A quote with no answer costs you twice: the job you might have won, and the time you kept free for it. Follow every quote until you get a yes or a no, and make each follow-up give the customer something they can use.
Many owners do not chase. It feels pushy, the day fills up, and silence is easy to read as a maybe. It is usually a no that nobody said out loud.
Why is silence worse than a no?
A no ends the uncertainty. It frees the week you were holding, and it usually comes with a reason: the price, the timing, a competitor, or a job that fell through. Each of those tells you something you can act on.
Silence tells you nothing. A pile of unanswered quotes also makes the numbers lie. The pipeline looks full, so nobody goes looking for the next job, and the month ends thinner than it looked.
Does following up look desperate?
Only if each message says the same thing. "Just checking in" asks the customer to do work for you. A follow-up that adds something is service.
Three things a follow-up can add:
- a date: a start date that has opened up, or a price that holds until a set day
- an answer: to the question they will ask next, before they ask it
- an option: a smaller first stage, or a different finish, when the full job is more than they wanted
A good one is short. For example:
A start date has opened up on the 14th. If the job is still on, I can hold it for you until Friday.
That line has a date, a reason to answer, and a clear end. It is easy to say yes to, and just as easy to say no.
Who follows up?
One person, named, for each quote, until it closes either way. When everyone can follow up, nobody does, and the customer who got two different messages from two people starts to wonder who is running the job.
What goes wrong?
In the discount. Offering money off in a follow-up feels like a good way to close. It trains the customer, and everyone they talk to, that your first price was not real and waiting pays. You pay for that discount on every quote after it.
It also goes wrong in the other direction, when the chase never ends. Decide before you start when you will stop, and say so plainly in the last message. A clear last message can get the reply the earlier ones did not.
One step for this week
List every quote from the last 60 days that has had no answer. Next to each, write one thing you could add: a date, an answer or an option. Send each of them one message with that thing in it, ending in a plain question they can answer with yes or no. Then count the replies.
The chase starts with the very first reply. That part is in the post on the 9 pm enquiry.
Follow-up is one of the eight things we build. See it in section 02.
