No matter the industry, when it comes to sales, speed is of the essence.
While contractors may know this truth in theory, sometimes there’s a disconnect between theory and practice.
Nowhere is this disconnect more potentially dangerous than during that perilous phase between the moment the customer has approved a quote and when they’ve actually signed the contract.
During this period, any delay increases the risk that you could lose your client to a competitor. Then all your efforts to this point go unrewarded.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution. Streamlining the sales process to convert quotes to contracts quickly allows you to secure jobs faster, scale your business, and continually make more money.
The Risk of Delays in Contract Conversion
Given today’s digital landscape, people have come to expect almost instant responses. This is true both interpersonally and commercially.
With cell phones and the internet powering the expectation of 24/7 availability, any sort of wait time has come to feel, for many, like an interminable lag:
Simply, there are more ways to get in touch with people than ever, and the pressure to respond has become increasingly normalised, since those platforms of communication are tucked in our pockets, wherever we go. We seemingly always can reply, so we ‘should’.
Right or wrong, this dynamic is very real—and it has definitely impacted our approach to sales.
These days, sales leads can go cold in as few as fifteen minutes.
With numbers like that a cold, hard reality, is it any wonder that a delay in contract approval increases the risk of losing the job?
When time elapses between quote approval and the signing of the contract, customers might:
- Become distracted, lose momentum, and ghost
- Get cold feet and rethink their enthusiasm for the project
- Receive pending quotes from other companies that seem more favorable
- Lose confidence in you as a company
- Actively seek alternative options
Any of these situations could cause you to lose the sale.
That is why it’s vital to have a streamlined sales system in place, one that keeps customers engaged and builds momentum, increasing the chances that you will close the deal.
While establishing such a system may sound like a lot of work, it is well worth the effort.
A streamlined sales process leads to major long term benefits.
Benefit 1: Closing Deals Faster
Instant contract conversion after quote approval eliminates unnecessary lag times, securing the client’s commitment quickly and allowing you to move forward.
Closing deals quickly can have several benefits for your business, including:
- Steady cash flow. The numbers are clear. The more quickly you can close a deal, the more quickly you will receive the initial payments. Do this repeatedly, and you will enjoy stronger cash flow all year long. When cash is flowing early and often, you’re not sitting around waiting on payments in order to take the next steps in your projects and keep building your business.
- Potential to scale more quickly. A fast, tight sales cycle means you can manage more deals in the same amount of time. Increased efficiency leads naturally to an increased client base, allowing you to scale your construction or renovation business more quickly.
- Competitive advantage. As we mentioned above, responding to a client’s approved quote with an instant contract closes the gap on competitors who may wish to swoop in and woo your client away. However, responding with speed gives you a natural advantage in a competitive market.
If the idea of instant contracts stresses you out, take heart.
With Hearth’s premium contractor bidding software doing the heavy lifting on your behalf, you can easily automate this process:
- Send the quote directly from our mobile app
- See when the customer has viewed the quote and track their progress through the entire sales cycle
- Rely on automated customer reminders to keep the quote at the top of your customer’s mental queue
- Be alerted when they have sent through their easy digital approval
- Close the deal by instantly sending the contract the the click of a button
Once the contract is signed, you can even set up a system to auto-send the first invoice—complete with built-in financing options to prevent slowdowns and increase consistent cash flow.
Simply put, with automated tools working on your behalf, you can close deals faster.
That’s why most people believe that when it comes to keeping up with the fast-paced sales environment, automations are no longer a luxury.
They’re essentially a must-have.
Why?
Automated tools drive business growth and efficiency:
- 90% of workers say automation solutions increase their overall productivity
- 90% say they trust automations to get more done without errors and help them make decisions faster
- 85% said automations boost collaboration among their teams
And the resulting speed?
That’s what contractors can leverage to instantly convert quotes to contracts, close jobs faster, and secure more deals.
Benefit 2: Enhancing Client Trust and Experience
Few experiences are more demoralizing than showing up on time and being told to wait.
Anyone who has ever rushed to be on time for a doctor’s appointment and then waited thirty minutes to be taken back to an exam room can attest to this.
There is an inherent frustration in following through but feeling that the other side is not holding up their end.
As contractors, we must take every step possible to ensure that we don’t trigger this frustration in our customers. No matter how busy we are, we can’t communicate that we’re too busy for them.
That’s why quick contract conversion is so important. It demonstrates competence, signals professionalism, and subtly builds client trust in our ability to follow through.
When customers respond to a quote, they’re initiating a willingness to partner with you on their project. By responding instantly, you signal that you’re ready and willing to get started.
Long before it’s time to physically show up at their doorstep and start the work, you can show up consistently in their inboxes, giving them exactly what they asked for—perhaps even sooner than they were expecting.
Not only will this build trust, but it will also lead to a smoother overall experience.
Seamless transitions between quotes and contracts should have the same effect as getting onto a well-maintained waterslide.
Once you have pushed off from the top, the momentum and the thrill of the ride will carry you all the way through to the end.
Benefit 3: Reducing Administrative Work
Perhaps best of all, automating the quote-to-contract process cuts down on paperwork and reduces administrative burdens back in the office.
These days, automation tools are being used across industries to cut down on administrative busy work while cutting costs in the process.
Automated systems handle repetitive tasks more efficiently than humans, which reduces the need for additional hires and frees up existing staff to focus on more critical duties.
Whether you’re a one-man renovation operation or a large-scale construction business juggling many different teams and projects, leveraging the power of automations to reduce your administrative burden while freeing everyone involved to focus all their time and energies on the aspects of the work that absolutely require a human touch.
Automation can’t complete a bathroom remodel, install a brick fireplace, stain flights of wooden steps, or lay new carpeting in a freshly painted dining room.
But it can free you to do those things for your customers.
And that’s the real gift.
Fortunately, these automation tools are not something you have to build yourself from the ground up.
Instead, you can rely on systems like ours here at Hearth—systems that have already been fully optimized to enable contractors and business owners in construction, renovation, or home improvement to streamline their sales process, move seamlessly from quote to contract, and secure jobs faster than their competitors.
Turn Leads Into Customers Faster With Hearth
Unless you are mindful of the speed at which you move your customers from quote to contract, you could be losing opportunities due to slow response times.
However, accessing pre-existing tools to increase your speed in converting quotes to contracts can prevent many of these lost opportunities while simultaneously maximizing your operational efficiency.
There has never been a better time to streamline your sales process by leveraging the latest developments in automation to increase your quote-to-contract conversions.
And Hearth is here to help. Book a demo today to see how our tools can improve your day-to-day operations.
