Sales & quoting

Quoting, follow-up, pipeline that runs, so your salespeople only do what people are best at.

Quote speed decides more deals than quote quality does. The research on this is unusually consistent: 78 per cent of customers buy from the business that responds first — not the best one, not the cheapest one, the first one. Lead the response within a minute and conversion runs about 391 per cent higher. Wait five minutes and your odds of even qualifying the lead drop by 80 per cent.

Most small businesses are nowhere near that. The average B2B response time is over 42 hours. In trades, a written quote traditionally takes two to four hours of someone’s time and converts at 30 to 40 per cent. Australian plumbing, electrical and HVAC businesses that moved quoting onto a system with the price book built in report standard jobs quoted in 10 to 15 minutes and conversion between 60 and 70 per cent.

The point is not to rush your people. It is to separate the part that follows a pattern from the part that needs a person. A first draft can be built from your own rates, your own templates and your own rules in minutes. The call on price, scope and whether the customer is right stays with you.

Below: how the quoting bottleneck actually forms, what a same-day quote is worth, and the standard that lets you check a quote before it goes out the door.

Start here

Time how long a standard quote takes today, end to end, then write down your pricing rules in the order you apply them.

// Notes in this topic

5 min read

Quoting without the bottleneck

In most small businesses, the quote is the moment the customer is won or lost — and the moment the owner becomes the bottleneck.

6 min read

Speed to lead: the five minutes that decide most deals

The research on response time is unusually blunt. The business that replies first wins most of the time, and most businesses take days to reply.