# Qualifying leads



## gbruzze1 (Dec 17, 2008)

I hear over and over again in threads about qualifying your leads, screening customers, and not wasting time looking at a job for a customer that doesn't match your business model.

But no one ever seems to get into specifics as to how they do this. How do you guys handle the process, from initial phone call to signed contract. I'd like to hear as specific as can be, like what questions are asked on first phone call, how to get a clients budget, payment terms, etc. 




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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

It should start with your advertising. You need to attract the customer that you desire. I can't tell you how to do that, it's different for everyone.

The second step is getting that lead to your information (website). It will help give them information that will allow them to decide whether you meet their needs and they meet yours.

Once they reach out to you, you know that some of the qualification has taken place.

The next step is the first phone call. I ask several questions, but honestly there are only a few that count. The rest are usually gut feeling questions that I use to determine where they are in the process (budgeting, planning, distant future, readiness to start, proper expectations), if they can afford me, their timeline and the scope of work.

A couple questions that you should always ask are:

1) What project(s) are you considering?

2) Do you have a budget in mind? (If they say no, then you need to push. They have an idea what they want to spend, but often hide behind, I have no idea.) My follow to a no is to tell them that it would be a waste of time to design them a $30,000 bathroom when they were looking for a $12,000 bathroom. That usually gets a number out of them. I tell them that I am not hear to spend every penny they have budgeted but to give them a solid estimate on their project desires.

I will also tell them what the average cost of their project is. That is often all it takes to vet the tire kickers or those that honestly can't afford me.

3) What is your timeline? When would you like to start? I then set the expectation if that is realistic and doable.

4) What is the project address? I used to think that was a question to ask up front, but I found that people are hesitant on initial contact to just throw out their address. So I wait until we get a bit further into the conversation.


5) When are you available for an estimate? I have recently started an estimate day. Friday I will complete all field estimates. I am discontinuing my evening and weekend visits. I decided that 2016 will concentrate more on family and spending my time more wisely.

Once the appt is set. The real work begins. I look up their address on Google and check out the size and condition of their home and neighborhood. I also run their address through Zillow and Realtor to see what it's worth and the last sale price. I don't work on homes less than $250,000 and try to only work on over $350,000. But that is area specific. You could spend $400,000 on a home here (Naperville) that would cost $250,000 a few towns over (Oswego) and $175,000 in Dallas. That's why I look at it on Google before getting these numbers.

During the visit, I am constantly qualifying, from the handshake to the goodbye. How do they react to me and my presentation. How is their home kept. Do they take care of their things? People who do, are more likely to spend money on nice things.

What is their level of knowledge? I never try to make them feel stupid, but I need to do a lot of educating on several subjects in a short amount of time. I need to know if they are in fantasy land when it comes to renovation or if they know what they are talking about. I need to quickly assess if this is someone that I want to work with and then start selling myself and our value.

When I leave I set the expectation of when they will here back from me. My estimates take a day to a week to put together. Most of that depends on what we are doing. A bathroom I can spit out the same day, while a whole house remodel takes a week. I need to send stuff out to subs and get estimates back from them and sometimes they need to complete a walk through themselves in order to give an accurate number.

Once I submit the proposal it's mostly on them. I know that Lawndart disagrees, but if I have done my job qualifying it's not necessary to do much follow up. I need to play the girl not interested. I need to create an atmosphere of urgency on their part not desperation on mine.

I know that this was more information than just qualifying a lead, but hope it helps.


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## TimberlineMD (Jan 15, 2008)

Qestion to TNT: After setting an appointment, if the property doesn't check out on a google search ( not in a qualified area or looks run down) do you still waste time going out for a look, or do you have a process to decline coming out?


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## Spencer (Jul 6, 2005)

This subject is something that a book could be written about. It comes down to being skilled in reading people. There are often clear indicators but really good customer qualifying often takes looking behind the facad and figuring out who the people really are and how they are.

To start with, like TNT said, a lot of it starts before the phone call is ever made. 

Are you professional looking? Do you look like you charge well and invest in your business, or like you're scraping by? Profession people cost money. Tire kickers won't bother calling. If you look like you are working for nothing you will get calls from a lot of people looking for a deal. There is nothing wrong with driving an old beater and using old tools but a lot of people will see that and think that you are good tradesman who doesn't know how to charge for his time. Just the way it is. They will call, you'll spend time with them, when you give them the price it will be all over and you'll have wasted a bunch of time. 

