You know the old saying, “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.”
If you’re still using pen (or pencil) and paper to produce estimates, you’re using the wrong weapons in the battle for more business.
From our experience in working with men and women in the construction trades, there appears to be three types of contractors in the world:
- Tech Savvy: Those that have every type of software, app and tech device imaginable to make their business run as smoothly and efficiently as possible
- Tech Reluctant: Those who rely on computers, smartphones and maybe even tablets for efficiency’s sake, but are still using Microsoft Office products like Word and Excel to manage their business
- Tech Challenged: Those old school contractors who only use tech kicking and screaming, and prefer to write…literally WRITE, estimates using pen and paper (or even a napkin if they happen to have one handy)
A recent report on construction software by Software Advice, a construction software review firm, shows that 52% of prospective buyers of software are using pen and paper to conduct estimating, takeoff, bid management and other processes. So you’re not alone if you fall into Category #3 above…but we’re here to give you a few reasons why it’s a bad category to be in (but you probably already knew that).
1) Negative first impression you may not recover from
How do you think a chicken-scratch, hand-written estimate looks next to a professional, computer or app-generated proposal, complete with photos and customization? Rest assured, if your potential customers see both side-by-side (and it’s likely they’re shopping around with your competitors), they will not be impressed. Why risk losing a job over the estimate itself? People DO judge a book by it’s cover. And in this case, your estimate is the cover, and may reflect that you’re not as professional as they want their contractor to be.
2) Losing estimates means losing time (and potential jobs)
If you’re carting around hand-written estimates, or if they’re among the stacks of paper on your desk, the chances for misplacing or losing them are greatly increased, versus having them stored in the cloud or on a computer, smartphone or tablet. You can’t afford to lose time searching for an estimate you’ve already written, or worse yet, having to re-do an estimate because you can’t find it. Estimating apps and software allow you to organize your quotes so they’re easy to find and send…every time.
3) Being behind-the-times will cost you money
No one wants to be seen as a dinosaur in their field, especially when you’re up against tech savvy contractors who are producing estimates on-the-spot (before you can even reach for your pen). You’re guaranteed to lose business to someone who can produce an estimate quickly and have the customer sign off right away (they don’t even have to use a pen anymore to sign on a tablet!). If you haven’t noticed this impacting your bottom line, it certainly will if you wait to implement estimating technology any longer.
These are just a few reasons you should consider transitioning to the “Tech Savvy Contractor” camp. If you need more convincing, check out an article from the January 2015 issue of Electrical Contractor magazine, “Put Down the Pencil” (with input from the JobFLEX team).
Don’t let a fear of tech be the reason your business fails.
Download the “Contractor’s Guide to Epic Failure: Tips and Techniques to Ensure Headaches, Heartburn and Having to Close up Shop” (and learn how to avoid all of it).
