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In the “fly by night” discussion, the issue of closing ratios came up. I’m just curious how many leads everybody is able to turn into sales. Now, I’m not talking about repeat or referrals. I’m talking about leads that found you in the phone book, saw your site sign, or found you some other way.
I don’t see everybody that calls me…I try to ballpark on the phone and that scares some of the tire kickers away. Of the ones that get past that first call, I close somewhere between 20-25%.
How am I doing? Do you think this is too many closes or too few?
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Good topic Ryan,I hope others will comment on it.
I do pretty well in certain categories like small roof repairs,chimney re-flashing,smaller seamless rubber roofs etc.I am able to scoop up maybe 2/3 of these cause the bigger outfits don't generally want to commit to a small job. These are usually very profitable to me and are actually my work of choice(low pressure,low risk,high profit margin,excellent cash flow,excellent source of referalls)
Whole house re-roofs,especially tear-offs which will require a full crew have a much lower closing rate. maybe 1/3 to 1/5. sometimes even lower.Keep in mind that to a certain extent I have to "churn".If I roof your house today you probably won't need another roof for a long,long time. You may refer me to a friend,neighbor or co-worker,but I probably won't be back to your house for a long while. Compare this to the repeat sales possible with remodeling someones bathroom this year,their kitchen next year, and maybe an addition 5 years from now.
*I close about 70 % of my calls but my operation is small & I mostly work on referall. The 30 % of my business that is not referall is from a small regional retaill chain that offers everything from groceries to building materials. This is where the majority of my non closes are. I put up with the headaches because the stores location draws good cusstomers. they also don't care if I sell other work with out them being involved although they would prefer I get the materials there. If you count the total # of calls I get, the closong rate would be lower. I try hard to weed out the jobs I don't want or need before going to see it.
*I think I get about 1/2 the jobs I really try to land. The past couple years have mainly been taken up with 2 long jobs and I have a house we own to remodel when I get free, so I turn down almost everything right now. Yeah, I'd say about 1/2. But the ones I don't get, I think folks get sticker shock when they find out what things cost. I very seldom find myself in a competetive bidding situation. Great topic though. - jb