E241: How to Build a Trade Quote That Sells for You When You're Not in the Room

Most businesses when they quote send a one-page dump out to their customers. And in return, most businesses get radio silence unless their customer's really engaged. Today we're gonna share with you journeys around how our customers have built trade quotes that sell for them when they're not in the room. Welcome to Trade Sales Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction, and industry leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so so that you can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses and generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. Today we're going to go through 3 ways that you can build a quote that sells for you when you're not in the room and give you some confidence as to the results that these quote changes will bring. So my experience with building quotes goes back almost 15 years now. I've seen just about every single type of quote I think you could possibly ask for. The long extended novels with so much detail you simply get overwhelmed. Those that are driven by pictures, quotes via video, quotes that are delivered face to face, quotes that are single page dumps from quoting software. And I slow down on that one because that's the one I see most commonly. Across our customers, and then the quotes that nail all things perfection around storytelling, around personalization, around making the customer feel as if they really are driving their own journey. Now, across thousands of quotes that I've seen across this journey, we've been able to build a nice blueprint that works really effectively for most of our customers. And that blueprint, I want to highlight 3 of the most impactful parts of your quote that you can focus in on. So let's do that, and I'm going to use an example of one of our customers who are into kitchen and bathroom fixtures. They're having some nice growth at the moment from a pipeline point of view and an engagement point of view from their customers, and I'm expecting they're going to see some terrific sales results around the corner. So the first thing to think about is how you can be personalizing your quote. So straight away, that might raise some concerns for you that this is going to be a process that takes a long time. Thankfully, it doesn't have to be. And in the personalization of quotes, the aim that we have here is to make customers feel like the quote has been created just for them. But that doesn't need to be as a result of significant input changes that you're in. And the way that I'm seeing customers personalize their quotes is only in a couple of key areas around that quote that allows them to cookie cutter and template the rest of their quote process, but is certainly really impactful when it comes to personalizing the journey of their customers. So this kitchen and bathroom fixture business, what they've done, uh, one of the key things they've done is on their first page of their quote is they've actually got really clear on what the customer wanted and how they're delivering it. So the second thing that I see work really effectively, one of the big changes in quotes, is to roll more stories in. Case studies, customer reviews, and examples as to how you have brought great results in for other customers. It's broken out across the quote, and in this kitchen and bathroom fixture business, what they've been able to do is pair in images really nicely into their quote that actually bring to life some of the cool work that they're doing for their customers. So number one's all about personalizing their quote. And number 2 is all about including stories, case studies, quotes, Google reviews, Trustpilot reviews, whatever they may be, into that quote so that the customer's actually getting to see examples of projects that are quite similar to theirs. And the third one, which is just as important, is about explaining the process. So not just putting the quote forward, but having a process there that says, here's the 5 steps, here's the 7 steps, here's our 3 steps to excellent execution. You can think of something far more engaging than that. But in the instance of this kitchen and bathroom fixture business, what they've been able to do is have a nice graphically designed process for their customers that say, hey, here's how we're going to bring to life what we're promising you. Here's how we're going to make sure that when you invest with us, we're going to deliver you a great result. Now those 3 things are very easy to explain, super easy to explain. I would have to say though, of the majority of businesses that I work with, they take a really long time to get this done and they need their hand being held across the journey. Now that's okay because sometimes these can take an amount of change to implement. But I think the piece that I really want to get you thinking about today is you're at the gym, right, driving the car, whatever it may be, is I really want you to think about if you are able to make changes such as these, such as personalization, rolling in more stories, or explaining the process better, if you're able to make these changes to your quotes, even if it took you a bit of time, how many customer journeys or how many customer processes would this impact? Well, the answer is every single one who gets a quote. If it takes you a day to make those changes, but you're quoting 10 quotes a week, that's 500 quotes across the year that you are going to get to impact. 8 hours, 500 quotes. You can run those numbers, but it ends up being about a minute a quote is the time you invest across your first year. Really impactful, right, when you can think about it in that journey. And for me, a real driver around how we can certainly reduce the frustration if you're spending just hours wasting time on sales quotes. Because I recognize you need to change something. The topic from today is around how you can make 3 changes to your sales quote that will really drive personalization. Now we've barely touched the surface, but I'd like to provide you with lots of short and sharp things you can think about that will stop you getting those same results, those stressful results again and again and again. And grow your sales really quickly. We've got the free quoting quiz. You just need to click on the free quiz link in the show notes to get started. I will personally review it myself and contact you with any ideas, and it does take less than a minute to complete. But that's it for today. Short and sharp, but one of the most impactful episodes I think you can act on to make that 1% better difference to your business. Until next time, that's it. Bye for now.