tier
- Growth
- Build order
- 3rd of 7 for smart home and AV
- Shape of it
- 10 steps, 2 decision points, 2 escalation rules
- At launch
- Runs supervised, with you approving what goes out
The problem this solves
This is the largest recoverable pool in most integration businesses, and it is not a sales-skill problem. It is an ownership problem.
A proposal goes out after days of design work. The client says they need to think about it, or talk to their builder, or wait until the framing is done. The proposal is marked sent. Nobody owns the next contact. It ages out of view. The project proceeds eventually, with a reduced scope, or with whoever was still in the conversation.
And "let me think about it" is not one objection in this trade. It is at least five, and they need completely different answers:
Budget. The number is real and the answer is phasing, not discounting. Most whole-home systems can be infrastructured now and populated later, and the client usually does not know that.
The build schedule. They are not deciding because the trades are not ready. The answer is a date, tied to a real construction milestone, not a nudge.
Another decision-maker. A partner, an architect, an interior designer or a builder has not seen it. The answer is a version built to be shown to that person.
Comparison. They have another quote and cannot compare them because the two documents describe different systems. The answer is a clear like-for-like, which usually favours the more complete proposal.
Doubt about the value. They cannot picture what it does. The answer is a demonstration, a showroom visit, or a reference project, not more specification.
All five get "just following up on the proposal I sent", if they get anything.
How it works, step by step
Every wait, threshold and branch below is a value we set with you during the build, against your stages and your language. None of it is a default we impose.
- What starts it
- It decides something
- It escalates to a person
Step 1Trigger
The proposal is issued from a record that already carries the value, the project stage, the decision-makers, and whether phasing was discussed.
Step 2
It is assigned an owner by name. Not a queue and not "sales".
Step 3
The client receives it with the options laid out and, where relevant, the phasing shown, because phasing answers the most common objection before it is raised.
Step 4
The system tracks whether the proposal was opened. Unopened after forty-eight hours is a different problem from opened and not acted on, and it gets a different response: a call, not another email.
Step 5Escalation
At the first branch point the client is asked one question rather than nudged: what is the part you are still weighing? The answer routes the sequence.
Step 6Branch
Each branch has its own content, approved by the owner. The budget branch goes to phasing. The schedule branch parks the proposal against a construction milestone and stops messaging until then.
Step 7Branch
Trade-partner proposals branch separately. When a builder or designer is the intermediary, the follow-up goes to them in their language, not to the homeowner.
Step 8Escalation
Anything above an agreed value with no response escalates to the owner as a live call, with the value and the age attached.
Step 9
A stop condition ends everything the moment the client proceeds, declines or asks not to be contacted.
Step 10
Every closed proposal gets a reason code, reviewed monthly. That is where next year's proposal format and pricing changes come from.
How it gets built
Built inside what you already run
- D-Tools
- iPoint
- or whatever your office already runs on
Nothing to log into and nothing to license. If a system needs a record your platform does not hold, we add the field to your platform rather than starting a second one beside it.
This is the actual build order, in the phases its own steps fall into. It runs in supervised mode first, with you approving what goes out, until you are happy with the tone.
- 1
Agree
Agree the fields that make a proposal record complete and make it impossible to issue without them.
The thresholds, the wording and the names are yours. We write them down with you and get the consequential ones signed off.
- 2
Build
Name the owner for each proposal type. This is the step that is always skipped and it is the one that decides whether this works.
Built inside the software you already run, against your stages and your language.
- 3
Agree
Build the phasing presentation with the owner. It is the highest-leverage change in the whole system.
- 4
Build
Build open-tracking and the two different responses that follow from it.
- 5
Agree
Write the five branches, including the honest version of what happens if they wait until after drywall.
- 6
Build
Build the separate trade-partner branch.
- 7
Agree
Set the escalation value threshold.
- 8
Build
Build the stop conditions and test them before going live.
- 9
Agree
Agree the reason codes and put the monthly review in a diary.
- 10
Prove
Load the existing backlog of open proposals on day one and work it by hand before automating anything. That backlog is usually the fastest money in the engagement.
It runs with a person approving what goes out until you are happy with the tone. Nothing sends unreviewed on day one.
What changes after it goes live
How it runs today
This is the largest recoverable pool in most integration businesses, and it is not a sales-skill problem. It is an ownership problem.
