Sending A Bid In The Mail?

I love marketing and ingest as much information on the subject as possible but I also have a background in sales.   Sometimes things that small business owners do baffle me when it come to their sales techniques.

My wife wanted to get some bids to have some landscaping done in our backyard. The first guy that came out had some very good ideas and she was anxious to get the bid from him.

So yesterday we receive his bid in the mail. My wife opened it looked right for the bid amount and said “holy crap, we can’t afford that” and put it away.

I’m sorry but I would never send a bid for $6500 in the mail. That’s just too much money to let someone look at without any discussion in my book. Personally I would have called up the customer and let them know I had their bid ready for them and asked for an appointment.  That way I would be able to handle any objections and let the customer know why this is going to be a good investment.  Also I would have to assume the customer was getting bids from my competitors and would want to highlight why they should choose to do business with me.

The other thing that baffled me about this landscaper is he never asked my wife what her budget was.  I mean come on that’s basic stuff.   That would be one of the very first things I would want to find out.  If a customer wants some big elaborate landscaping job but only has $500 to spend, you need to set their expectations right from the very beginning.  Instead this guy who came to my house spent all that time working up that bid with a drawing and everything and it probably won’t happen.  What a waist of time.

People, qualify your customers before you spend time giving them free estimates or anything else.  Make sure they can afford your products or services.  Make sure that your products or services fit their needs.  Everybody wins in the long run.