The first contact
They are getting a few quotes. That is not an objection.
The short answer
It is not a price threat. It means they cannot tell three tradesmen apart. Ask what made them call you, and what they are worried about — then write the quote so it answers that, by name.
You have measured up, you have had the cup of tea, you are halfway back to the van. And then it comes, usually apologetically: “we are getting a couple of other quotes as well, just so you know.”
Something drops. You spend the drive home deciding what to knock off, or working out how to mention that the other firm subcontracts everything. Both of those instincts cost you the job.
What that sentence actually means
It is worth being precise about this, because everything else follows from it. They are not telling you your price is too high. They have not seen your price yet.
They are telling you they have no way to judge one tradesman against another. They cannot look at your van and know whether your posts go deeper than his. So they are doing the one thing anybody does when they cannot judge quality: they are collecting samples and hoping a difference shows up.
Read like that, it stops being a threat and becomes something much better — an opening. Whoever hands them a way to compare is the one whose way they will compare by, and the other two quotes get read looking for things that are not in them.
Search this and you will mostly find sales training: lists of objections, scripts, the three-outcomes routine where you walk them through what might happen if they call the other firm back. Those are written for somebody selling software to a purchasing department. On a doorstep they read as pressure, and pressure is precisely what the person is bracing for — it is why they mentioned the other quotes apologetically in the first place. There is nothing here to overcome. There is something to find out.
Two questions, before you write anything
Both of these are asked there and then, on the doorstep, while you are still packing up the tape. Neither of them is a sales line. They are the two things you need to know in order to write a quote that is about this person rather than about this job.
When there is no doorstep
Plenty of work no longer starts with a cup of tea. It starts with a form, or three photographs on WhatsApp and the words how much roughly? There is no pause to use, no tape to pack up, and whatever you type back is the whole conversation.
Answer that with a number and you have entered the price contest before it began — your figure now sits next to two others in a thread, with nothing attached to it. So do not send a number. Send the same two questions, in a form that reads as interest rather than interrogation.
That last rule is stricter here than it is on the telephone, and the difference is the channel rather than the principle. Spoken, a range can carry its condition with it — you say “somewhere between x and y depending on the ground”, you hear how they take it, and you can correct it in the same breath. Written down, the condition falls off. Six weeks later what exists is a message from you with a number in it, and it is the lower one. Say a range if you must; do not type one.
That message does a second job you did not pay for. Somebody who answers two friendly questions is in a conversation with you. Somebody who reads it and never replies was collecting numbers, and you have just found that out for the price of four sentences instead of an evening.
The first question tells you what you already have
Most tradesmen never ask it, and it is free information. Somebody who called you because a neighbor recommended you is not in the same conversation as somebody who called the first three results on a map. The first is already most of the way to yes and needs you to not lose it. The second has never heard of you.
It also tells you what is working. Three people in a row saying they saw a job you did on a particular street is worth more than any report a marketing company will send you.
The second question is the one that wins it
People do not choose the cheapest quote. They choose the one that makes the worry stop. The trouble is that the worry is almost never mentioned unless you ask, because saying it out loud feels like accusing you of something.
| What they say when you ask | What is underneath it | The line that goes in the quote |
|---|---|---|
| “The last lot left it in a state.” | They are not worried about the fence. They are worried about the two weeks it takes. | What the site looks like at the end of each day, and what leaves with you. |
| “How long will the garden be unusable?” | Somebody at home needs the space — a dog, a child, a washing line. | Two dates, and which part is fenced off on which days. |
| “We had a quote before that went up halfway through.” | They have been stung by a variation and are braced for another. | What happens if something turns up underground: who decides, at what price, before you carry on. |
| “Nothing really, we just want it done properly.” | Either genuinely relaxed, or not the person who decides. | Ask for the date. If there is no date, there is usually no decision yet either. |
Never run the other two down
It is tempting and it always backfires. The moment you say anything about the other firms, two things happen at once. You sound worried, which is the opposite of the impression you need. And you have taught them that tradesmen say things about each other, so nothing any of you says can be trusted.
There is a version that does work, and it is neutral: name what differs, without naming who. “Some quotes will have the old footings left in — mine takes them out, that is why the number looks like that.” That is a fact about your quote. They can go and check the other two, and now they know what to look at.
What quoting actually costs you
Here is the part that changes behavior, because almost nobody has worked it out. Assume a quote costs you an hour and a half all in — the drive, the measure, the conversation, and the evening spent writing it up. Put your own figure in; the shape is the same.
| If you win | Jobs from 12 quotes | Hours spent quoting | Hours per job won |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 in 5 | 2.4 | 18 | 7.5 |
| 1 in 3 | 4 | 18 | 4.5 |
| 1 in 2 | 6 | 18 | 3 |
Eighteen hours a month is more than two working days spent writing quotes. At one in five, four of every five of those hours produce nothing. That is not an argument for quoting less — it is an argument for spending ten minutes asking two questions before you spend ninety writing.
Some jobs are worth saying no to
If they will not name a date, will not name a worry, and the person you are talking to keeps saying they will have to check with someone, you are not quoting a job. You are quoting an idea somebody is having.
You are allowed to say so, kindly. “Happy to price it properly once you know roughly when you want it done — give me a call and I will get it over the same evening.” You have lost nothing, you have kept the evening, and you have come across as somebody with work on, which is its own kind of recommendation.
The short version
- “I am getting a few quotes” means they cannot tell you apart, not that you are expensive.
- Ask what made them call you. Put the answer at the top of the quote, in their words.
- Ask what they are worried about, then stop talking.
- Turn the worry into a line about what you will do.
- No date usually means no decision. Ask for it.
- Never mention the other firms. Name what differs instead.
- Ten minutes of questions is worth more than ninety of writing.
- No doorstep? Send the two questions, never a number.
None of this is about talking anybody into anything. It is about finding out what the job is actually about before you price it, so that the document you send back is the only one of the three that was written for them.