I’ve done several thousand estimates in my career. Unfortunately, I spent my fair share of time going out to doing a bid for someone who had water damage, hail damage or some other kind of issue only to find later they were just getting estimates from contractors and then never doing the job.
Occasionally, they’d hire the cheap dude and pocket the difference.
We were a higher end contractor. Meaning, we weren’t cheap. Never tried to be cheap and as a result….
Drum roll….
I never once sold an insurance job.
Hundreds of estimates over many years and I never landed one of them.
It’s been many years since I’ve had to run out on a bid, but I want to share a simple way to protect your time. This is what we now teach in the Contractor Sales Academy. Dozens of our members use this strategy whenever insurance is involved and have a ton of success.
A quick side note: If your main gig is insurance work and you have you mojo going and know how to work the system this doesn’t apply to you. This is for the contractor who spends most of his time working in the higher end residential market that is not based in insurance work.
Use Your Phone
Here’s the strategy. It’s simple.
They tell you they want a bid. You ask some questions on the phone and find out they are getting quotes to then submit to their insurance company. Here’s what you say…
“I’m sorry you had this issue. We’d love to help you get your home back in order. We do charge a $500 consultation fee for all insurance projects. It applies toward the job when you hire us.”
End of story.
They will most likely tell you that you’re high and hang up on you.
And, that’s better than the 4 hours of your life you will waste playing their game.
There’s a little more to the conversation that I might share in a future post, but this ought to weed out the bullshit pretty quick. The 1 or 2 people that are a good fit for you will work with you on it.
