Time Between Bid And Acceptance

Tiger

Residential electrical service. I work up the bid in the truck and know that it's accepted in about 5 minutes.

Dave

easy sider

The high presure pitch only works when your going through a lot of leads. Some of my competion always pitch for the grand slam deal and if they get it, they get it good. They have to work a few states to do this and make it work and they always leave room for the second pitch if they get a no. Old school selling. Give some thing away but add some thing back. Most people are smarter than this but a percentage fall for it.

We always ask for the job but rarely chase it. When they call back its always to buy the job and were happy to have it.

john elliott

That strikes me as quite an attitude to hold towards your prospects. It sounds like you don't see prospects as people at all.

That bit about having to come back costing so much more just doesn't hold up as a logical statememt. One visit costing 10 or 20 thousand? I don't think so.

I think this not taking 'we need to think about it' as an answer sounds like part of the high pressure technique. Perhaps that's just the way it is in the world of vinyl, maybe this is how tough you need to be to get the sales. Glad I don't have to do stuff like that, it's just the same in England, BTW

John

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Ed the Roofer said "John too, in his crass and blunt demeanor.............."

Jason Whipple

I always give the customer time to think about it if thats what they need. Some times it's just a matter of the Husband and Wife needing to have a private talk before moving forward. As we all know, customers are not always aware of the cost of things.

I don't understand the thought process of believing it will cost more to give the customer a little room to digest the whole proposition. If they except the terms, they call and say yes. If they don't accept or don't call, I don't go back.

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Jason E Whipple, General Manager
Historic House Restoration, Cincinnati, Ohio
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Carport King

We have a different kind of system that works for us. When a salesmen goes out and does not get the sale he has 3 days to make it happen. Then he turns the lead over to our sales manager and he then calls and works them and offers them incentives to close with us.

We do not high pressure but just make sure we are all apples to apples in pricing and product.

We close 62% of all sales and we are pround of that closing ratio.

This cost our salesmen 4% if we end up with the sale.So most all our salesmen close them. It works for us.

john elliott

"works them"? Wow, nothing to be added there I think, is that a fishing expression, working the fish until you can land it?

How can you say you are not high pressure, when you go on to say something like that, and show how much pressure your salesmen are under?

Obviously aluminium is as tough a business as vinyl

John

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Ed the Roofer said "John too, in his crass and blunt demeanor.............."

marc

Bottom line is that there is only 24 hours in a day.
If I can see 10 people in 1 week and my close ratio is 30% I will sell 3 jobs.
If I need to go back to see 5 of these people a second time that only leaves me time to see 5 new people that week at 30% close ratio.........That means I can sell only 1.5 jobs instead of 3.
At an average selling price of $11,800.00 that's $17,700 that I'm not selling because I don't have time to see more people. I don't have that time because I'm visiting the same people 2 or 3 times instaed of 1.

You can't see that there would be a huge savings to my company if people made the decision on the first visit?
What is it that you don't understand about this?

That savings is passed on to the customer if he can make a decision tonight. I don't believe that they need to discuss it. My belief is that they have made up their minds to award us the project or not. If they say they need to discuss it I will excuse myself, tell them that I have a phone call to make or I may even go check on a job that is close by. I will be back in about 20 minutes. They can give me a yes or no answer when I come back.
BTW.........When I do this the answer is yes 90% of the time.

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Marc

tin man

Windows and siding are not a call back business.It is only high pressure if you cant follow the common sence Marc has outlined.If you dont ask for there business that day your a Professional Visitor ,a geat job if you like meeting new people and chating them up,having a cup of tea .Hard to find job but it takes no nuts just alot of gas and time.

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replacement windows Massachusetts and vinyl windows Boston

vinylguy

marc,
we do the same thing. no one gets away without signing this form for the discount.
cause as you know the attorny general states that if we offer a one time discount we cannot hold the price anylonger than the day. and if we do we can get fined for it. kind of like the j c penny one day sale. go in thier after the sale and try to get the same price even if your waveing cash around bet you don't get it!

vinylguy

anyways if they refuse the discount they must sign and date it.
some people try to refuse to sign but we make them this way the know they are giving up the discount

curapa

Are homeowners not allowed to get other estimates. Any person with the smallest amount of sense gets at least 5 estimates for any job over $10,000.

