When I was qualifying leads I’d always get them to pay for a preliminary estimate, I’d go in at about $3,000. After all, you are providing cost consultancy on their project for them and you shouldn’t be doing it yourself – outsource it so you can focus your time on the projects you have under construction. At the end of the day, this is where you should be making your money – it’s your core business product.
The total you charge isn’t really that important, as long as you’re not working for free. The most important thing is that your client is happy to put their hand in their pocket for YOU, and not waste your time. If they’re not, they don’t value your time and are most certainly shopping around to several contractors.
It took me a few years to get this concept but after it had sunk in, gee-whiz I’d never go back to doing estimates for free, ever.
After the clients had engaged you for an estimate by making payment, I’d give them a ‘high cost’ and ‘low cost’ version of what could be included in their project. The clients usually appreciated this as it provided a range for them to consider.
I felt like it kind of disarmed them and gave them some time to ponder over what they’d like included in their job, as well as some control. This was all part of the process of building trust with the clients on the way to signing a building contract that was profitable.
After your clients have engaged in all this preliminary work with you, it’s highly unlikely that they will take their business somewhere else. It’s a big effort for someone to go through this with a builder, they won’t want to start the process again with someone else.
The most important aspect of the preliminary work is giving YOU the control over what you deliver on site, essentially including it in your contract.
Let me know if you reckon this could help building your pipeline of work with quality leads. I’ll send you a template that you can use to send to your enquiries.
Cheers.