Most enquiries that go cold had no next step.
Enquiries arrive by phone, WhatsApp, a site visit, an exhibition or a tender, and many small contractors keep them in a notebook or a chat. When one goes quiet, the reason is often simple: nobody had the next step, and nobody owned it.
By Muhammad Arslan, founder of Mizarah, who kept a UAE joinery's books for thirteen years · 6 minute read · Updated 24 October 2026 · Practical guidance, not tax advice: confirm anything that matters for your business with your tax agent or the Federal Tax Authority.
A contractor's CRM only needs to do four things well: hold every enquiry in one place with its value and where it came from, show which stage each one is at (for example new, site visit, quoted, won or lost), give every open lead a dated next step and an owner, and record why each lost job was lost. When a lead is won, it should become the quotation and then the contract without retyping.
Put every enquiry in one place.
An enquiry in a salesperson's phone is invisible to everyone else, and leaves with them. Record each one the day it arrives, whoever takes it.
- What it is: for example kitchen and wardrobes for Villa 12.
- Who it is from: the contact, and the company if there is one.
- Expected value, before VAT, and when it is expected to close.
- Where it came from: referral, repeat customer, walk-in, website, Instagram, WhatsApp, exhibition or tender.
- Who owns it.
Use stages that match how your team works.
A stage says where the enquiry is, so the whole office can see what is close to a quotation and what is stuck. Six are enough to start; rename them to how your team talks, for example "Design approved".
| Stage | What it means |
|---|---|
| New | The enquiry has arrived |
| Qualified | A real job, with a budget and a timing |
| Site visit | Measured or visited |
| Quoted | The quotation has gone out |
| Won | Approved: it becomes the job |
| Lost | Closed, with the reason it was lost |
No open lead without a next step.
A lead with no next step is how enquiries go cold. Every open lead should say what happens next, when, and who does it, and the overdue ones should be the first thing anyone sees.
- What: a call, a meeting, a site visit, a WhatsApp message or an email.
- When: a date and a time, such as tomorrow at 09:00.
- Who: the owner of the lead, or someone it is given to.
Record why each job was lost.
One reason per lost job is enough. Over a year the reasons show what to change: your prices, how fast you quote, or how you follow up.
| Reason | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Price | 14 |
| Timing | 9 |
| Went with another workshop | 8 |
| No reply | 6 |
| Project cancelled | 3 |
| Lost in the year | 40 |
Here "No reply" and "Timing" together lost more jobs than price: that is a follow-up problem, not a pricing one.
When it is won, it should become the quotation.
The customer, the job and the value are already on the lead. The quotation should start from them, and once it is approved, the advance, the claims and the retention all follow from the quotation.
In Mizarah, Leads is a board with your own stages (New, Qualified, Site visit, Quoted, Won and Lost to start). Each lead holds its value, source, owner and next steps, overdue steps are flagged, a lost lead keeps the reason it was lost, many leads can be moved, given to someone or marked lost with one reason at once, leads can be imported from an Excel or CSV sheet, and a quotation, a discussion or a video call starts from the lead itself.
Common questions.
- Does a small contractor need a CRM?
- It needs one list of enquiries with a next step on each. Whether that is called a CRM matters less than having it in the same place as the quotations, so a won lead does not have to be typed in again.
- Should the expected value include VAT?
- No. Keep it before VAT, the same way the quotation and the contract value are kept.
- Can I import my existing leads?
- Yes. In Mizarah you can import leads from an Excel sheet (.xlsx or .xls) or a .csv file, with a template to download if you do not have a sheet yet.
- Who sees which leads?
- Each lead has an owner, and the board can show your own leads or everyone's. Leads can be given to someone else, singly or many at once.
Read next: Quoting from the BOQ · Team chat for a contractor's office · Choosing software for a UAE contractor
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