Tony Reyes said:
Who here has structured their business in such a way that you go out and look at the job first (or have someone else go) Do you find the extra time and gas to be worth the difference that you make in seeing the job first?
Ahh, Anthony. Good to see you posting here even though be warned- this can be a rough and tumble place. In your innocence you posted a question that is right up there with "should you pre-vacuum?" for it's "blood on the tracks" potential.
Oh, what the heck. I'll jump in first. And the answer is ...
IT ALL DEPENDS. On what, you say? I'm glad you asked.
1. How busy are you? If you are a one-man show and have all the work you will ever want why would you go begging for more? A related question would be, "How busy do you want to be?" as in do you want to grow beyond being an owner-operator? Even dyed-in-the-wool phone pricing people will admit they lose more jobs on the phone than if they go quote in person. (Well, most will ...)
2. What type of pricing model do you follow? Obviously it is going to be much more difficult to quote square foot pricing over the phone versus "room pricing".
3. How profitable is your pricing? If you are barely covering your cost of producing the job the budget may not all for a separate trip to pre-inspect.
4. How scattered are your jobs? There are practical limits on how far you can drive for a pre-inspection.
5. What does your market want? Some customer's lives are so hectic they don't want a separate pre-inspection.
After you have pondered these points, Tony, here is a page straight from your
SFS class workbook on some important advantages of making a
separate pre-inspection on most FIRST TIME clients. I believe you attended
SFS in 2007 so the pre-inspection section would have been on Wednesday afternoon in your class workbook. (You will see many other successful operators disagree with these conclusions and that is fine.)
1. More jobs booked - There can be little debate that you are going to have a
higher closing percentage in person versus the anonymity of the telephone.
2. Fewer misunderstanding- We won’t say that customers lie over the phone. So let’s just
say they may be “overly optimistic” in estimating room sizes and area layouts.
3. Higher initial job tickets - This one alone will probably justify the extra cost of many
pre-inspections. In the relaxed “consultant atmosphere” of a pre-inspection the inspector and
homeowner can discuss priorities and evaluate additional cleaning. This allows you to have …
4.More efficient job scheduling - Be honest here. How many times have you arrived at a
job that over the phone you thought would take two hours and it ran almost twice that long? So
what happened to your next customer waiting for your arrival? And a technician facing an already
overbooked day can hardly be expected to sell additional work, which leads us to …
5. Less hassle and stress for your techs- Lets cut to the chase. We’ve already
learned that most technicians are scared of the customer. And they certainly find it difficult to
“sell” to the homeowner. By pre-inspecting the job, you allow your employees to focus on what
they are good at- cleaning the carpet, which means …
6. Much faster production- If the job is pre-inspected, pre-priced and written up
ahead of time, your technicians can “hit the ground running”. Good for them and good for the
customer. On the other hand, we recognize that not every job can or even should pre-inspected …
7. $35,840.00- If the above points don’t convince you to pre-inspect most
jobs, then just consider it as an investment toward future Cheerleader referrals from the person on
the phone which as we have already proved can easily meet the $35,840.00 amount. Always remember, if you don’t book the job, you will never Make the Cheerleader!
Remember, Tony, the above points don't mean you are going to make a separate trip to pre-inspect all your jobs. We "sorted" ours by pre-qualifying over the phone. The secret is to qualify your prospects during the initial call by
using your phone format to interview the caller. Jobs that I did not pre-inspect include:
a.
Previous clients
b. Urgent jobs
c. Small jobs
d. Most rental move-outs
e. Work located far away
After a few years I found we only pre-inspected 20 to 25% of our jobs due to repeat business, etc and for me the investment was well worth it. Plus if you are a new business what else do you have to do? Sit and wait for the phone to ring?
But as I said reasonable people can agree to disagree and there are some very successful companies that would not go pre-inspect Bill Gate's mansion. It is over the phone or the highway!
Steve Toburen
http://www.SFS.JonDon.com
PS One important point, Tony. All first time clients require a "pre-inspection" if only for pricing purposes. The only thing this thread will be bickering about is "WHEN" you perform it- in a separate visit OR right before you unroll the hoses. Either way, you better be darn sure your pre-inspect in such a way that you get the job! Here is the script I developed, tweaked and followed for over 20 years. (I closed well over 95% of the "estimates" I went out on.)
http://sfs.jondon.com/1829/resources/sp ... -that-sell
At the end of the day, Tony, I would recommend what a very successful business man told me years ago when I was indecisive on a certain business tactic. He said, "Steve, try it for a week." Well, duh! So you can debate something endlessly on internet discussion forums OR you can go out and test it for yourself in your area. Sounds smart to me!
