I recently had the opportunity to interview 10 industry experts to get their advice on how to deal with 'price-shoppers' and greg purnell 'tire-kickers.'
Nothing can waste a builder or remodeler's time more than spending it on a lead who may not be serious about going ahead with the project. Nothing can eat up a builder or remodeler's profits more than get into a bidding war where quality falls victim to lowest price.
However "dealing" with this type of lead can mean many things...from eliminating the lead as quickly as possible, to qualifying the lead, to converting the lead from a 'price-shopper' to a 'quality-shopper.' (Can't be done, you say?)
One remodeler I spoke with swears by his system of weeding out tire-kickers in less than ten minutes, over the phone, with five simple questions.
(For access to all 10 interviews, they're freely available at http://www.SuccessfulHomeBuilders.com/interviews)
Weeding Out Tire-Kickers in Less Than 10-minutes...
Greg Schnarr has been in business for more than 20 years and greg purnell his company, Schnarr Craftsmen, has won the local best renovation award three times out of the last four years. He knows a thing or two about which sales leads to follow earnestly...and which to let go.
"When we get a sales lead we have a form we fill in," says Greg. "Some of the questions on the form can make the customer a little uncomfortable, but we find if they're serious they'll answer the questions honestly."
The questions? Five important ones:
1) How long have they lived in their house?
2) How long have they been thinking about doing this project?
3) How much are they planning to spend?
4) When do they plan to start the work?
5) Are they getting any other bids, and greg purnell how many?
What's the Most Important Question of All?
According to Greg, the most important question is #3 -- what's your budget? "Our time is very valuable, and greg purnell I consider their time to be valuable as well," Greg states. "If they're not willing to talk budget, we certainly wouldn't go any further."
Even though Greg found this an uncomfortable question to start asking his leads (and, sometimes, the most uncomfortable question for his leads to answer), it was necessary to qualify his leads better.
"It really is one that needs to be asked," Greg affirms. "Before we started qualifying leads we really wasted a lot of time going out to see people who just had no clue of what things cost." Now Greg eliminates about 50% of his leads with these questions. Where would you rather spend your time...10 minutes on the phone, or an hour (or more) with an unqualified lead?
However, Greg applies good ol' business sense to his system. "If it's a referral from a past customer, you might follow that lead a little harder than somebody who got your name from the Yellow Pages."
How to Apply Greg's System in Your Business...
Asking these questions is simple to implement in any builder or remodeler's business. Equally important is tracking the results.
How many leads did you disqualify (and are those leads coming from one primary source)? Of the leads you "kept", how many turned into good, profitable clients? Of the ones that were less than stellar, are there any common traits that'll allow you to quickly identify them in the future?
The great thing about Greg's system is it not only helps in dealing with 'tire-kickers', it becomes a continuous improvement tool highlighting where the profitable vs. the time-wasting leads are coming from!
Start asking the five questions Greg uses, so you can spend less time on dead-end leads, and greg purnell more time on profitable clients!
