Free scripts
The email you rewrite four times before sending
Every designer knows the approval email. You draft it, soften it, add an exclamation mark, delete the exclamation mark, and send something so polite it doesn't actually ask for anything. Three weeks later the tiler needs an answer and you're chasing.
The designers who get fast decisions aren’t pushier. They just send emails with one decision, one deadline, and one consequence — written down where the client can see them. This pack is those emails, ready to paste.
What’s in the pack
- Presenting selections for approval (the one-decision-per-email rule)
- The decision deadline that doesn't feel like an ultimatum
- Confirming a verbal yes in writing (the scope-creep vaccine)
- The scope change: cost + timeline in one line
- When the quote comes in over estimate
- The client who's gone quiet mid-project
- Re-selection after a discontinued item
- The “we're over budget in this room” conversation
- Final sign-off before ordering (the no-take-backs email)
Each script: the situation, the email, and one line on why it works.
Two of the nine, in full
1. Presenting selections for approval
Situation: You've sent a set of selections and gotten silence or “love it all!” that approves nothing.
Why it works: One email, one decision, a date. Bundled decisions stall; single decisions land.
Subject: One decision needed — living room sofa
Hi {Client},
The living room selections are ready. One decision I need from you this week: the sofa (option A — {name}, or option B — {name}, both in the folder).
If I have your pick by {Friday}, we hold the install date. After that the lead time pushes us into {month}.
Everything else in the set is FYI for now — I'll bring those one at a time.2. The decision deadline that isn't an ultimatum
Situation: An item needs a yes/no and the lead time is about to bite.
Why it works: The deadline belongs to the lead time, not to you — so it never reads as pressure.
Subject: {Item} — needs a yes/no by {date}
Hi {Client},
Quick one. {Item} has a {X}-week lead time, and our install target is {date}. That works if it's ordered by {order-by date}.
Happy to talk it through, but if it's already a yes, just reply "approved" and I'll get it ordered.Get the scripts — free
All nine as a PDF, each with the situation, the email, and one line on why it works.
Why free
Scripts fix the words
Mortar is project & budget management for interior designers, and approvals are the workflow we hear about most. Scripts fix the words; the chasing itself is a systems problem — which is what we build. When you’re ready for approvals that land on the item instead of in your inbox, you’ll know where we are.
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