Eliminating these types of people from calling you to begin with is crucial. It saves a lot of time not having to deal with them and time is money. 

One "tell" for me is if the first thing the potential customer defaults to is talking about money. If one of the first things they say is about getting a price, estimate, etc its a bad sign in my experience.


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## dsconstructs (Jul 20, 2010)

TNTSERVICES said:


> 2) Do you have a budget in mind? (If they say no, then you need to push. They have an idea what they want to spend, but often hide behind, I have no idea.) My follow to a no is to tell them that it would be a waste of time to design them a $30,000 bathroom when they were looking for a $12,000 bathroom. That usually gets a number out of them. I tell them that I am not hear to spend every penny they have budgeted but to give them a solid estimate on their project desires.
> 
> I will also tell them what the average cost of their project is. That is often all it takes to vet the tire kickers or those that honestly can't afford me.


That's on point. I find most people don't want to give their budget without some creative prodding. But we need an idea of what they're ready to spend. Not many want what they want regardless of cost.


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## TimberlineMD (Jan 15, 2008)

dsconstructs said:


> That's on point. I find most people don't want to give their budget without some creative prodding. But we need an idea of what they're ready to spend. Not many want what they want regardless of cost.


Lately, I been getting allot of folks who 'want what they want' and want me to give it to them for the price they want to pay. :no:

Showing them creative ways to reduce the scope of work to hit their budget has proved fruitless...


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## SectorSecurity (Nov 26, 2013)

TimberlineMD said:


> Lately, I been getting allot of folks who 'want what they want' and want me to give it to them for the price they want to pay. :no:
> 
> Showing them creative ways to reduce the scope of work to hit their budget has proved fruitless...


Sometimes people don't want to be told they have to leave their dream world to complete a project.

It comes down to screening customers over time you learn what to watch for, there is no set of golden rules.

When I see things like customers wanting a parts list with specific item numbers where I got it and price I know they just want me to build them a shopping list, while in other trades this may be very common practice.

The best thing I can tell you is go with your gut feeling, if something doesn't feel right its often because its not.


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## Dennisbilt (Jul 22, 2015)

> It should start with your advertising. You need to attract the customer that you desire. I can't tell you how to do that, it's different for everyone.
> 
> The second step is getting that lead to your information (website). It will help give them information that will allow them to decide whether you meet their needs and they meet yours.
> 
> ...



TNT, that was an excellent post and very helpful! We, as I'm sure are many others, have been struggling with this issue for as long as we have been in business. We are reading Michael Stone's book Profitable Sales right now, and wish we had read it a long time ago. You have summed up very nicely some of the points he makes. Just last month alone makes me cringe thinking of the time wasted on non serious prospects when we could have done more to weed them out. But the past is in the past and we need to look to the future. And going forward we are making changes to make sure we are doing everything we can to qualify the client for us. 

We have been working the last several months on our web presentation and it is starting to pay off. The phone is ringing a lot more but still have a lot more work to do to get the quality clientele we're looking for calling more. 

We also have to work on our sales process once they do call so that we are not wasting so much time on a lost cause. I usually take the initial phone call and I am going to be pushing harder to get the budget out of them. It's so frustrating they never want to tell you! It's sometimes hard for me being an introvert by nature, but its time for me to put my big girl panties on :laughing: and try harder. And those were some awesome suggestions on what to say to them about the budget, I'm definitely going to try that! 

You are also very right about giving them an average price early on. Just the other day a gentleman emailed us pointing out a project on our website saying that it was almost exactly what he wanted. I answered with some initial questions including budget and timeline. He sent us some basic measurements but ignored my questions about budget and good estimate of project after about 5 mins of thinking about it. So I sent the potential client back that ballpark number and almost immediately he sent back that it was out of his budget and thanks anyway. This whole interaction took place within an hour and we weren't out any time other than to write an email. This has done the trick several times for us now, that was just the latest one. Just the language he used in the first email gave us the feeling he was going to be one of those. You really do develop a sense or "gut feeling" about certain prospects. That's not to say be rude or treat them badly, just avoiding wasting everybody's time.

If I do end up scheduling an appointment for Dennis, one thing we are going to be sure to do from now on, is make sure all people involved in the buying decision are present for the meeting, or we can't have a meeting. Several times we have been burned and wasted our time because the husband or wife or significant other was not present. 

That is a such a great idea to research the home and neighborhood Google and get a valuation of the home! That is something we are going to start doing right away as well.

