Converting more
 
estimates into orders


Although print

companies create plenty

of estimates, not all of

them lead to profits.

Nick Devine, publisher of The Print Coach, reveals how you turn more

of these prospects into orders without sacrificing margins


If you want to make more profits, one of the fastest ways to do so is convert more estimates into orders. When you have a proven process for doing this, you end up with more profits—and you can use these to invest in and grow your company.

Companies who have mastered this skill have gone on to become profit leaders. They get and keep better quality clients who repeat purchase from them, while companies that are not good at this end up competing on price for a lot of their jobs instead—competition steals business that should have been theirs.

Industry research suggests the average estimate to order conversion ratio is 25 percent, also revealing the average order is in the £6,500 range. Think about these numbers and look at this calculation:

100 estimates at £6,500 each
 = £650,000 x 25 percent conversion rate
 = £162,500

Now image what would happen if you worked on your conversion skills and got it up to 35 percent. 

100 estimates at £6,500 each
 = £650,000 x 35 percent conversion rate
 = £227,500.

That gives you an additional £65,000 in incremental revenue, with no additional sales effort or  estimates. You have leveraged work you were already doing to get more sales and more profits. 


Conversion tactics

Here are four conversion tactics to help grow profits.

1 – Filter your follow-up

Not all prospects are created equal—some are more equal than others. Those are the top 20 percent that hold the keys to 80 percent of the revenue and profits in business. Not all estimates are equal either; we need to find the 20 percent that hold the keys to 80 percent of the additional money that we are after. So ask youself; is the client in the top 20 percent, is the estimate in the top 20 percent in terms of your job size range, how time sensitive is it?

Ask your team to filter out estimates that meet these criteria and deal with them as the priority. Mandate that those estimates must be followed up. Do this for one week and note the results.

2 – Fast follow-up

Follow up estimates that meet the criteria above within 48 hours. Research shows the likelihood of you winning business is at its highest in that timeline, while the odds of winning the job decrease after 48 hours. You are demonstrating to customers you are a professional firm when you follow-up this way.

3 – Quote where you can win

Just because you can give an estimate does not mean you should.  I was recently with some of my partners in another business where I’m a shareholder. We were looking at estimate conversion rates and I discovered they were doing large numbers of estimates for a well-known company but not converting any of them.
 
I suggested the next time they were asked to quote that they decline. If asked why—which they were—they explain they would love to, but based on previous experience, they would not win. So they would like to decline, unless the prospect could explain they had a reasonable chance of winning business—the prospect then proceeded to do just that. Within a month, we had nearly £30,000 in new revenue. 

Identify companies where you are doing excessive estimates but converting very few, offer them the opportunity of doing business or wasting your competitors’ time. You are in business to produce a profit, not to do large numbers of estimates.

4 – Use phrases that sell

The most common follow up system used by printers sounds like this:

N: Hi John, It’s Nick. I wanted to check if you got that estimate I sent through?
J: Yes, I got it.
N: Great, how did the price look?

Every time a salesperson does this, they teach the prospect to focus on price—as a profit leader, you want to do something different so here are some phrases that are more effective:

In your opinion, is this something that makes sense for your company? Why or why not?

How close to the mark are we in terms of giving you everything you need and what else do you need to know before we start work?

Would you mind telling me what else we could do to provide you with the ideal solution? Is there anything we need to modify?

If we could meet your delivery schedule, is there anything else you would need to know before you decide to go ahead?

Request your team use phrases such as this as part of the follow up process.  Keep a close eye on what is happening, because habits are difficult to break for all of us.