Leads In A Tough Economy

Dear Edge - The RCS Forum is not the place to post a Free ad for your company. I did not erase the entire thread as there were useful comments. We welcome your participation if you are being useful, meaningful, helpful, interesting, funny or if you need help.

Letting you post here is not fair for those who pay for advertising and then also it turns off my readers and posters because the Forum becomes a big sales pitch. I already walk that fine line everyday.

BTW, always done free estimates.

Do pay for estimates however, Auto work, plumbing work, electrical work, heating/ac work, and my wife has to pay her dentist for an estimate.

99% of my work is word of mouth for residential roofing. For ice dam steaming half was paid through google the other half free leads from angie. In less than a month dropped $7,500 with google. Took in hundreds of calls a week from the google add. Most I feel were just looking for the cheapest price per hour for steaming. We stayed steady at $350 per hour per man...

Recently decided to put an add in a newspaper in a small town that recently got some hail damage. For $250/2 weeks got 4 calls of which two are going with me. One over the phone said he didn't want to pay a penny but realized he would have to sacrifice his garage and shed roof to get only his house roof done. On inspection found a lot of missing items with damage. Next thing I know the guys wanting all three roofs done and put $500 in his pocket!!! Figured there was enough money in extra damages if he didn't do there'd still be enough for the three roofs. After sending a revised estimate to the insurance company the guy calls back and wants my lowest possible bid for the three roofs! Told him my estimate to the insurance company was to be retracted and no longer wanted to pursue work for him.

On the other hand by landing 1 of the 4 jobs it's led to leads on 10 other homeowners with insurance money in hand!!!

OK I lied about my #'s. Sorry edge I'm a bad boy and not a major player.

And BTW, don't ya think ya ought to maybe adjust your guitar style a bit? Seems you've been playing that same song for a while.

What does Bono think about it?

Ironic enough, this morning I saw a pickup with a graphics wrap advertising fence repair. I called him to see how much it would cost to widen my gate from 48" to 54". The guy asked about a concrete curb, which I have, etc then told me it would cost around $475. I told him that sounds good, come on out to make sure there isn't something unique and give me a solid price. He told me it would be $35 for a written estimate.

No sale!

The guy had the job, I just needed a firm price in writing, but he lost the job when he tried to charge for his estimate. I assume that his $475 job would have had around $375 in profit.

Maybe it's the cruddy economy because I can count the times on one hand that this happened in 30 years, yet it's happened twice now in 2 weeks.

Here's my opinion on this: If your crews are busy, charging for estimates is probably ok...although I never would. If you don't have enough work, it's a silly concept. You're asking the customer to accept a risk/cost that should be yours as a businessman. Granted, in this country you can do it any way you want, I just think it's a backwards concept.

When I do a report on a large shopping center roof - which accounts for 90% of our work - I have a lot of cost in it. I pay $85 for an Eagle View dimensions report, I generate my detailed report with digital photos, bound with specs, sell sheets, diagrams, and the whole thing also on CD for the customer. I might have a full day invested in a report. I wouldn't dream of charging for the report...if I've done a good job of selling ourselves (over 50% of the time I do) then we'll make tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands profit on the job. I'm willing to do some of those reports for free in order to establish a level of comfort from our prospect.

I see it as a cost of doing business.

Of the two I looked at this week, one is signed, the other was passed on to another company I used to wrok for. Too large for me right now. I put $50.00 in the bank though.

"Tinner, it's hard to say if charging for estimates is costing you work." I agree. It did quit causing me to ride around 3 days of the week and working two. When a client to be handed me a check for $25.00 today, after we walked the roof, I asked if it was worth the money. He said "He11 Yes!" He had also asked an historical architect to come over. He agreed it was worth the cost, plus wants me to do a lead roof or two for him. I believe all three of us will come out ahead now.

Lord, I sure miss riding around talking to price shoppers all day. B)

Is it costing me? Who knows. I do know that most months, 9 of 10 that pay hire me. In bad months, only 8 of 10 hire me. Will it work for everybody, I doubt it.

People call - I respond.

I provide a proposal to do the work. Very rarely do I provide an "estimate".

Never have charged and I wouldn't pay for an estimate either.

Most all our work is referral anyhow...I suppose if we catered to the "general masses" (so-to-speak), giving out estimates might get a bit old & frustrating.

I in south Florida, and I'm tri lingual. English, Spanish and Yankee. And the OP is for storm chasers.

Tinner, it's hard to say if charging for estimates is costing you work.

I look at it the same way I did for the 13 years I was in the car wash business. A lot of car wash owners wouldn't accept American Express cards because they didn't want to pay the 3% fee. I accepted Amex because I knew that a lot of people are like me and Amex is the only cards they carry...they don't want to carry a balance.

If I am making an 90% profit margin on a car wash, why wouldn't I accept an 87% margin rather than lose a customer?

I assume there are a lot of people like me who will just never call you for an estimate if they know you charge for that. I don't want the decision process to cost me money.

But hey, if you're staying as busy as you want to be, there's no point in not charging for an estimate.

Roofguy Said: I dont know how anyone charges for an estimate; maybe its a regional thing. If Im taking bids from 3 contractors, why would I want to blow $50-$75 just getting the bids?[quote] I'm wondering how htat would work from his end. I've been charging for several years now. It cuts down on fruitless trips. It does not pay for my time, but does nearly cover gas costs.

I don't know how anyone charges for an estimate; maybe it's a regional thing. If I'm taking bids from 3 contractors, why would I want to blow $50-$75 just getting the bids?

A fence staining contractor wanted to charge me for his gas to give me an estimate last week. We live in a small town just 7 miles from the large one he's in. I told him not to bother coming out because I consider his gas to get here to be part of his cost of doing business. He called back to say he'd come out for free, but I'm not interested in doing business with him.

Edge, I budget $2,000 per month for internet lead providers. Typically E-local, Contractor Deal and Service Magic.

Altho $2k is typical I have spent as much $4400 when we really get a lot of storms and the out of town crews are here. I usuallyget most of the leads and steal the crews from the out-of-towners. I am tri-lingual (English, Spanish and Bulgarian)

I used to spend $6,000 a month on the various yellow pages but now I save a lot of dough on advertising AND labor recruitment

How do you make money? I charge the HO $25.00 for the estimate. Are you charging the HO $50. or more so you get paid too? Or do you charge them $25. and let them know the roofer also charges $25. for the proposal? How many contractors does the HO have to pay as a rule? 4? More?