When Dennis goes to speak to a potential client that is serious, his knowledge and passion for his craft shines and he does not even have to sell, he just has to be himself. I have seen him do it many times. If we start doing a better job qualifying leads and creating that sense of urgency, I know we will land more jobs. 

Thank you for the excellent suggestions

Amanda and Dennis
http://www.dennisbilt.com


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## krowraven7 (Nov 12, 2014)

Lot to learn here..I live in RHODE ISLAND..surrounded by the hard poor people in my area..Ive done all those tricks of the trade for better customers..Asking what there budget is, where there at with there budget is like draining blood out of them..I suppose the reason they hesitate with that question is they could lie..and you'd take what they said it was or they wont have enough for what you quote.. Customers in RI..have champagne taste with beer budgets. I go on a lot of estimates..deal with a lot of riff-Raff Low end wackos that want a gorgeous job for nothing..they say..how much is going to be? You tell em and its like you've killed there family..Its almost as if there offended at your price but these are the same people who have 90" TV';s and three cars and etc..it's nuts..Trust Your Guts..There's a lot of super professionals on here I've learned from..I didn't have a father, grandfather that was a carpenter so I had to learn on my own..went to school for it..had it rough from the beginning..teacher didn't like me, kept me from doing a lot of what the other students were doing..I got scared of the trade..sick and tired of people screaming in my face this is war/ cocky drunks and arrogant contractors where do these people come from?..just because your self employed and work with your hands gives you no right but to be extremely kind to customers....etc... ..Id end up getting whacked-out drunk contractors working as a teen on jobs..sicko's..All that experience either makes me an expert or a victim in the trade..I choose to be an expert. I read customers really well but sometimes I have to determine if I'm being honest with myself in that do I want to do the job..? The same ole dead beat ugly small tenement window install? or get sick and tired of being sick and tired and grow.


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

krowraven7 said:


> Lot to learn here..I live in RHODE ISLAND..surrounded by the hard poor people in my area..Ive done all those tricks of the trade for better customers..Asking what there budget is, where there at with there budget is like draining blood out of them..I suppose the reason they hesitate with that question is they could lie..and you'd take what they said it was or they wont have enough for what you quote.. Customers in RI..have champagne taste with beer budgets. I go on a lot of estimates..deal with a lot of riff-Raff Low end wackos that want a gorgeous job for nothing..they say..how much is going to be? You tell em and its like you've killed there family..Its almost as if there offended at your price but these are the same people who have 90" TV';s and three cars and etc..it's nuts..Trust Your Guts..There's a lot of super professionals on here I've learned from..I didn't have a father, grandfather that was a carpenter so I had to learn on my own..went to school for it..had it rough from the beginning..teacher didn't like me, kept me from doing a lot of what the other students were doing..I got scared of the trade..sick and tired of people screaming in my face this is war/ cocky drunks and arrogant contractors where do these people come from?..just because your self employed and work with your hands gives you no right but to be extremely kind to customers....etc... ..Id end up getting whacked-out drunk contractors working as a teen on jobs..sicko's..All that experience either makes me an expert or a victim in the trade..I choose to be an expert. I read customers really well but sometimes I have to determine if I'm being honest with myself in that do I want to do the job..? The same ole dead beat ugly small tenement window install? or get sick and tired of being sick and tired and grow.


One word...paragraphs.

Another word...Qualify. You need to qualify them before you waste your time. I ask for budget on every call. If they do not have one, it's easy to get it out of them, just tell them a random high number. They will say something like, that's too high. Then you ask them, what they had in mind. If they say they don't know, you drop your original number by $5K and do that till they stop complaining.


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## EricBrancard (Jun 8, 2012)

Huh, This thread is back from Jan. I must have missed it the first time around. Just wanted to say great post, Rob. :thumbsup:


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

EricBrancard said:


> Huh, This thread is back from Jan. I must have missed it the first time around. Just wanted to say great post, Rob. :thumbsup:


Yeah, apparently I have listened to some of the advice I have received here over the years.


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## Ken Drake (Apr 27, 2016)

*Great thread!*

Lots of great ideas on this thread; thanks to all of the participants!

I believe that qualifying customers depends a lot on where you are as a business and how much work you have. For a guy with no work at the moment, qualifying is probably, "when will you see me?" For an established business, the questions about budget, seriousness and having all of the decision makers present all come into play. If you feel like you are in a position where you can send leads away, then your business is likely in a good place.

