5 Quoting Secrets – How To Land More Jobs Without Dropping Your Prices

Are you tired of customers disappearing after you give them a quote?

You’ve just spent your valuable time providing a quote, and you think you’ve quoted the right price, but they don’t call you back.

Why?

Did the customer find somebody better, cheaper, or better looking?

It’s impossible to know for sure, and there could be a thousand reasons WHY you didn’t land that job. Many of those reasons are outside of your control.

Maybe the customer is just a tire kicker. Maybe they just needed an estimate to submit to insurance. Or, maybe they don’t like you because you look like a guy who bullied them back in high school.

The truth is that you’ll never land every job you quote, but you can significantly increase your chances with the right strategy and mindset.

In this article, I will share five simple and effective quoting tips that you can use to start landing more jobs TODAY, and do it without dropping your prices.

#1 – First Impressions Count

Landing the job isn’t just about having the correct price or offering the best services. Since the potential customer doesn’t know you in most cases, they judge you based on their interactions with you or your business.

This includes how you answer the phone, what you drive when showing up to their home, what you’re wearing, and whether or not you look them in the eye, smile, and shake their hand when you first greet them.

You may be the best, most trustworthy handyman in town. But the customer doesn’t know that. They will make decisions based on how you appear to them.

Like it or not, they will form their opinion of you based on what they see and experience.

So, do everything you can to appear friendly and professional. Wear a uniform, decorate your truck with your logo, build a website, answer the phone with friendly enthusiasm, and smile. Do everything you can to give your customers a great experience and first impression.

#2 – Listen More Than You Talk

In many cases, you might feel the need to show the customer how much you know. Don’t do that. They don’t care.

Maybe a customer has you on the phone, and they are telling you about a problem with their sink. After ten seconds, you know exactly what the problem is, but the customer wants to keep sharing what she thinks the problem is.

As hard as it might be, just listen. Maybe you’ve dealt with this problem a hundred times and already know the best solution.

Doesn’t matter.

When interacting with your customers, it’s more important to listen than to sound smart.

In addition to allowing the customer to feel heard and building trust with them, listening will help you uncover what is most important to them.

You’ll want to listen closely to see if you can identify their concerns, frustrations, and aspirations. Maybe they called you to build them a deck, but why do they want that deck in the first place? Are they trying to impress their friends and neighbors, or are they trying to avoid being judged by their mother-in-law?

The better you can understand your customers’ motivations and problems, the better you can appeal to them when presenting a quote later. This will dramatically improve your ability to sell to that customer.

Additionally, the knowledge you gain by listening is absolute GOLD for marketing purposes.

#3 – Communicate Features and Benefits

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when submitting a quote is to assume your services are the same as everybody else’s.

They aren’t. Don’t treat your services as a commodity.

Instead, think about what makes you different or better in some way and communicate that to the customer. Explain to them why hiring you will save them time, save them money, or simplify their lives and reduce stress.

For example, let’s say you can fix a hole in the drywall in just two hours, and you have a unique method that eliminates all dust. That is a feature of what you do, and you’ll want to bring that up.

But, where the real power comes into play is when you attach that feature to a benefit that is important to the customer.

If the feature is a zero-dust repair, the benefits might be that the customer won’t have a layer of dust when you finish (which they might have if they hire somebody else). Another benefit might be that their family won’t have to inhale harmful silica dust that could damage their health.

By communicating this, you’ve gone from being just another handyman to helping their family stay healthy, AND you’ve tapped into an emotional response. This is a powerful way to stand out from the competition.

The “So-That” framework:

The easiest way to identify a benefit is to name the feature and then say “so that.”

Example: I always show up on time (feature), so that you won’t have to waste your valuable time waiting for me and you will have more to spend with your family (benefit).

Features and benefits are a great way to trigger the customer emotionally and create uncertainty when hiring another pro. They’ll think, “Well, you have a zero-dust metho. II wonder if the other handyman we had quote the job will create dust?”

That small amount of doubt could help you land the job even if you are more expensive than the competition.

And it’s not like you’re trying to trick anyone here. You are simply speaking the customer’s language and focusing on the things that are most important to them. This will not only help you to land the job, but it will also help you complete the project in a way that is more likely to lead to positive reviews.

#4 – Appeal To Their Emotions

When customers call you, they either have an urgent pain they want to fix or a desire they want to fulfill.

If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be motivated enough to call you.

If you’ve done an excellent job of listening to the customer, hopefully, you can identify that urgent pain or desire.

Here are some examples:

Maybe their toilet runs and keeps them awake all night, and their career is suffering because of a lack of sleep. That’s an urgent pain.

Or, maybe your customer has the desire to be the best-looking home on the block, and that desire is why she chose to seek you out and call you instead of doing other things she might enjoy.

You’ll want to utilize that knowledge in your sales/quoting process. The idea here is to elicit an emotional response and get them to visualize their pain evaporating or their desire being fulfilled.

This can be done with features and benefits, but it can be done in other ways as well.

For example, once you’ve quoted the price to the customer, you might say, “Once I’m completed, you’ll be the envy of the neighbors.”

Who doesn’t want to be the envy of the neighbors?

Or, you could say, “Don’t worry, I’ll have your toilet fixed the right way in no time, and you can go back to enjoying a deep, relaxing sleep, and your toilet will never bother you again.”

This may take practice to do effectively without sounding weird, but it’s well worth the effort.

For more examples, pay attention to how ads on TV are trying to elicit emotional responses with you. Any good ad will succeed.

#5 – Follow Up!

If the customer doesn’t get back to you within the promised time frame, give them a call and follow up!

Honestly, I’m terrible at this. I always felt like calling the customer would be annoying to them and never wanted to seem pushy.

However, following up will rarely be taken in this way. Often, the customer will have forgotten about the project and is simply putting off the decision, and your reminder will help them make that decision.

Or, worst-case scenario, the customer has decided to go with another quote. If this happens, here’s your chance to get some feedback on why.

Don’t just assume you were too expensive. You might be surprised to find out that the customer was looking for a higher-end solution than the one you offered and ended up paying double to another pro.

Best case scenario, you get the job. Worst case scenario, you get some feedback. Either one is valuable.

Conclusion

Customers consider many factors other than price when hiring a handyman, contractor, or freelancer. And, very few customers worth working for are shopping for the cheapest option.

So instead of dropping your prices in the hopes of landing that next job, try switching up your strategy a bit. Evaluate your process. How can you look more professional? How can you make a better first impression? How can you better understand your customers and then speak to what matters to them more effectively?

Want to learn more?

If you found this article helpful, then you will love my online course – $100K Handyman Pricing. It’s packed with valuable strategies for pricing your handyman services, talking money with customers, and scheduling jobs more efficiently. Check it out and learn how to start making more (with less time and effort), starting today.