The pipeline from display suite to exchange

A presale campaign produces enquiries, inspections, expressions of interest, contracts out and eventually exchanges. Each of those is a stage a developer can count. Most developers see only the last one, weekly, by email from the agent. The lender wants the unconditional count today, and the spreadsheet arrives on Friday. Six stages fix that, and every one of them is checkable.

Six stages, each verifiable

1. Enquiry, with the lot type and the source.
2. Inspected, whether a display suite or a site visit.
3. Expression of interest, which is intent rather than commitment.
4. Contract issued, and the date it went to their solicitor.
5. Exchanged, with the deposit received.
6. Unconditional, which is the count a lender uses.

Anybody can check each one without asking, which is what makes the pipeline usable in a financier conversation. A stage meaning warm or progressing cannot survive that conversation. The gap between the last two stages is the one that catches developers. A contract exchanged subject to finance is not a presale a lender will count. Keeping the two stages separate prevents a presale threshold that looks met and is not.

Contracts out is the most useful stage

A contract sitting with a purchaser's solicitor for three weeks is the most fixable problem in a whole campaign. Nobody is arguing, and nobody is chasing either. That count, with an age beside it, is worth reading daily rather than weekly. Diract CRM sorts the board by how long a card has sat in its stage. One phone call usually moves a contract that had stopped for no reason at all.

Source belongs on every enquiry

Portal, signage, agent database, referral and repeat buyer produce very different conversion rates. A developer spending on a campaign should be able to name which channel produced the exchanges rather than the enquiries. Those are different lists, and the cheapest channel for enquiries is rarely the best for contracts. Diract CRM groups the board by source, so the comparison takes no work.

The lot matters as much as the buyer

An enquiry interested in a two bedroom north facing apartment is information about the product as well as the person. Ten enquiries for a type with two lots left is a pricing signal. It also arrives well before the agent mentions it. The same field builds the waiting list. Buyers who wanted a lot type already sold are the first calls when a contract falls over, which happens on most projects. That list exists only where somebody recorded the type each enquiry wanted.

The developer keeps the list

An agency change mid campaign removes the enquiry history entirely, unless the developer holds a copy. Diract CRM carries the pipeline against the project, which survives a change of agent without losing the buyers. An agency also measures its own performance, and that entirely reasonable interest shapes the numbers it reports. A developer holding the same pipeline independently can ask better questions. They can also answer a financier without waiting for anybody's spreadsheet.

A lost enquiry carries a reason

Too expensive, wrong aspect, bought elsewhere and could not get finance are four different problems. Each of them has a different and cheaper response. A campaign with fifty enquiries and no recorded reasons has learned nothing usable. The reasons also explain a slow week honestly. Two weeks of enquiries with no inspections usually means the price, the plan or the advertising rather than the market.

Report the same numbers every week

A financier reading a different set of definitions each week starts discounting all of them. Six stages, reported identically, builds the credibility that matters at the next drawdown. Consistency costs nothing once the stages exist. Diract CRM reports the same six every week, because the board is the source rather than a rebuilt summary.

Settlement is a separate pipeline

Exchanged to settled involves construction, an occupation certificate and a purchaser's lender. None of that belongs in the sales stages, and mixing them produces a board nobody trusts. Our guide to purchaser records to settlement covers the second half of the journey. Diract CRM holds the six sales stages as a board against the project, and dragging a card saves the change. The lot type and the source sit on each enquiry, which is how a waiting list appears without anybody building one.

What to change first

• Six verifiable stages run from enquiry to unconditional
• Exchanged and unconditional stay separate counts
• Contracts out shows an age beside the count
• Every enquiry records its source and its lot type
• The developer holds the pipeline, not only the agent
• Lost enquiries carry one of four reasons
• The same definitions get reported every week