Diva FAQ's

Yes, we do! Often, we’re engaged to update the sales office during a branding refresh, when a new development stage is about to launch, or when the sales office is being relocated within the estate.

Other past examples of refurbishment we have undertaken occurred when another agency was engaged to provide the design and fit-out, and the results were less than stellar: sluggish or no sales and a disengaged, frustrated sales team. Diva Works are Australia’s ONLY dedicated sales office design and fit-out team. There’s a reason that our clients won’t do a sales office without us – we are experts in this arena. We don’t love having to redo a space due to a lack of strategic design and poor-quality finishes. Get the job done right, spend the money once and speak to the Divas.

Yes, we do, and it’s only what we do. Control freaks get a bad rap, but I tell you, we get stuff DONE. I’ve seen too many bad examples of separate design and project management teams delivering sales offices, and the results show in a subpar customer experience, higher costs, more hassle, and, inevitably, “not my job, mate” when conflicts arise.

You want one squirrel to squeeze when it comes to sales office design and delivery. And we’re your squirrel.

Great question!  Short answer – the cabin builder provides the structure; Diva Works designs and does the internal fit out.

Longer answer? Here’s the breakdown:

Sales Office Canin or Modular Supplier:

• Responsible for the structure in which the sales office is housed in
• Will either be purchased or hired (different suppliers have different business models)
• Transport and siting of the sales office, including permits
• Usually responsible for the “cold shell fit out”, ie, the flooring, the wall and ceiling painting, the installation of the power, data, lighting, any packing in walls and ceilings (to support items) and the back-of-house area. The finishes for the flooring and paint, and the drawings for power, data, lighting, and packing locations, are all supplied to the builder by Diva Works, based on the design approved by the client.
• Sometime Diva Works will do the cold shell fit out if the cabin supplier does not have resources or if the cabin is an existing re-use from another of the clients’ projects

Diva Works:

• We design the sales office fit-out. This includes the customer journey and floorplan, the overall look and feel, development drawings, and mood boards, selection of furniture and styling items and the 3D renders of the proposed space
• The entire project management of the job: client liaison through the entire project, guiding the design team in selections so it matches the budget, writing specs for quoting, sending quotes out to the suppliers and discussing the project with them, creation of project timelines, liaison with key project partners like model-makers and AV specialists to ensure smooth integration of works between all parties, compilation of quotes, managing client approval process, managing the post-sign off manufacture period, being on site to manage the fit-out process and handover to the client team
• We also have a specialist graphic manager on staff who will work with the interior designers to incorporate the signage and graphics into the design in unique and interesting ways. They will also prepare specifications for the client’s agency to produce finished artwork, which we will install in the sales office. Our graphics manager will also seek quotes for all the signage and graphics elements and manage the manufacture and installation of these elements in conjunction with the project manager, so things like the housing of transformers for illuminated signage are all thought through
• A key differentiator for us compared with many other fit-out firms is that we have a WHS manager on staff to guide us across all aspects of WHS. Working in the construction industry means a SHEDLOAD of WHS compliance, and rather than take a chance on this, we have employed a specialist with WHS training and experience to make sure the Divas and our suppliers work safe on site and are compliant

We can, depending on what serves the client and project best. Most of the time, we’re asked to do this in conjunction with the overall branding strategy for the sales office’s internal and external elements, or to provide ideas and solutions for the external façade, so the entire scope is considered holistically.

That said, many of our clients already have a signage partner on board to deliver billboards, flags, etc., so we can provide the design, which they can then hand to the signage partner to manufacture and install. It’s all about what serves the client and the project most effectively!

Sometimes!

If the client is particularly under the pump and their existing signage firm that handles the billboards, flags, etc, is also tied up, we can help with this.

The client who typically requests this is time-poor and is looking for it to be handled. Fortunately, the Divas are a safe pair of hands, and we just Get Shit Done.

Yes, we do. Much of our signage and display work in a sales office relies on LED illumination. Additionally, most of our sales offices have AV elements, which require power and data to be routed through our joinery.

Our electricians work with us, our partners, and suppliers to ensure power, data, and lighting are in the right locations and are tagged and safe for use. We can even provide electrical work certification as part of the OC (Occupaiton Certificate)

We can!  Often, the sales office modular building will be delivered to the site with the flooring that we have specified already laid.

However, in other jobs, such as retail fit-out or when we manage the cold-shell works in a modular sales office, we will manage the supply and fit-out of the flooring.

