Free Estimates?

Slyfox

No i do not get 100% reinbursment, but when you consider i already get a tax break for transporation allowances, i believe it would work out better than 25%.
I personely have limitations on free estimates, but under the circumstances of when i do give them, they really are free, if you pass the free estimate cost onto the customers who do hire you, than your actually only offering free estimates to those who don't hire you, plus penalizing those who do hire you to cover the lost created from those he did not.
I have nothing against charging for estimates,
I do it myself in certain circumstances, like those i listed in a previous post here.
The furthest point of my work area would cost me $10.00 - $15.00
(at todays prices) in gas,
and a couple hours of my time
(which normally is a welcomed break from the roof).

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mahlere

remarkable, misguided, but remarkable...

747

i say if its a local house then you shouldn't charge. But if your having to drive to another town then thats a different ballgame with fuel prices.

RPortinga

But they are not free... you may not be charging the person you give the estimate to, but the time you spent costs somebody. It is time you could be doing other things like following up with that paying customer to make sure their job is going good, or working on your books or .. whatever.

Think of the fees lawyers charge... $25 for a 10-minute phone conversation. And you know they seem to nickle and dime you for everything they do, right? But if you look at their day, they probably are in the office doing things for eight hours, but they may only bill out four or five hours of that in a day (if that). They do things that can't be billed to a specific client... so when they do bill things,they need to pad it enough to cover that "down time".

When you do a "Free Estimate", you may not think that you are passing those costs on (or you may be doing so without realizing it)... but at some point you have to, or you will not be able to cover your costs and you'll lose money... or at best just not make as much as you could/should be.

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Rob Portinga - Bauer Bros. Construction, Inc.
Design/Build - General Contractor - Construction Management

RPortinga

If the other contractor told her it was to cover fuel and time, maybe he presented it wrong.

It's about perception.

We're looking at this policy in general, and right now the approach we are looking at would be to educate our clients/leads - something to the effect of how there is no "free lunch", that time and effort spent giving folks a free estimate has to be paid for from somewhere. If I give someone a free estimate and they hire me, I have to account for the 10 free estimates I gave others and did not get, and that will be reflected in my pricing to the one that does hire me.

Now, we also realize that sometimes you do need to give something away... just as stores use loss-leaders to attract you into their store.

There are cicumstances we may need to give free estimates, or maybe initially as we push back in to this side of the business more in order to build our reputation and such. But in that case, I look at it as an investment... almost a marketing expense of sorts. Sort of the way a lawyer (I seem stuck on lawyers today) will give you that free initial consultation. You aren't going to walk out of there with all your questions answers, but hopefully it can be used as a way for the client to decide if they want to work with you and for you to decide if you can meet the needs of the client.

Maybe there's a middle ground here... "consultation" versus "estimate".

I can give you a free consultation by looking at your roof from the ground, letting you know what my unit prices would be to replace it... let you know about the products we use, etc.. but if you want me to get someone on the roof to start measuring.. then it's the next level and they need to pay for that effort.

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Rob Portinga - Bauer Bros. Construction, Inc.
Design/Build - General Contractor - Construction Management

Bill

i do not charge for them myself

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Is it beer thirty yet
Virginia Department of Licensing
Virginia Plumbing Codes

Slyfox

An average estimate takes an hour of my time, and less than 10.00 in fuel.
So i give 10 estimates - 10 hours of time and 100.00 in fuel,
I sign 6 of 10 (has been and average since 1994, except in 2007, that average dropped to 4 out of 10, but 2008 has been back to normal),
The average re-roof $6500.00 x 6 = 39,000.00 so i invested 40.00 in fuel and 4 hours of my time to sign off on near 40,000.00 in work.
Sounds like a pretty dang good investment to me.
Plus the home owners who did not sign me, still got a company card, will recieve a company "thank you letter" later on, thanking them just for considering me (advertisement).

Right or Wrong, I don't know, that's the way i do it.

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dougger222

I also like doing estimates which is a lot easier than tearing off or laying shingles.

If my day consists of doing say five esimates, that's an easy day no matter how you look at it. Driving around, drawing roofs and talking to home owners, pretty easy stuff! It's also sort of easy to show shingle samples to home owners. Perhaps the easiest roofing I do is in the office.

