Quote systems
The document that wins the job, and survives the job.
A builder is judged on the eleventh variation, not the first price. A gas engineer who goes home to price a boiler has already lost it. A scaffolder’s real price is the weekly hire rate nobody wrote down. Speed, structure, and what the quote excludes.
The quote is the only part of your business most customers ever assess
They have not seen your work. They were not there for the last job. What they have is a document, and they are using it to judge whether you are organised, whether the price is real, and whether you will still be reasonable when something changes half way through.
Most trade quotes are a number in an email. That loses on two fronts. It loses the job to the competitor whose quote explained itself, and it loses money later, because everything the number did not cover becomes an argument on site.
Speed matters as much as the document. In most trades the first credible quote has an enormous advantage, and the gap between the site visit and the quote arriving is where the majority of jobs are lost.
What we actually do
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Cut the time to send it.
Templates, priced items and a way to build it from the van, so a quote goes out in hours rather than at the weekend.
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Structure it so it can be read.
What is included, what is not, what is provisional and what would change the price.
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Write the exclusions properly.
This is the part that protects the margin, and it is the part that gets left out.
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Make variations a process.
Priced, agreed and recorded before the work happens, rather than argued about at the end.
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Give it a decision.
Options, a validity date and a clear next step, rather than a number and silence.
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Follow it up automatically.
A quote with no follow-up is a coin toss, and most trades never send a second message.
What the document has to survive is trade-specific
A builder is judged on the eleventh variation, not the first price, so the change process is the whole thing. A gas engineer who goes home to price a boiler has usually already lost it. A scaffolder’s real price is a weekly hire rate that nobody wrote down, and that is where the money goes missing.
The trade pages below deal with each of those specifically.
The first ninety days
- Weeks 1–4
The current quote rebuilt as a document that explains itself, with exclusions written properly.
- Weeks 5–8
Priced items and templates so it can be produced from site, and the follow-up automated.
- Weeks 9–12
Win rate and time-to-send measured, and the variation process running on real jobs.
What good looks like
- Quotes go out within a day of the visit
- The document says what is not included, in writing
- Variations are priced and agreed before the work
- Every quote gets a follow-up without anybody remembering
- You know your win rate and how long you take
Questions we get asked
Do I need software for this? Not necessarily. Structure and speed matter more than the tool, though a tool makes both easier once the structure is right.
Should I put the price in the first email? For small work, yes. For larger work the document is the sale and the number belongs inside it.
How long should a quote be valid? Long enough to decide, short enough to protect you from material prices — commonly two to four weeks.
Does following up look desperate? One or two follow-ups reads as organised. It is the most reliable improvement available to most trades.
Find out what your website is costing you
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