Everything I Know from Doing Thousands of Estimates

All right, let's throw in the jersey. Let's head to the client's property to do an actual estimate. Of course, we're going to be hopping in a decal vehicle with either vinyl decals or paint, something that looks professional and is going to be telling every one of their neighbors that I'm here to do business. Another way to get great sales. But I'm going to take a couple things with me, one of which is going to be either a folder like this or some sort of cardstock literature. The basic thing is I'm going to give this to the customer and at the end of the estimate, and I don't want it to be easy to throw away. So I don't really like business cards, and I don't really like having a really flimsy flyer. I either have card stock. I've seen some people like wood or metal postcards, or I have this folder where they can actually put inside any sort of information about the actual estimate or print things off about a project. If you have a lot of project notes, these are the type of things you're going to want to be taking with you. Now, some people will make their work truck an actual office, and they might put in a laptop or. Or an iPad. You might even need to bring a measuring wheel or some other device to be able to measure something on the property. Make sure that's all in your vehicle and it's super accessible. You don't want to be hauling things in and out of the office. You don't want to be making your estimate vehicle where when you jump in, you got to get, like, all these other tools out or super dirty. Try to keep, if at all possible, when you're growing the business. One vehicle dedicated to doing your estimates. You have plenty of literature. You might have a box where you keep it all organized. You, you have your laptop, you have your iPad, and you can go straight to the estimate from here. All right, so now that we've showed up at a customer's house, I'm going to approach the house with a smile on my face, with a lot of confidence. Because if you just come up and you're, like, all afraid and nervous, they're going to feel it. When you approach the house, keep everything in your left hand so your right hand is ready to shake. I know it sounds simple, but it's really awkward if you're juggling things around before you give them a handshake. Now, ideally, when you're approaching the house, you already know the scope of work. When someone's collecting lead information from your office. You want to be knowing kind of what they're looking for. So if they're looking for bush trimming. As I'm approaching the house, I'm actually looking what bushes would need to be trimmed. I'm also looking for upsell opportunities. Like do they need mulch? Oh, they have some weeds. I'm already looking for upsell opportunities and what the scope of work is based upon what my office has told me. All right, so now that we're approaching the actual doorway, we're going to knock on the door, but I'm going to be making sure that I don't stand really close to the door. Back in the day when I first got started, I'd be like this, like, seriously, if they open this door, they're gonna be right in my face. That's awkward. Alright, so knock on the door, stand back a little bit. Be at an angle too. If you're like confrontational, shoulder to shoulder, that's not what we're looking for. Nice 45 degree angle. Use your left arm. Being closest to them, not your dominant hand is also a good move. 45 degrees set 4 to 6ft back. And then when they open up the door, they're able to cautiously open it and make sure that they're safe. Remember, sometimes you're speaking to the wife or, or the female of the house and they're going to be pretty cautious about opening up the door to a stranger. So you're going to say, hi, thank you. And then we're going to do a handshake with the right hand. The next step is trying to get them outside. Especially if your services are on the outside like lawn care landscaping is. I actually want them to go show me the thing. I don't want them to be like, yeah, around back. Go look at X, Y and Z. Like the whole point of me being here in person and meeting them is for them to show me. I could have done a drive by estimate and not met with the customer if all they were going to tell me is just some more requirements of what's going on in the backyard. Keep it mind that the customer doesn't do estimates every single day, multiple times. They don't know the next step of the process. So once I shake their hand and I address them, I'm going to tell them we're going to walk the property. I'm going to take a video, I'm going to send it to the office and within 24 hours we'll get you an estimate quote. Now they know what to expect and they're not like kind of like aimlessly wandering around their property following you, not knowing what's going to happen as you're assessing the property and whatever project they need done. Try to match their energy. If they're just like really quiet, don't be super loud and boisterous. Agree with them about whatever. I don't care about politics, I don't care about their favorite sports team. I'm going to appear interested because this is all about the customer. I'm trying to make them happy and I'm making sure that I match their energy. If they're super mad, if they're like super into things, I'm going to get that same way. I'm going to match their energy right now. I don't care about being right. I care about serving the customer. And so I'm going to agree with them on basically everything. The reason I'm doing this is because I want to be able to ask the customer the right questions. And the right questions are really a matter of like, what's their budget? And also asking them, have they tried other vendors? Have they tried someone else? Why were they unsatisfied with their last provider? They're not going to answer you those questions if you haven't matched their energy and if you're being all loud and boisterous when they're quiet, or vice versa. So match their energy, allowing you to ask the right questions and get the responses you need to actually get the quote accepted. If all these ideas for getting more customers seems appealing, but in the back of your mind you're saying that's fine for spring and summer, but I get any customers during the off season and during the winter. I'd love to invite you to Blue Collar Summit coming up in January 2025 in Seattle, Washington. It's a three day event. There's gonna be a ton of speakers on the Friday. I'm gonna take an entire day and solve this problem for you once and for all. We're gonna figure out how to ensure that you keep customers coming back to you throughout the off season. And you don't have an offseason because off seasons will keep you poor. Go to blue collarsummit.com, book your tickets today and we'll see you there. The whole goal here is for me to be able to do an estimate video, and I don't want to have the customer over my shoulder following me around the property. So I'm going to give them the literature, set the expectations, and then I'm going to pull out my phone once they've gone inside and start making an estimate video. Now, the