(LINK TO ACCESS DOWNLOAD AT BOTTOM OF PAGE)
If you’re a self-employed tradesman, you probably find yourself answering calls, missing calls, replying to texts and answering emails daily. Some of these can be new potential clients, and some always turn out to be tyre kickers. It’s just the nature of the game. All this does is distract you, and take you away from getting your current job finished. This article is going to show you how to protect yourself from this going forward.
As a sole trader or small company, we need to value our time, and dealing with clients and folks who want to become clients can be a huge time drain.
What you’re missing in your business is an Enquiry book. I’m going to show you how to implement an enquiry book into your business, which will immediately save you loads of time, and separate the good leads from the time wasters.
If you’re plumbing, plastering, laying blocks, or whatever the case may be, your phone will definitely ring during the day and most likely you will have to stop work, take the call or reply to a text, which might not even result in you getting the job. It’s always tricky knowing whether to leave, to go look at a job and provide a quote today, tomorrow or next week.
Well, here’s something you can do today:
Get yourself an Enquiry book. It’s nothing fancy, it’s just a page with several questions on it, which I will share with you in a minute. I suggest printing the page, then getting a load of them bound and put them on the dashboard of your van. Then next time your phone rings and it’s a potential client, just say:
“Please, just give me a minute to get into my van and get my book.”
So head to your van and grab your enquiry book. Now ask them for their name, number (even though they know you can see their number since you called them), email address and job location. What you’re actually letting them know is that you are writing down all of their information. Then say:
“Can you please give me a brief description of the work you need done?”
They will let you know the work they need done. The more detailed the description, the further down the line they are in the process of them becoming a client. The next thing to ask is:
“When would you like the work done?”
So let’s say they want the work done tomorrow, or the following day, and you’re booked solid for 3 months. Just tell them straight away that you’re sorry and that you can’t help them. Now ask:
“Where did you get my number?”
This is a very important question to ask. And the reason is that referrals that come from previous clients, or family members or friends of previous clients are more valuable than leads that come from Facebook, google or other sources. The next question to ask is:
“How many other people will be quoting for the job?”
Just be upfront and ask them straight. The next question to ask them is:
“Have you got your other quotes back in yet?”
The reason that it’s important to ask if they have received their other quotes is because in my experience, it’s better to be the first back with the quote, or the last back with it. If they are telling you they are going to be getting 6 quotes for the job, it could be a waste of your time giving them a quote, as this slashes your chance of actually getting the job to 1 in 6. So you may not get the job, or maybe they’ve got their 6 quotes back and they’re not happy.
Here is another question to ask that’s so important, and it’s probably more relevant for 10k plus jobs:
“When I get to you on the day, I can give you a written quote while I’m there, or if you’d prefer a printed quote, it’s gonna take me another few days to get it to you. Which would you prefer?”
In a lot of cases, you won’t even have to ask this because if they’re not getting a loan to fund the job, they will be proud to tell you. It’s not even that, but it could even offend them because you thought they needed to get a loan to pay for the job. I can’t stress how important it is to know if the client actually has the funds to pay for the job before you spend so much time engaging with them.
So you have it written down, a hand written quote, or a printed quote. Circle which one they want. So now at this point you’ve been on the phone for a couple of minutes. So next tell them you will be out today, tomorrow, next week or whatever day suits you, or simply tell them the job is not for you.
Either way, you have collected some very useful data such as
Whether they actually have the money for the job.
The number of other quotes they received.
What stage they are at in the entire process.
Where they got your number from.
So in those couple of minutes you spent on the phone, you’ve collected more information than what I’ve seen some lads collect in 2 weeks.
I used a very simple enquiry book myself when I was in the building game, and it worked a treat and saved me so much time and hassle.
If you would like to get a copy of the same enquiry book I used myself, click the link below to download it. It’s completely free, and it contains 2 parts, the enquiry book itself, which is the first part, and a 14 day follow up, which is the second part and this contains a couple of follow-up questions which you can ask 14 days later when you follow up with them. This will give you a good sign of “where you’re at” in the entire process.
So do yourself a favour, and download the enquiry book & follow-up questions using the link below
If this is one of the first times you have ever come across my website or any of my content, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joe Doyle I am from Clondalkin and I am Ireland’s number one business mentor for tradesmen and the construction industry.
Nowadays I’m not involved in the building game anymore and I am a full-time property investor. I have almost €13 million worth of rental property all over Dublin as I mentioned, and I am on a mission to grow this business to €100 million.
Aside from my property business, I also run a world class business mentorship program for tradesmen like your good self. If you would be interested in having a chat to see if there is something we could do to help you out, reach out and either myself or one of my team will be in touch to have a chat.
If you need any further convincing about anything I have just said about my background, just do a google search for ‘Joe Doyle Entrepreneur’. I am the proud owner of over 320+ google reviews and I own the entire first page on google. I go by the name Joe Doyle Entrepreneur on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. I have also written a book called THE TRADESMAN’S SURVIVAL GUIDE.
Either way, if you have found some value in any of my content please tell a friend or reach out just to say hello.
See you at the top!!
Joe
Here’s that link again to download the Enquiry Book & follow-up questions