Of course, to get to that good place you need to qualify leads so that you can focus on building profitable business. Working low paying jobs just to "stay busy" is a trap to be avoided.


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

Problem with that thinking Ken is a new business needs good business to stay in business. Most business fail within the first five years because they take every job they can get and end up losing their ass and having to pack up shop. I say cultivate from the beginning. I am also not saying that they shouldn't take a job with lower margins, just make sure that you are qualifying your clients from day one.

Remember people who have money are friends with people who have money.


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## Ken Drake (Apr 27, 2016)

*We agree*

Perhaps my post was not clear, but we agree on qualifying leads TNT. It is just harder to follow the advice when you're idle. I think that too many guys will take anything that comes in the door, and take the work too cheap, rather than focusing on cultivating profitable work.

The right thing to do is to target the right customer, qualify them immediately and charge correctly.


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## Stano (Jun 9, 2016)

Lots of good advice here and I agree about qualifying your clients. Here are a few simple things I do to see if they are even semi serious. I listen to their project description on the initial phone call, then I tell them I am away from my appt book and I don't want to forget them, so please call me back in 2 days and we will make a plan to get together. I also tell them on the first call that I do charge for the site visit/estimate, but when we finish the work, they get the money back. If they don't call back, or don't want to pay the fee (usually just $75), I know they were just kicking tires.


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## TxElectrician (May 21, 2008)

Stano said:


> Lots of good advice here and I agree about qualifying your clients. Here are a few simple things I do to see if they are even semi serious. I listen to their project description on the initial phone call, then I tell them I am away from my appt book and I don't want to forget them, so please call me back in 2 days and we will make a plan to get together. I also tell them on the first call that I do charge for the site visit/estimate, but when we finish the work, they get the money back. If they don't call back, or don't want to pay the fee (usually just $75), I know they were just kicking tires.


If you won't take my number, I won't call you back.


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## Stano (Jun 9, 2016)

TxElectrician said:


> If you won't take my number, I won't call you back.




See, it works.......


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## TNTRenovate (Aug 19, 2010)

Stano said:


> Lots of good advice here and I agree about qualifying your clients. Here are a few simple things I do to see if they are even semi serious. I listen to their project description on the initial phone call, then I tell them I am away from my appt book and I don't want to forget them, so please call me back in 2 days and we will make a plan to get together. I also tell them on the first call that I do charge for the site visit/estimate, but when we finish the work, they get the money back. If they don't call back, or don't want to pay the fee (usually just $75), I know they were just kicking tires.


They will just move down the list. That's not that great of an idea. It's much easier to determine if they are tire kickers or not. I also don't charge for the initial walk through and estimate. An estimate should just be a set of numbers that give them an idea if they can afford the project, but even then I know what their budget is before I even go out and get a better idea when I visit.

Your method not only relieves you of tire kickers but of potential clients.


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## pcplumber (Oct 12, 2008)

Since this thread has been repeated several times, I will repeat what I said maybe 1,000 times. I understand very clearly the reasoning why contractors would ask the customer for a budget i.e. when the customer's answer is $5,000 for a $30,000 bathroom remodel, but the real serious problems is there is a very high percent of homeowners who think a bathroom remodel is less than $5,000 and with a little salesmanship they are easily convinced to spend $30,000+.

Now, it is great for you super contractors who are earning $millions annually and you can afford to blow off customers every day, but then the correct answer should not be to try to do a full split-second analysis that falsely profiles customers. Your answer should be, "we don't want to do business with people who don't have the correct answer before making the telephone call." 

I would love to have 1% of the business contractors blow of by doing 2-second customer profiles.

As stated in several posts, I went to Home Expo with a customer and the salesman asked what our budget was for a kitchen remodel. I thought $35,000 was fairly high and the salesman literally laughed and said the average kitchen was $60k+. The customer I was with ended up spending $150k for the kitchen remodel before it was finished and I posted pictures of the kitchen a few times. In the past 5 years I did two kitchen remodels for ordinary blue-collar people and the cost was close to $150k. Incidentally, I never installed cabinets purchased at Home Depot nor any other DIY or box store nor did I ever purchase appliances from any of the same stores. Not even stove range hoods. A really good stove range hood is stainless steel, has two fans and costs $650+.

It is absolutely impossible to analyze people on the phone when customers tell you they have a budget of $35k and then end up spending $150k. Maybe, your false answers is the reason a low percent of contractors get to do a $150k kitchen.


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