It All Starts With The First Impression

"You never get a second chance to make a first impression. "

The quote you present to your prospect is just the first step in the process of getting them to become your customer, but it's definitely the most important. Once you have put together a professional quote for them, and have it in their hands (or e-mail box), the clock is ticking and it's time to use all the tools at your disposal to make them yours.

When a prospect is presented with a professional, computer-generated quote, two magical things happen:

1. They are impressed with your professionalism
2. They don't quibble about the price.

Seriously! You'd be amazed how the questions like, "can you do a little better than that?" just go away when you present a thought-out quote to them. And when those questions do come up on occasion, you are fully prepared to say, "sure, what would you like me to change?" The printed quote is the first step in converting your prospects into customers.

Following Up On Quotes

EstiMate's "Open Estimates Report" details all the quotes you've given out recently, including the prospect's name, company name, telephone number, job description, the salesperson who gave them the quote, and the dollar amount of the quote (that last one is optional, in case you don't want the employee following up to know the size of the bid).

This lets you follow up with your prospects on any schedule you choose.

Sign Here, Please

EstiMate's quote includes an innocuous looking signature line at the bottom, which is your secret weapon for doing good business:

The signature line does several very powerful things:

• It tells your prospect that you are a serious business
• It tells your prospect that you are a professional
• It tells your prospect that you expect them to be professional
• It asks for a deposit without you having to ask for a deposit
• Once signed, it becomes a contract between you and your new customer.

Congratulations! You Have A New Customer.

Now that the customer has signed the quote, and you are ready to put the job into production, you just open up your estimate and click the "Convert To Job" button.

In the next part of the tour, we'll show you what to do with the job you just created.

Tracking Your Progress

EstiMate includes a special report called the "Estimate -> Job Conversion Report." This report shows, on a customer by customer basis over time, the percentage of estimates that were successfully converted to jobs:

At the end of the conversion report is a summary of how all your customers converted over time. This gives you the opportunity to tweak your conversion rate.

Remember, the conversion rate you are shooting for is 50/50 - if you get less than 50% of your bids, you need to work on salesmanship - if you get more than 50%, your prices are too low.

Use this report as your business compass!