Typical flooring we do includes vinyl plank flooring, hardwood or hybrid timber flooring, broadloom carpet, carpet tiles and ceramic tiles and pavers.

Sidebar: If you are set on using tiles and pavers inside a sales office, please – for the love of all things sandwiches – make sure the floor prep has been done as part of the cold shell fit out!

Most certainly! One of our specialties is producing a textured paint finish in our sales offices: think the luminous Venetian Plaster, the warmth of a Suede paint or a sublime limewash finish to complement the branding palette and elevate the sales office experience. Talk to us about what is possible.

Look, I love plants; you love plants, but trust me, I’m not the person who needs to provide sales office landscaping advice. I live in a 5^th-floor apartment with a menagerie of succulents, terrariums, and a recalcitrant lime tree that REFUSES to do its one and only job and produce limes.

We’re happy to recommend other landscapers we’ve worked alongside on a sales office site.

You mean deal with Council? Hell NO. There is not enough alcohol in this world for us to take on that time suck.

We certainly help with basic floor plans and external signage / proposed finishes to help the sales office proceed through the DA process. But we’re not responsible for any town planning, DA process.

Fortunately, many suppliers to the cabin sales office will help with this. Most of our clients have a fabulous Development Manager who takes on the DA process, and whatever they are paid, it is not nearly enough to cope with the weirding involved with Council wrangling.

Not a building permit, but we can help with the certification/CDC (Complying Design Certificate)!

Our clients typically handle the building permit in conjunction with the cabin builder, as it’s all part of the sales office DA: parking, access from the main road, service connections, and so on. Or, if they outsource it to a specialist firm that handles Building Permits on a day-to-day basis. And mad respect to those folk who manage the DA process, it’s a JOURNEY as Councils are slipperier than an eel coated in oil!

We offer services to manage the Complying Design Certificate (CDC) and the Occupation Certificate (OC), depending on the project scope. This can be discussed during the briefing phase, and a quote can be provided.

Yes, we offer these services. We typically manage this when a sales office is in a retail tenancy. When the sales office is housed in a modular structure, the class of construction is considered temporary, and the rules for fire services, etc., are less stringent.

Best to get advice early on the project about the building class, so time can be allowed to engage specialist consultants to help with compliance. This is one of those times when begging for forgiveness is not better than asking for permission. The pencil-pushers will give you no end of grief if your ducks aren’t in an orderly queue.

Yes, we can!  Most of the time, the cold shell fit-out has been provided by the cabin or modular supplier, using our finish specifications and service drawings. But there are timetos the supplier is not able to do this, especially if they are already committed on other projects, or it just makes sense and services the project best for Diva Works to handle.

Here are some recent projects we completed that involved us delivering the “cold shell” as well as the joinery and graphic fit out:

• Everdene Sales Office for Mirvac: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/everdene-sales-office/
• Riverlands Sales Office for Mirvac: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/riverlands-sales-office/
• Waterline Place for AVJennings: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/waterline-place-sales-office/

We are seeing more and more of our clients use a retail tenancy as their sales office, and we’re here for it!  Getting closer to your ideal customer, where they frequent daily, makes a lot of sense, especially if you can’t physically have a sales office on the development site.

We can handle the entire scope: the cold shell, the CDC (Complying Design Certificate)/OC (Occupancy Certificate), and the joinery/marketing fit out.

When you have a retail tenancy, you have new considerations to factor into the design, such as a shopfront and deploying strategies that will lure people into the shopfront, even those who might not have even been considering upgrading their home. Diva knows the pitfalls and the opportunities that a retail tenancy offers. Chat to us about your plans to avoid cost and time blowouts.

Here are some recent examples of sales offices in a retail tenancy that we’ve designed and delivered:

• Prince and Parade Sales Office for Mirvac: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/prince-and-parade/
• Collins Wharf Sales Office for Lendlease: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/collins-wharf-sales-office/
• Ador Sales Office for Mirvac: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/ador-sales-office/

Diva Works is a full-service design, project management, and fit-out firm specialising in sales offices for Australia’s top property developers. Unfortunately, we don’t do design only.

Look, we’re control freaks (in the best of ways). In the early years of Diva, we offered design-only, and the outcome was… less than stellar. Clients underestimated the time and effort required to deliver on the design promise, and the fit-outs were poorly executed by firms that had no business doing a fit-out that is essential to impress the pants off your customer. In short, it was a hot mess, and the clients were very disappointed.

Trust Diva to deliver the full sales office experience; future you will thank you!

The full kahuna.

