A practice receives four visit requests a week. Each takes an hour of travel, an hour on site and an hour writing up. Two of the four have no budget, one wants free advice before doing it themselves, and one becomes a project.
That is nine hours a week for one commission, and the practice is describing it as marketing.
Step 1: qualify before the visit
Property address and type, what they want to do, whether they own it, their budget range, their timescale and whether they have spoken to anyone else. Twenty minutes on this saves three hours of travel.
Step 2: publish an honest budget range
Homeowners planning an extension with a figure in mind are frequently out by a factor of two. Publishing indicative construction costs by project type means the unviable enquiries stop before anyone drives anywhere.
Step 3: decide what the visit is for
An appraisal that produces advice, or a sales meeting that produces a proposal. These are different appointments and conflating them is why they take three hours and produce nothing.
Step 4: charge for the appraisal
A fixed fee for a visit producing a written summary of what is possible, constraints, likely routes and indicative costs. Clients who pay for it are clients, and many practices find it converts better than the free version.
Step 5: credit it against the project
Offering to credit the appraisal fee against fees if they proceed removes the objection entirely while keeping the filter.
Step 6: separate the measured survey
An accurate measured record of the existing building is a distinct piece of work, sometimes carried out by a specialist, and it is not what happens at a first visit. Explaining this prevents a homeowner expecting drawings from an hour's chat.
Step 7: tell them what to have ready
Deeds, any existing drawings, planning history, a list of what they want and what they do not, and a budget. A prepared client makes a visit twice as useful.
Step 8: ask about the constraints early
Conservation area, listed status, trees, boundaries, drainage and access. Some of these change the entire feasibility and can be checked before travelling.
Step 9: use the visit to qualify the relationship
Whether the client can make decisions, whether both owners agree and whether the timescale is realistic. Projects fail on these more than on design.
Step 9b: establish who else has to agree
Extensions get designed for one half of a couple and then stall because the other half never wanted it. Establishing at the visit who the decision-makers are, whether both have seen the budget and whether anyone else has a say, such as a parent funding the work, prevents months of revisions driven by a person who was never in the room.
Step 10: send the write-up quickly
A short written summary within a few days, whether or not they proceed. It is the most useful thing many homeowners receive and it is what they forward to the next architect if you do not follow up.
Step 11: qualify hard at the enquiry
It is the approach in project enquiries architects should qualify early.
Step 12: planning anxiety runs underneath
It is covered in planning and permission questions clients ask architects, survey capture is covered in solar survey requests captured properly, and being on site while enquiries arrive is the problem in how plumbers and electricians stop losing calls on site.
Getting started
Publish your appraisal fee, what it produces, indicative cost ranges and what to have ready, then qualify and capture visit requests at any hour. Setting up takes minutes with install the widget and train your bot. SpideyChat for architects answers from your published pages.