How Phelan’s Interiors Turned One Name on a List Into a $160,000 Order
About Project
In healthcare interiors, a buyer may only shop once a decade. Columnline found one with new money to spend, and Phelan’s Interiors turned that name into a $160,000 order.
About Phelan’s Interiors
Phelan’s Interiors is an 86-year-old family firm in Cedar Rapids that furnishes healthcare, behavioral health, and senior living spaces. Orders are large and rare, and a project can take 7 to 10 years to return, so the dealer who hears first wins.
Paul Phelan Jr., President and CEO, brought Columnline in to find funded buyers before they started shopping.
- Company
- Phelan’s Interiors, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
- Industry
- Commercial interiors and furniture for healthcare, behavioral health, senior living, and nonprofits
- Size and scale
- 86-year family firm with Iowa’s only 8,000-square-foot anti-ligature showroom
- What Columnline runs
- Pursuit Intelligence: finds funded buyers before they start shopping
- Tools it works with
- Email, Instantly, Columnline Pursuits workspace
Before
- Wait for referrals
- Broad email lists, wrong titles, 2.4% reply rate
- A buyer heard about in passing, with no name or number
- Management asking about the leads
After
- An AI employee watches for buyers with new funding and a need to build
- Named decision-makers at funded facilities
- A short batch of names, each with the reason to call
- Columnline leads on their own forecasting line
The Problem
Funded Buyers
Problem
Funded buyers don’t call a dealer they don’t know
Recovery centers and nonprofits are getting new money to build and furnish space. Paul once heard secondhand that a recovery center was shopping for a building, but nobody passed along the name. In his words: “These guys, they wouldn’t have called me out of the blue.”
Solution
A short list of funded buyers, tuned to Paul’s market
Columnline’s AI employee finds behavioral-health and nonprofit organizations with new funding and a reason to build. It names the decision-maker and sends Paul a short batch. Paul scores each one, shaping the next batch. When a lead fell outside his area, a radius filter centered on Cedar Rapids went in.
Pursuit Intelligence
Finds funded buyers near Cedar Rapids and hands Paul their names with a reason to call.
“Not until I saw their name on the list you gave me... That’ll be about a $200,000 order, so you get credit for that... Probably closer to 160, but still a very nice order that came through.”
Paul Phelan Jr.President and CEO, Phelan’s InteriorsResults
A $160,000 order from one name.
- About $160,000, from an opioid recovery center Columnline put on the list.
- More than 26 times what Phelan’s paid Columnline.
- Two orders closed from Columnline leads, including an earlier $9,000 job.
- Its own line on the forecasting sheet, tracked by leadership.
Outcome
The outcome
One name became a $160,000 order. An earlier lead had already closed at $9,000, and management now tracks every Columnline lead on its own line of the forecasting sheet. As Paul put it: “We’ve had some good success with your leads because you got your own name on our forecasting sheet.”
Paul also introduced Columnline to another business owner, and said contacts at Mortenson and Cedar Rapids City Construction had “touted your services.”
Next steps
What’s next
Paul is working the buyer list he already has. The search stays built, tuned to his radius and markets, and ready to refresh when he wants the next batch.
Sell into healthcare or nonprofit projects? Book a call, and we will run the same buyer search for your firm.