We either jump on a Team call or meet you in person to take the brief for the sales office design. From there, we define the scope and provide an estimate for our design and project management services. Once signed off, the interior design team will get cracking on the floor plan and customer journey. We’ll present this first and get our clients’ approval before moving on. One thing we’ve learnt from delivering hundreds of sales offices is that if you don’t get the floor plan and customer journey right, no amount of scatter cushions and digital touchscreens will save your sales office from being lacklustre. As my mentor, Derek Hooper (Rest in Power), taught me, if it works on the floor plan, it will work in real life.

Once the plan is approved, we move on to designing each element of the sales office in detail. We pick the furniture and styling items. We work with our graphic designer to identify unique and engaging ways to display the client’s logo, messaging, and brand imagery. Finally, all of this specification and detailing is sent to our 3D renderer, and what comes back is, well, magic.

And I mean magic. This is the only word I have to describe what comes from the designer’s imagination, to creating drawings that reflect that vision and allow it to be manufactured and then have this transferred into a set of perfectly rendered views of the sales office, capturing all details down to finishes, styling items and the proposed graphics.  To create something that has never been seen before, it’s a special sort of privilege, a special sort of magic.

However, we can!  Here are some recent examples of using sustainable practices and materials in our design:

• Recycled fabric and denim to create an overhead feature in a kids’ area
• Using acoustic panels with recycled PET content to soften the noise in a selling space with a large, vaulted ceiling
• Banned the use of silica stone in our projects
• Select furniture and styling items close to the sales office we’re fitting out 
• Selection of Bio Wood for external timber battens that have a long lifespan and have natural additives like bamboo and rice husks
• Specification of carbon-neutral vinyl flooring in kids’ areas
• Use of wallpapers in our sales offices that use recycled fibres
• Stonini panels, which have a non-toxic composition and replace heavy and expensive stone panels
• Wall paints and laminates are GreenTag rated
• Designing for ease of change over graphics in standard formats so they can be updated by sales staff and not an install crew

Diva would be thrilled to hear about your plans and then match you with one of our great partners we’ve worked with in other sales offices who would best suit your requirements.

Once you’ve engaged a Proptech AV partner, we work closely with them to mesh their tech into the customer journey, get hardware sizes from them so it’s a flawless fit into our joinery and note all their power and data requirements so it’s included in the sales office build.

We can!  We have a graphics manager on staff who can create artwork for sales office graphics. Most clients have their branding agency on board when they engage Diva Works, and we work closely with the agency to provide them with detailed specs for artwork creation, such as sizes, type of file, area for bleed etc. There are occasions when the agency is loaded up, or a particular graphic area requires the Diva touch, and that’s when Diva is tapped to produce the artwork files to be printed.

We can discuss requirements during the briefing phase and then provide a scope and quote document for client approval before any work is done.

Yes, we often do this for sales offices we have previously fitted out. This request typically comes at a time when a new development stage is about to launch, or the project is reaching another milestone. Instead of showing renderings of what is to come, the new imagery shows what has been delivered.

Occasionally, we get asked to update graphics on a sales office we did not produce.  It’s probably not the best use of the Diva expertise. We’d rather have a conversation about the entire sales office and what’s working and what isn’t, rather than “hey, can you update this A0 print for us?” There are many excellent signage firms you can contact directly for a reprint. Come to Diva Works for the strategy, the done-for-you service, and sensational designs. Stay for the witty chats, positive vibes, and a true sales office specialist.

Aw HELL NO!!

I spent the first 7 months out of my Industrial Design degree working as an interior designer at a Surfers Paradise agency. It was BALLS. I’m still receiving therapy for it.

One memorable job involved having a briefing in a Southport apartment on the 23^rd floor when the 60+ lady of the house with skin like a tan lounge and wearing a Juicy Couture tracksuit, where the only fabrics she wanted used in the new design were Laura Ashly large floral chintz ACROSS EVERYTHING: curtains, bedspreads, valances, bolsters, box-pleated headers, and blinds. Meanwhile, her husband, in his budgie smugglers and skin like a pressed ham, manspread himself across from me, reading the form guide and occasionally adding to the delightful conversation by barking at me, “How much will that cost? I want trade prices, I KNOW HOW MUCH THINGS COST!!”

While there are commonalities between commercial and residential design, I do not possess the steel will to suffer being barked at by a pressed ham in his budgie smugglers.

Of course!  We’ve done these many times for our clients.