Giving a person 20 minutes to make a yes or no high dollar decision is high pressure sales, reminds me of a car salesman. When someone tries to pressure me into a sale I usually will send them on their way whether the price is reasonable or not. Why should you charge more for just waiting for a phonecall, you dont have to revist the home once your bid is handed over until its time to start working?

easy sider

Most of the buy it now guys know that they dont have a deal if they dont get a yes at the time of the presentation. Lucky for them theres a sucker born every minute.

marc

I'm not telling you that what you do is wrong. If it works for you it must be right. Someone asked a question and I decided to answer. The way we do it works for us. If you want to believe it's high pressure you can. I believe that the homeowner wants to get the project done and I also believe that just after reviewing the entire project, seeing samples and recieving the estimate is the right time to award the project. I also believe that if I leave without a yes that I don't have much chance of selling the project unless I've made a serious mistake and for some strange reason we are the lowest price. (I say this because I know that you only took in 50% of what we discussed and the one thing you will remember is the price)

My only point to this post is what works for you may or may not work for me and what works for me may or may not work for you but I do believe we are both right in the way we run our businesses.

BTW.............I know a lot of very wealthy car salesmen.

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Marc

Susan Betz

Six months to a year for a big project, in the $250K+ range.

A week or two for smaller projects (although it can take much longer to get loose ends tied up).

We're getting very picky about closing times. Materials are shooting up. We always put 30 days on a bid and let that slide when it takes a little longer, but we're looking at huge increases in wood, steel, and Styrofoam, so we're probably going to 15 days.

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Fences of Distinction, Ocala, FL
http://www.fencesofdistinction.com

vinylguy

marc,
you are right what works for us doesn't have to work for them.
i'll bet you none of them have even tried it our way before. they just have this preconcieved notion that were high pressure.
i have tried it the " i'll get back to you method " and under no circumstances will i go back to it. and i will also bet that any of these guys tried this proven tried and true system selling that is not high pressure but educated selling they would actually see the benifits and use it also. what they do is not wrong oviouslly it works for them and they all make great money at it. mean well we are depositing checks in our accounts everyday

curapa

Thats cool, if it works for you guys keep on but its just not my style.

Back to the original question.

I put in from 2-8 bids a week and my close time is from usually from at the time of the quote to up to 6 months or so. My quotes are good for 30 days so the people calling me back later on sometimes have a price change depending on my current prices.

john elliott

You can say it isn't high pressure as often as you want, you may even believe it to be true. It makes me wonder what your version of high pressure would be.

John

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Ed the Roofer said "John too, in his crass and blunt demeanor.............."

vinylguy

john,
have no clue never tried it! but i can sure tell you have never tried our way either. at least when we started and were novice at this we all tried your way. and something else too i do not believe that you close deals at 50% cause all you do is make yourself a professional order taker. and this is fine the world is made up of all kinds of different personalities.
however who are you to say that we are high pressure how the heck do you know? come on up here and ride with me for a day and find out for yourself what educational selling is all about. lets ask you a question, are you the best at what you do? will you treat the customer with respect? will you do what you told them you would? and last do you know another company in your area that would do shoddy work for them? or maybe upcharge the heck out of them? than why wouldn't you inform your customer as to why they should hire you? and show them your awards and work that you've done? why would you e-mail them a quote or mail it and let them hire this other guy who only does half ass work? if you truley care about your customer you would make sure they were informed enough to make an educated chioce who is better for them and will take care of them.
but then again maybe you don't care who you work for or who does a job that you should have had. syatems and businesses are built on systems and goals and how can you have any solid goals if your just putting estimates out there? how can you work on your backlog if you don't whos coming aboard? how can you plan for the future when you have no idea whos going to acceppt your bid or not? were not high pressure we have just been in this long enough to find a system that not only allows us to plan figure and get closure but also alows us to make plans to grow or downsize way in advance. we can dictate our future rather than have the future dictate us. barring a depression. war or act of god.
i would dare you to look at the most successful home improvement companies in the world. look at the way they do it. is sears high pressure? if they are they must be doing it right cause they are #1 in home improvements. if you want to be sucessful find someone doing what you do and try to use some of the method they use to be more sucessful!

marc

Can't we just all get along?

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Marc

vinylguy

marc,
i agree with you. but i will not let someone tell me we do something we don't