After this one is live
No proposal sits without an owner and a date. Open proposal value becomes visible by age band, which is usually the first time the owner has seen that number. And the conversation changes from "did you get a chance to look at it" to an answer to the specific thing that stopped them.
How to measure whether it worked
Your arithmeticRun with your numbers, not ours
Pull every proposal from the last twelve months that did not close, and total the value by age band: nought to seven days, eight to thirty, thirty-one to ninety, ninety-one and over. Apply the company's own historical close rate to the ones that received no second contact. That number is the pool, and in this trade with project values from ten to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars it is typically the largest figure in this playbook.
We agree the baseline before anything is built, and we do not take credit for things that were going to happen anyway. There is no figure on this page claiming what we have produced for somebody else, because there is no verified figure to publish.
What we will not do
This is from the same delivery document as everything above it. It is on the page because a supplier who has not thought about it will not tell you, and you would find out later.
This trade does not carry the healthcare regulation of the med spa and dental playbooks, but it carries a different and equally serious exposure.
Client privacy is the primary risk. These systems are installed in the homes of wealthy and often deliberately private people. Every system here touches data that must never leave the business:
- Never expose a client address, a floor plan, a rack elevation, a network diagram, credentials, camera locations or a security configuration in a demonstration, a case study, a proposal template or a marketing asset.
- Every demonstration uses synthetic data. No real project, no real address, no real client name, even with permission, because a permission granted once travels further than anyone intends.
- Credentials handed over at completion go through a secure mechanism, not an email body.
- Remote access and monitoring integrations are a security surface. Any automation touching them needs the same review an integrator would apply to a client's network.
United States messaging rules still apply. Automated SMS to clients and prospects sits inside the TCPA and inside carrier A2P 10DLC registration:
- Classify every system as service or marketing before it sends. An appointment confirmation and a seasonal upgrade offer are different things under different consent standards.
- Record consent per number with date, source, wording and scope.
- Quiet hours 8am to 9pm in the recipient's local time.
- Honour STOP and free-text opt-outs immediately, cancel queued messages, and propagate suppression across every sending system.
- Route replies to a monitored human queue. A reply saying the system is down is not a marketing response.
Trade partner relationships are commercially sensitive. Builders, architects and designers refer work on the strength of trust. Any automation that contacts a homeowner in a way that cuts across the partner's relationship with their own client will cost referrals. Every system that touches a trade-referred project needs the partner's role defined before it sends anything.
Nothing in this document is legal advice. State privacy and telemarketing law, carrier policy and contractual obligations to manufacturers and trade partners can each add requirements. Every template stating a commercial term requires review by the company's own counsel before it goes live.
Nothing here is legal advice. Rules in this area have moved more than once recently, and every template that states a commercial term or a guarantee goes to your own counsel before it goes live.
Seven systems forsmart home and AV.
We build one at a time and prove it moved before starting the next. The tiers are the dependency order, not a price list.
Tier 1Foundational
Nothing arrives late or unowned. These come first because everything above them assumes they are true.
Tier 2Growth
The recoverable money. These work the pools the foundational systems have made visible for the first time.
- 3Proposal Follow-Up & Decision Recoveryyou are hereUsually the single largest recoverable pool in the business.
- 4Selections, Change Orders & Project Milestone ControlStops the margin loss, and is the one the project manager will champion hardest.
Tier 3Flagship
One connected system end to end, plus what the owner reads on a Monday. Only once the pieces are proven individually.
- 5The Complete Project SystemThe flagship, once the pieces are proven individually.
- 6Service Agreements, Installed Base & Recurring RevenueCompounds everything above, and depends on the installed base data that System 5 starts producing properly.
- 7The Owner's Morning BriefOnly meaningful once there are systems to report on.
The tiers are the dependency order for smart home and AV, not a price list. Most firms do not start at the first one, because the order is a default and the call is where it gets changed.
A note on sequencing this trade
Do not build all seven at once.
Each stage is proven against its agreed measure before the next begins.
One sequencing note specific to this trade. System 3's existing backlog of open proposals should be worked by hand in week one, before any of it is automated. At project values of ten to a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, one recovered proposal usually pays for the entire engagement, and working it manually is what tells you what the five branches should actually say.
Back to the smart home and AV overview for the stage map and where these fit.
Is this the oneyou need first?
Often it is not. On the call we look at what is actually costing you most right now, which is frequently a different system from the one that brought you to this page. If there is nothing worth building yet, we will say so.