Selling Epoxies - Epoxy Contractors and Follow-up Calls

By Jack Josephsen

Ok, hands up. How many of you regularly go to the trouble of quoting with epoxies, but don't follow up?

Some would say, “I'm too busy”, while others push the old line, “I wait until they call so I know they’re serious.” From my experience, the most successful epoxy flooring businesses - and business people in general - are the ones that take the initiative and follow up after the quote has been submitted. The difference is that simple!

Selling epoxies - the power of the follow-up

Why is it so powerful? The epoxy contractors doing it will tell you a follow-up call, or courtesy call as I like to say, actually does a number of things:

• It tells you the client got the quote rather than simply assuming they did. A wrong assumption here can not only cost you the immediate epoxy project, it can potentially damage your reputation if the client thinks you didn’t bother to respond.
  
  
• It shows the client you’re willing to go above and beyond standard levels of service.
  
  
• It gives you the chance to address any information you might’ve missed or left out by accident, thus avoiding being overlooked because of an incomplete quote.
  
  
• It gives you a second chance. You can explain what you’re doing again and why you priced it the way you did. You can even discover what the opposition are offering and modify accordingly.
  
  
• It keeps you in touch with the epoxy project. If the client is just getting prices at this point, you can get a better idea of their timeline and get back in front of them closer to the start date.
  
  

Selling epoxies - you owe it to yourself!

With all the benefits of a post-quote follow-up call in mind, the point is that you really owe it to yourself to start making them. Think about it for a second. Think about all the time and effort that goes into a quoting an epoxy project in the first place. You go out to site and take a look; you might talk to a manufacturer or two and nut out a solution; you work through all the materials and costs; you stew about logistics and how it’s all going to fit into your schedule. At the end of the day, quoting with epoxies is a big exercise and deserves every chance of success. A follow-up call is a quick and easy way to give those chances a huge boost!

I’m such a big fan of these phone calls that I schedule in another even if I don’t win the work. Calling up when your quote wasn’t successful is a tremendous learning experience because you can find out why and improve your chances for next time. In addition to that, if something goes wrong with the original epoxy contractor then you’ll be the next in line.

Selling epoxies - but I really am too busy

OK, so what if you are genuinely too busy to make these calls? What if you already win enough work and don’t need to bother with this extra hassle? Well, I think the follow-up call can still play an important role by improving the jobs you win. Think of it this way: rather than win all sorts of bits and pieces that come your way, wouldn’t it be better if you targeted the epoxy projects you actually wanted to be involved in? The follow-up call in this situation can help busy epoxy contractors buried in troublesome, unrewarding projects to drag themselves away and start chasing better opportunities.

As a final thought on this topic, I think it helps to put yourself in the shoes of the customer and consider how you like to be treated when receiving a quote. If you’re anything like me you like punctual, courteous, professional responses. In fact, if I get good service from a company in this regard then I’m often happy to pay more because they’re trying harder to win my work and they’ll try harder to satisfy me on the job too. Why would it be any different when it comes to epoxy contractors and epoxy projects?

How you can take action...

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