estimate video is very important if you want to ever get out of daily operations inside your business. The estimate video is going to be recapping everything you just talked about with the customer. You can use the estimate video later that evening if you're way behind and you need to do your estimate notes. I don't suggest that, really. The main reason we're doing the video, though, is that you, as the estimator, don't have to come back to the property. The whole goal is that between the estimate notes that you give the crew and the video, you, as the estimator, never return to the property. We consider a system failure if the estimator has to come back when the project is actually underway. So when I'm making the estimate video, the first thing is I want to be a wide angle and as far back as possible. I'm going to do it in landscape mode so we get as much of the surroundings as possible. I'm actually going to start from the very front of the property so they can actually see the address. They see what the property looks like because that's what they're going to see when they drive up to the address using their gps. I don't want to start in the very back corner of the property. Okay, we're going to fix this bush. And they're like, where are we? Like, am I even at the right house? So I've now wrapped up with the customer. I'm now taking my estimate video. I'm in wide angle. I am landscape. And I'm going to step back from the property. I'm not going to be going in. Okay, so we're going to take care of these weeds right here. I'm going to step back. I'm going to be able to show my crew where we're at in the property. And I'll use my finger to point at specific items that are needed being addressed. That way they can actually know where they're at in the property, and they actually have some sort of frame of reference. That estimate video can be used by your office to create the estimate, and it can also be used by your crew leader or your crew project manager to be able to get the product done without you being back on site. Also, any details that you want your crew to know but you don't want to put in the estimate notes can also be recorded in the video. Something as simple as the customer's hard of hearing could be said to the crew inside the video so they know the those details when they come on site. These are the basics. But, like, as I was writing this, I was like, I wish I would have known these things back in the day. The biggest advantage of being in person on the customer's property Is the fact that I can see the property and I can actually sell them other services that we offer that they didn't actually ask for. These are called upsells, selling more services to the customer. And so whether I'm doing the estimate video or I'm walking the property with the customer, I'm constantly thinking about, oh, I could sell them this, I could sell them that. So even though they got me here for a bush trimming, I'm actually focusing on, do they actually need gutters cleaned out? And so the whole goal of doing an upsell is to improve the lifetime value of the customer. Not only do I actually make more money from them on an annual basis by selling them other services, like cleaning out the gutters, but also by solving more problems for the customer, I'm going to reduce the likelihood that they churn whether they leave, Because I'm constantly solving their problem. And better yet, I'm solving the problems they didn't even know they had because they might not have ever thought about the gutters. And now I've actually presented the problem and the solution. One really cool feature inside of copilot is the ability for your crew when they're on the customer's property, even after the estimate is accepted, to quickly be able to choose which other services the property needs. And then immediately a text or an email goes to the customer Asking them if they would like a free estimate for those services. So if they're mowing and they see stuff growing, falling out of the gutters, they could simply just, with a tap of a button from the mobile app, be able to get an upsell email or text message sent to the customer. That is how you improve the lifetime value of the customer, Solve more problems, and keep customers around much longer. All right, so the question is, do you sell to the customer now and actually try to get them a quote, or do you just send the video and the notes back to the office and they send the quote via email or text? Here's the thing. If you're trying to get out 15, 20 estimates a day, it's probably a lot faster just to take the video, take the notes, and send it to the office. But if you're only getting one or two estimates a day, it might Be worth the extra time, 20 or 30 minutes to actually prepare your notes, get the quote, and then go right back to the customer at their front door and actually sell them the job. So it's really a matter of, I know that my close ratio will probably be higher if I sell the job right now to the customer and get a yes or no. They don't have to go through the actual process like sending the quote, because like, I'll just get the yes and I'll put on the schedule. However, keep in mind that if I do that, they'll know that I made the prices in my truck and that they can haggle with me. So if you just really are not comfortable with like haggling on price or objections around price, etc. You might just want to prepare the notes, be more confident in your estimate so there's not a time rush of getting back to the customer as soon as possible because they have a deadline, they need to leave. Just take your time, make the video, take the notes, get your prices together, and send the quote that evening. But if you're trying to maximize your close ratio and close as many jobs as possible, have a Chromebook or have your iPad in your truck, put together the notes, put together the video, put together the pricing, and go right back and sell the job to the customer. I've seen some people actually have a mobile printer inside of their office truck so that they can actually print the estimate off, go back to the customer and give them the price proposal and close the job on the spot. The last thing I'd say about that is keep in mind, if I've already built the relationship with the customer and then I give them the pricing and guess who they're going to want to haggle with, ask questions to, et cetera, probably me. So sometimes I've seen when people sell in person, they become the bottleneck for the job. Instead of being able to hand it off to the office, the office will hand it off to the crew manager or to the team leader once the job is actually in progress. Because I've built so much of a rapport with the customer, they know I've done the pricing, they know I put together, put together everything. They might be kind of stuck on me as their only point of contact, which can be a hurdle down the road if you're trying to hand things off and, and scale the business. Do you struggle to get more leads and more customers to your home service business? Watch this video right here where I give a complete masterclass of exactly how to do it.