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Chasing quotes without being a pest

Ask most trade businesses what happened to the quotes they sent three months ago and you get a shrug. Not because the answer is bad — because there is no list. The quotes went out, some turned into work, and the rest went quiet. Nobody decided to let them go; they simply stopped being visible.

Silence is not a no

People sit on quotes for reasons that have nothing to do with you. They are waiting on a second price, or on a decision with a partner, or on money that arrives in March. A follow-up that assumes the worst — apologetic, half an offer of a discount — reads as desperation. One that assumes the ordinary explanation is easy to write and easy to answer.

A pattern that works

• Two or three days after sending: a short message asking whether anything on it needs explaining. Not "have you decided".
• Around ten days: a call. A call converts and an email does not, and the gap between them is not small.
• Around a month: one message that names the thing that changes — lead times, a price valid until a date, a slot in the diary.
• Then stop, and put it on the list of open quotes rather than in the bin.

Know when they opened it

If you can see that a quote was opened this morning, you know when to ring. That single piece of information turns follow-up from a task on a Tuesday into a call at a moment when the person is actually thinking about the job. It is the cheapest sales advantage available to a small firm.

The list nobody keeps

Old quotes that never went ahead are the warmest leads a trade business has. The work has been surveyed. The price has been thought about. The customer wanted it enough to ask. Compared with anyone you could advertise to, that is an enormous head start, and it costs a phone call.

Circumstances change. The bathroom they could not afford in January is affordable after a bonus. The boiler they patched up has failed again. A twice-yearly pass through open quotes, oldest first, is an hour that regularly turns into work.

Measure one number

Quotes sent against quotes accepted, over a quarter. If it is low, the quote is the problem — see quotes that get accepted. If it is decent but revenue is flat, you are not sending enough. Either answer is useful; not knowing is not.