How to turn a lead into a phone call

Planning registers publish names and addresses, but almost never a phone number or an email address. Here is how to bridge that gap. How long it takes depends on the country and on how common the name is - we are measuring that properly rather than guessing at it.

Or go to the developer

For things bought in bulk - kitchens, tiling, pools, finishes - the developer usually decides.

1. Look them up in the company register. Every country here has a free public company register. It confirms you have the right company and gives the registered address and directors. The one for this country is linked above.
2. Search for their website - company name plus country.
3. Try the phone directory. A national business directory is still the most reliable source of a switchboard number when a practice has no website.
4. Ask for the named person. Where we show an "ask for" name, that person is named on the application itself, so you skip reception entirely.

If you bought the local-market bulletin

The weekly bulletin is not a list of permits. It carries three other kinds of record, and each is acted on differently.

1. A call for tender is work nobody has been hired for yet. The buyer is named on the row, with its own telephone or e-mail where it published one, and the date replies close. Search the BOAMP reference on boamp.fr: the notice says what is being bought, in which lots, and where the consultation documents are downloaded, usually the buyer’s own procurement profile. Read them before you call, answer before the deadline, and ask the buyer’s named contact anything the documents leave open. A row marked TED is not on boamp.fr: search its reference on ted.europa.eu, where the notice links to the same documents.
2. An award names the contractor who won the job. The winner, the buyer, the amount and the length of the contract are on the row. That contractor now has to staff and supply the work, so it is the one to call if you subcontract or supply: look its name up in the company register above for its address and directors, and say which contract you saw it win, for which buyer.
3. An F or G energy certificate marks a home its landlord will have to improve to keep letting it. The row gives the property’s address, its class, its floor area and the day the certificate was issued; it names no owner, because ADEME publishes none. F and G are the two worst classes: insulation, heating, windows and ventilation are the usual cure, and since 2025 a G-rated home may no longer be let under a new lease, with F to follow in 2028 and E in 2034 — a rule for landlords letting homes, not a duty on every owner. A certificate is usually drawn up for a sale or a letting, so a letter to the address reaches the owner who will order the work, and the floor area lets you price it before you write.

Go and look at the site

Planning rules require a notice displayed at the development, and it carries the architect's details. For a local supplier, driving past a shortlisted site is often the fastest route to a name and number - and it tells you whether work has actually started.

Call at the right time

This matters as much as the lead itself. Ringing about air conditioning the week a permit is granted wastes everyone's time - the building does not exist yet.

Every lead on this site shows its own call window.

What to say

You know the case reference, exactly what is being built, where, and whether it was approved. Use it.

An invented example — replace the reference and the project with those from your own lead:

"I saw 05300000K0000 was approved - the 161-key hotel. We supply HVAC and wanted to introduce ourselves before the services package goes out."

That is not a cold call.

A few rules

• Contacting a company or a professional about their work is normal business practice.
• We never publish private individuals. Where a homeowner applied, their details are not stored at all - so the temptation does not arise. See Privacy.
• If someone asks not to be contacted again, stop immediately and permanently.
• Never suggest you are connected to a planning authority. You are not, and neither are we.