What feature do you wish your website had? - Page 2 - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

J. Sullivan · 10-22-2009, 03:01 PM

@ abacab

Depending on how much you want your customer to be involved in the process, I'd suggest something like 37signal's Basecamp or ActiveCollab.

They'll do all that and a hell of a lot more too!

Both are really great services, I've used ActiveCollab in the past. My problem was that people weren't using the service as much as I wanted to, so I dropped it from my business.

Google these

37Signals Basecamp

ActiveCollab

Hopefully that helps!

480sparky · 10-22-2009, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deckman22

..........Some sort of deal to hypnotise the customer into calling right now to buy a deck or patio would be nice too.

Just need a subliminal message.... something like "Price is not a concern..... Price is not a concern......"

AmeliaP · 10-22-2009, 03:34 PM

an auto destroy rival web sites with to many similar keywords feature would good

coolflatroof · 10-22-2009, 06:20 PM

I have to disagree that price calculator is a bad thing - it is great!

First of all it dives a lot of people to my site. People who are searching for roof prices.

Second: Although you want to be in control, you also want your potential customers to be aware of what the should expect to pay if they hire you.
You don't want to waste time explaining things over the phone / email or even worse - go on an estimate and have the homeowner give you a look like

cuz your price is so "high".

I explain to people why we charge what we charge on the site and those who are willing to pay my prices hire me without asking for 20-30% discount cuz that is what "competition" charges...

Basically I truly believe my calculator works great for me.

Sure i loose a lot of potential customers. But, you can't sell everyone and you don't want to get every customer. My calculator acts in part as customer filtration system, which make my life a lot happier

J. Sullivan · 10-22-2009, 06:48 PM

@ CoolFlatRoof

Gravy if it works for you man!

I'm saying from experience, giving a price without explaining why it is what it is leaves you to only compete on price. And you shouldn't have to compete on price alone. Somebody out there will always do it cheaper than you.

Here's another questions, How do you know your unscrupulous, dirty, rotten competition isn't using your calculator to underbid you every time?

Are HO's just using your estimator to shop around using your price as a reference?

I think talking dollars should only come up after you've already built some sort of relationship with them, and qualified yourself. Then you've had a chance to explain why the dollars add up to what they do, and you're in a much better position to win the job.

Another thing is calculators rarely cover all the angles.

Using your example, what would happen if somebody didn't know how difficult the job would be, and the "actual estimate" ended up higher? Would they be upset?

How about if they want more than 2 skylights put in, or more than two chimneys?

What good is it to those customers then?

Hell, why give two estimates in the first place?

The biggest thing is this: You're not going to sell anybody anything that costs more than $10,000 on the internet without talking to them.

So why show them all your cards right off the rip before you even get to talk to them? Every time the "real" estimate is higher, they are going to say "Well, that's not what you said online". Then you have to explain yourself from a position of real disadvantage.

And if they find somebody cheaper why would they go with you? You're just a number from the internet.

But like I said, if it's working for you, gravy baby. Good on you. I don't like it, and personally wouldn't recommend it.

But what the hell do I know anyway

coolflatroof · 10-22-2009, 07:28 PM

Man, I don't much care about competition ... my product is somewhat niche and I know my competition and what they charge.

I have rubber roofing hacks underbidding me by FAR, but people willing to do biz with those guys are not my type of customer in the first place and I want to avoid them.

I don't compete on price - we are kind of expensive compare to rubber and other alternatives and in line with competition.

I sold jobs over 10 grand via email.

Of course I go to the job and talk to customer and measure and ONLY then give my final price... but it is usually in line with my calc and/or online estimate.

As for people telling me that calc spit out a much lesser price - that happened many time - I always found a way to explain why that is the case. Usually when roof was very small or complicated.

My calc cover most such things and if it does not, there is explanation about how things are right bellow the calc.

Once Again, Calc is one of the links in the chain of customer filtration. Another one is the initial conversation over email. I do not go out to look at a job until the customer knows what it will cost them. I don't want to waste my and their time.

I leave room for me to change pricing within reasonable limits, but usually sell for what I quoted the job or in line with the calc.

One time we had a big discrepancy, due to homeowner providing me with roof size which was off a lot (like $3000-4000 off) and this only came up at the job site. Today they are one of my best customers and helped me sell many jobs by giving me a good reference.

I constantly fine-tune the system of selling the jobs, but my main reason for using calc is that it saves me a LOT of time and aggravation - I VERY rarely end up doing estimates which are complete waste of my time. Like 1 or 2 in the last year.

And man... we travel a lot to get to job site - imagine driving two hours to get blown off by "ohhh... that is too much money"... I don't want it!

coolflatroof · 10-22-2009, 07:30 PM

Hey J... I see u r from mass... where abouts?

and what does "web dude" means... what do you do?

J. Sullivan · 10-22-2009, 08:13 PM

Haha I read you loud and clear bro, and like I said, if it's working for you awesome.

I'm from a little fishing village called Hinsdale haha Small town in alllllllll the way Western Mass. I'm talking 15 mins from the New York state border.

Web Dude means I do web design and development, SEO, email marketing and the like. Basically if you use it to build your business online, I do that.

But I say web dude because I'm not geeked out, and I'm the coolest web dude around. Well, at least my mom said so.

coolflatroof · 10-22-2009, 09:06 PM

lol.. i know hinsdale - i worked the, we did a metal roof. fishing village? what is it that u fish i wonder

Thats nice that u r not geeked out ...lol... i guess i'm a roofing/web dude then

how is ur web-dude biz going? u know, i'm gonna open up a little seo gig for roofers soon... we can cooperate i guess

cbscreative · 10-23-2009, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by J. Sullivan

Web Dude means I do web design and development, SEO, email marketing and the like. Basically if you use it to build your business online, I do that.

But I say web dude because I'm not geeked out, and I'm the coolest web dude around. Well, at least my mom said so.

Does this mean I have to remove Geek from my sig file? Hopefully my posts make it clear I like to avoid geek speak. I'm just not as colorful as J but I enjoy reading his posts. He always finds an interesting way to make his points.

J. Sullivan · 10-23-2009, 12:54 PM

haha No way CBSteve, you're the man!

Get your geek thing on brotha! I just try and hide it...

TotalHome09 · 10-26-2009, 02:32 PM

I'd like to be notified on my cell phone when a request for a quote is submitted. Sometimes I miss them for a few days, and the customer has cooled or found someone else. Darren

Mylocalcontract · 10-31-2009, 04:38 PM

my sites got it all!! No every site can improve, but Im happy so far!