Here are some of our favourites:

• Riverlands Sales Office for Mirvac: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/riverlands-sales-office/
• Rosella Rise for AV Jennings: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/rosella-rise-sales-office/
• Ridgelea Sales Office for Parklea: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/ridglea-sales-office/
• Lillifield Sales Office for Parklea: https://www.divaworks.com.au/project/lillifield-sales-office/

No way, José.

Producing 3D renders of the space is a hallmark of Diva Works’ approach to designing and delivering sales offices. Ditching the 3D render phase will cost you time and money. The 3D render provides absolute clarity on what you are getting and what the sales office will look like before anything is built. These 3D renders do all the heavy lifting. It’s perfect for swaying the most sceptical and non-visual team members, especially those who haven’t attended all the briefing calls and may only need to rubber-stamp the design to move it forward.

The 3D renders remove all traces of uncertainty and confusion. There is no “I didn’t think the sales office would look like THAT”. I could spend the rest of this year trying to verbally describe what your sales office will look like, and your beautiful brain would still construct a visual that is wildly misaligned with what I’d described. A 3D render of the sales office? No misinterpretation, just big smiles and murmurs of “I can’t wait to see this in real life!”

The 3D renders also play an important role for our trades and your other specialist partners, such as model makers, Protech companies, and your Branding agency. Everyone can immediately grasp the look and feel of the sales office and see where their scope begins and ends.

The 3D renders are our North Star, and they save our clients money by avoiding expensive re-dos when the CEO didn’t realise the company timeline wasn’t included on some simple elevations, or by avoiding disappointment when the expectation of finish to the model base was stone, not 2-Pac.

A set of 3D enders ranges from $3.8K to $7K, depending on the complexity of the job. The ROI on this is MASSIVE!

You could…but why would you?

Furniture and styling in a sales office serve as a link, helping clients envision themselves in their future homes. Our interior designers intentionally handpick furniture and styling items that are aspirational and soften the transactional nature of the sales process.

The furniture and styling are more than just objects; they are cues that help customers judge the suitability of their lifestyle to the one offered by purchasing in the new development. First home buyer market? The furniture is fun, eclectic, and comfortable, making it perfect for attracting buyers eager to purchase their first home. Or it might be the luxury market you want to attract. For those sales offices, we select one-of-a-kind pieces, bespoke furniture, and art that signal to buyers that this high-end development is the only choice for them.

We deliberately select hard-working, robust furniture pieces that will stand the test of time and a cavalcade of customers. As an added service, our interior designers can curate a shopping day for your team to view the selected pieces at supplier showrooms.

And can we talk logistics for a sec? From the outside, it looks like furniture and styling selection are sexy and cool. Let me tell you that all that sexiness is stripped away when you are trying to arrange the on average 50 pieces of furniture and styling items to be purchased and delivered by the sales office opening. Do you really want to be on the phone with Kenneth the Kourier on a Friday night before launch day, trying to track down your lounge with its last known whereabouts on the opposite side of the city? No, indeed you do not. You want to be at home with a sheet mask on and watching Slow Horses, preparing for a land-release sell-out the next day. Leave the furniture and styling to the Divas. We’re dab hands at taking calls from couriers while wearing a sheet mask!

Holy cats, you don’t want that. In the time it takes me to write this sentence, 30% of our recommended furniture and styling options are no longer available. Then you will ask us for additional options, and we’ll provide that, and then it’s the end of the day, so you – rightfully – go home, and then you try and place the revised order the next day, and the supplier says they will get back to you, and there’s no response 72 hours later so you chase them up and it’s “yeah, nah, it’s not in stock but would you like nice velour lounge instead?” So then you consider your options, and it’s only 11am, and is it acceptable to drink at your desk?!?

You get the idea.

The past Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Phillip Lowe, banged on for years about Australia’s lack of productivity, and HE WAS DIRECTLY REFERRING TO THE selection of furniture and styling items. It’s a time suck with no peer!  We have a dedicated Diva team for this, and even their steely and staunch nature will be tested as no person should with “Table? Yeah, I know it says it’s in stock, but the website is wrong. It might be next month. Or the month after. How about this scarf?”

No, we will not supply a list of furniture and styling items for you to purchase. Consider it an act of ultimate love and care for you as a fellow human being.

We don’t recommend proceeding with a design until you have space locked in as there are to many variables such as the ultimate – what is the size of the space we have to shoehorn all these sales office items into?