More estimates means more experiance which means more sold jobs. It's sort of funny how rusty one can get after ice fishing for four months! After a month getting back into it it's like second nature.

ScottD

We do both. Our free estimate is a page out of a remodeliong book that has bathrooms, garages , kitchens, finished basements etc. I show the customer that. If they say wow, that's alot. I say ok thank you for your time do you know anyone else who may require our services, and have a good day . Here is my card if you need anything else. If they say that was about what I thought, then we sit down and I Introduce our business more in depth, and a personal relationship, then we go to work on details of there job.

The point of the book is it may not be specific, but it is only an estimate, not a quote. The reaction I get from that determines how much of my time they get. By visiting them , and them not liking the price , I may aunt Sally across town who can't find anyone reputable to remodel her kitchen. It works well for me. I hope this helps.

ridewags

look at it like this... take someone building a home from the ground up... a do it yourself project... they're going to be getting multiple estimates from multiple different trades... now if everyone started charging $20-$50 per estimate.. that would start to add up very quickly and I could almost guaranty they're going to go with the companies that dont charge.

Id rather never lose a job before I even have a chance to present myself to the customer.

RPortinga

I don't think there is a "one size fits all" for this issue...
It's going to depend on how you get your leads, are they cold calls or referrals?

The better the lead is from the beginning, the better chance of landing it...

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Rob Portinga - Bauer Bros. Construction, Inc.
Design/Build - General Contractor - Construction Management

Mike Finley

NO LOOK AT IT THIS WAY >>>>>>>>>>>

If everyone started charging for $20-$50 per estimate - that would start to add up very quickly and I can almost guarantee they're going to --

A) Not get 10 estimates and cause a combined operating loss of probably close to $1000 or more for all the wasted time added up for all those contractors.

B) Stop looking at contractors as commodities and slow down and begin to do a little pre-qualifying of whom they are going to pay for estimates with. Once they realize it's going to cost them $60-$150 to have a professional spend their limited time with them in their home, they are going to take a little more time and possibly look beyond who has the biggest ad in the yellow pages.

C) They are going to respect a contractors time more once they see that it's worth something to the contractor since he charges for it.

Think about the other side of the coin. You should be losing most of the jobs you go look at now, if not I can guarantee you aren't charging what you are worth.

LA_nailer

Exactly!

mahlere

he didn't say anything

tinner666

I think MikeF put it well. Only one estimate today. HO said " I looked at your site, and here's the $25.00 check". I only spent an hour with him and it doen't pay my wages, but it does defray costs some, and as someone noted before, the HO did a lot of research before calling me. 10 other roofers have businesses less than 10 blocks from his house. I deduct that from his total cost later.

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Frank Slate Roof Repairs, Richmond, Va.

Kenny K

free will increase the lead slows always. rely on your abillities to close the project and work the numbers. cost will never go down unfortunately

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Replacement Windows and Vinyl Siding by Illinois Remodeling Company

mahlere

can we get a translation?

Prime_Roofer

So anyways.... FREE ESTIMATES all the way!

Slyfox

Think about the other side of the coin. You should be losing most of the jobs you go look at now, if not I can guarantee you aren't charging what you are worth.

LOL,
I should lose more than i sale, because i don't charge $25.00 for the estimate?

My number one reason for losing jobs is others under bidding me,
and I can't remember the last time any of the home owners who did hire me,
didn't let me know I was not the low bid, but did appear to be the most informative.

I don't bid 100's of jobs a year, so maybe I'm to small an operation to see your way of thinking.
I'm a one crew company.
I do alot of new construction (most of which is done through GC's), thus no estimates, they allready know what i charge.
But on the re-roofs i do bid, I sale 6 out of 10, and I'm never the low bid, middle bid occassionaly, but never the low.

Charging for your estimates may possibly make people think you know what your doing,
but your sales skills is still whats going to get that home owner to sign off.

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Mike Finley

At 60% sales, (more than double the national home improvement average of 28%) you've obviously got it all figured out and there is nothing more to talk about.

I would say you're wasting your talents at roofing. At more than twice the success ratio you should be teaching sales.