How to find contract projects before they are awarded

In contract furniture (hotels, care homes, offices, restaurants), the order rarely starts when someone asks for a price. Long before that, an interior design studio has already proposed materials and brands, and a developer has already set the schedule and budget. Whoever arrives when quotes are requested usually competes on price against suppliers someone already knew. This guide explains how to find out earlier and reach the right person.

1. Understand who decides what, and when

Several people touch a hotel or contract project, and each decides a part:

The developer or owner: decides whether the project goes ahead, the overall budget and the schedule.
The hotel operator or brand: sometimes imposes design standards and supplier lists.
The architecture or interior design studio: proposes the furniture and finishes. It is the specifier: if your product is not on its list, it does not reach the budget.
The contractor, project management or purchasing: requests and compares quotes once the design is defined.

The practical conclusion is that, in many projects, the moment to enter is during design, with whoever specifies, and not when purchasing asks for three quotes.

2. Where projects are visible before price is discussed

You do not need a paid database to start. These sources are public:

Trade and local press: hotel openings, refurbishments and rebrandings appear in tourism media and in each area's business press.
Municipal permits and notices: hotel and venue works need permits, and many town halls publish their decisions and bulletins.
Company registrations: the official commercial gazette lists new companies; a newly created company by a hotel developer is a clue.
Public tenders: for care homes, state-run hotels, universities and public buildings, the public procurement platform shows projects before they are awarded.
Pre-opening job ads: when a hotel hires a general manager, front-desk lead or restaurant team, opening is usually near.
Interior design studios' websites and social profiles: many show «project in progress» and the hotels they are designing.
Trade fair catalogues: the list of exhibitors and brands at your sector's fair shows who is active, even if you do not attend.

3. Prioritise with signals, not intuition

For each project you find, note four things before writing to anyone:

Stage: idea, design, works or opening soon. The earlier, the more room to be specified.
Size: number of rooms or square metres, to see whether your capacity fits.
Who designs it: the name of the architecture or interior design studio.
Fit with your product: whether what you make appears in that kind of space.

With those four columns you have a list you can sort, and you only contact the projects where your product makes sense.

4. Write to the specifier, with a concrete reason

The most useful message is short and starts with something you saw about their project, not with your catalogue. A simple structure:

What you saw: «I saw you are designing the interior of hotel X».
Why you mention it: one sentence about what you make and which projects it suits.
An easy question: «Would it help if I sent a data sheet and lead times for this type of project?».

Write to one specific person at the studio, two at most, and without heavy attachments in the first message.

5. Prepare what they will ask for

A specifier who answers wants to decide fast. Keep ready:

Data sheets and drawings of the models most used in contract.
Certificates and tests that hospitality projects require for your materials.
Real manufacturing and delivery times, and minimum order quantities.
Finish and customisation options, and how samples are requested.
Projects of yours you can show with the client's permission.

6. Follow up and write everything down

A contract project lasts months. Note which project each studio has, when you wrote and what they said, and write again when the project changes phase (for example, from design to works). Without that record, you start from zero every quarter.

What you can do and what we can do

All of this can be done by hand and it works. The hard part is keeping it up every week while you handle orders and quotes. That is where we come in: we build and run the system that finds the projects, identifies who decides and writes to them with a reason. If you make furniture for hotels, you can see how we approach your sector. And if you want to go deeper into spotting companies before they ask for a quote, read this other article. If you manufacture, this is how we approach customer acquisition for manufacturers.