Things we can do before you have a sales space or modular building locked down:

• Put you in touch with superb sales office modular building suppliers
• Explain the importance of a sales office within the launch plan for the development and share the current trends we are seeing and how the market is performing
• Walk you through the Diva 11-step Process for delivering sales offices that sell out developments, sooner
• Provide guidance on budget options for the fit-out
• Give examples of some of our other sales offices that we have delivered that are of a comparable nature to your project

Eh….look, if the Branding Guidelines for the development aren’t ready by the time we meet for the project brief, it’s not ideal.

So much of our design and strategy is based around the development brand. It strongly guides our selection of finishes and influences the forms, textures, and concepts we develop in our design. Without the Branding Guidelines, we can create a very pleasant interior that is indistinguishable from your competitors and your local dentist’s reception area.

With so much competition for buyers’ attention, your Development Brand is a key differentiator. With the time and money invested in creating a unique brand, it needs to be brought to life in the sales office.

As exciting as it is to commission a sales office, please do it justice and ensure the brand is ready for our meeting to discuss the project brief.

In our customer journey and floor plan, we will make provision for AV and will be guided by any AV partner you have on board regarding sizes and specifications. For example, your AV partner might recommend including a wraparound AV screen in the sales office. We will discuss with you and them what is being displayed on the screen and communicated, so we can determine the best location for this in the sales path.

All of our working drawings include all relevant AV details. Service drawings show the provisions for power, data and speakers, and our packing plans show specific locations for plywood to support screens and hardware. Our joinery details show the specific hardware sizes and allowances for ventilation, accessible panels for mini-PC’s and lighting looms. All relevant drawings are provided to the AV partners for sign-off before manufacture to ensure seamless integration between our scope and theirs.

If you don’t have an AV partner on board, no problem! We’d be happy to provide you with some of the firms we love to collaborate with that will best match your budget and project type.

This is dependent on SO MANY things –

• How big is the sales office floor space and how advanced is the plan to secure a space (cabin, retail tenancy, etc) for the sales office
• Are all the regulatory approvals in place, such as council DA, etc?
• The design brief
• If the branding and positioning statement has been created
• The stakeholder teams. How many are there, who is ultimately responsible for making decisions and how motivated the team are to keep the cadence up

What I can tell is that, allowing for design, quoting, manufacturing, installation, and securing client approvals at each stage, no sales office takes less than 4 months for a typical full fit-out.

So, my best advice is to allow plenty of time. Be like Blondie and Call Me!

The earlier the better. Probably now is the right time – pick up the phone!

Look, being a keen bean works in your favour. You have more options rather than accepting “well, it’s this or nothing”. You have the luxury of time to make considered decisions rather than against the ticking clock. And, let’s be real here, the Construction industry has championed for too long the “just in time mentality”. I’d prefer that the process of designing and delivering a sales office is a measured and positive experience rather than one last leaves you on your last nerve and eating potato chips for breakfast.

So the best time to call is now. The second-best time was when the topic of sales offices came up, and you were considering your options. Let the Divas help guide you in the sales office process and relieve you from all the stress of sales office creation and delivery.

You can book time with me here via my calendar link: https://calendly.com/divaworks/30min, or email me at fiona@divaworks.com.au. Expect a response within 24 hours if I’m contacted on a weekday.

I’ll go one better. We have a dedicated WHS manager on staff within Diva who ensures all our work on site is compliant and that the Divas and our suppliers work safely.

I created this role, which is very unusual for a business of our size, as we work with Tier 1 Builders and we support their commitment to health, safety and the environment.

Look, to be transparent, a lot of WHS is box ticking, but the ticking of the boxes stage happens when you have the solid underpinnings of training, documentation, document checking, and cooperation and consultation between the client, us, and the suppliers.

I want everyone – the Divas and our suppliers – to return home safe and sound at the end of every workday. WHS is too important to leave as an afterthought, and the stakes are too high, so we have a specialist, trained WHS manager to help us ensure we’re doing our bit to create a safe workplace.

This is driven by our in-house specialist WHS manager. Firstly, they consult with their counterpart on the client team about site requirements and inductions. These requirements are then conveyed to our suppliers so that all documentation is received and checked before being uploaded to the client portal or sent via email for the client’s final review.

The WHS manager has trained the project managers in risk management and site safety. A project-specific WHS plan has been created, and daily toolbox talks are held and documented.

All our project managers have also been trained in Senior First Aid. We have first aid kits on site, and we have a procedure in place for managing near-misses, minor injuries, and –  touching multiple sources of wood – injuries requiring medical attention.

The WHS manager has a weekly meeting with me, Fiona, the CEO and founder of Diva Works, to report on recent learnings and potential improvements we need to take action on.