You get the call, you drive out, you spend an hour measuring up and talking it through. You go home and spend another evening writing up the quote. You send it off. And then nothing. No reply, no "thanks but no thanks", just silence.
Every tradie knows this feeling. Losing quotes is part of the job, but if you're losing more than you win, there's usually a reason. And it's rarely just price.
Before you spend another dollar on marketing to get more leads, it's worth looking at how many of the leads you already get turn into paid work. Here are the most common reasons quotes go quiet, and how to fix each one.
01You took too long to get back to them
This one starts before you've even quoted. Most people contact more than one tradie. Whoever gets back to them first and sounds like they know what they're doing gets a massive head start. By the time you return the call two days later, someone else has already been out to measure up.
The fix is speed. Call new enquiries as fast as humanly possible. If you're on the tools all day and can't, get someone else to do it. That's the whole reason we built our fractional sales person service, where a NZ-based salesperson calls every lead within 3 minutes. We've written more about why in why the first 3 minutes decide whether you win the job.
02The quote took too long to arrive
The same thing happens after the site visit. You've impressed them in person, and then it takes a week and a half to get the quote out. In that time, they've had two other quotes land in their inbox and their excitement about yours has faded.
Try to get quotes out within a couple of days of the visit, even if it means a simpler format. If a job genuinely needs more time to price, tell them when they can expect it and stick to it.
03The quote was just a number
A lot of quotes we see from tradies are a page with a list of line items and a total at the bottom. That's fine for a small job. For anything bigger, it leaves the customer comparing three numbers with no idea why they're different.
A better quote helps them understand what they're getting. A short summary of what you heard them say they wanted. What's included and what isn't. Photos of similar jobs you've done. A rough timeline. Your guarantee or warranty. It doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to make your number make sense.
04Nobody followed up
This is the big one. Most tradies send a quote and wait. If the customer doesn't reply, they assume they've lost it and move on.
But people get busy. They mean to reply and forget. They have a question but feel awkward asking. They're waiting on their partner to have a look. A simple, friendly follow-up call a few days after sending the quote wins back a surprising number of jobs.
Something like: "Hey, just checking the quote came through alright and seeing if you had any questions." No pressure, no hard sell. Just showing you're keen and organised.
05You quoted the wrong people
Sometimes the problem isn't how you quote. It's who you're quoting for. If you drive out to every enquiry without asking a few questions first, you'll spend hours quoting people who were never going to go ahead. Their budget's way off, the timing's wrong, or they just wanted a rough price to compare.
A quick qualifying chat before the site visit saves you heaps of time. What are they after? When do they want it done? Have they got a rough budget in mind? Are they getting other quotes? It's not about being pushy. It's about not wasting your evenings.
06You don't know your win rate
Here's a question worth asking yourself. Out of every 10 quotes you send, how many turn into jobs? If you don't know, you're not alone. Most tradies have never tracked it.
But it's one of the most useful numbers in your business. If you're winning three in ten and you could get that to five, that's a big jump in revenue without a single extra lead. We go into this more in know your numbers: cost per lead, cost per job.
07Fix the leaks before you pour in more water
Spending more on ads to get more leads is like topping up a bucket with holes in the bottom. Fixing your follow-up, your speed and your quotes means every lead you already get is worth more, and every dollar you spend on marketing goes further.
If you want help working out where your jobs are slipping away, that's exactly what our commercial consulting is for. Or get in touch and we'll have a yarn about it.
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