Make your tradesman’s quotes work harder: create a pricelist

Let’s face it if there’s a way to make your quotes easier, you should take advantage!

No one wants to sit around spending more time on their quotes than they have to – so how can you cut time, but still make sure your quotes are top notch?

Create a price list

If you’re carrying out similar work on a regular basis and use the same products for most of your work then creating a price list will help you:

1. Save time on quoting. Reduce the amount of time you spend on the creation of your quotes by re-using your regular items.
2. Save energy worrying about getting quotes sent. By re-using items for your quotes, you’re able to get quotes sent to your customers before any of you competitors. Two big bonus points!

What if all my work is completely bespoke?

If you don’t carry out similar work across your jobs, then a price list could be of even more help to you! By thinking about what elements of jobs you regularly quote or complete, you should start seeing patterns and recurring activity.

Perhaps most jobs require that you complete some plastering or painting to make good? Most electrical work would need to be tested before the job is done. If you need a skip and/or waste disposal unit these usually come at a set price. Or even if you use a roster of labourers. All of these can easily be created into ‘price lists’

If you can identify just a few of those regular items – and note them down with descriptions and ball-park prices, you’ll save yourself having to think about them for each and every job. You’ll just be able to re-use and include them for those jobs that need them.

The more regular items you find in your work load, the quicker future quotes will become.

How should I go about creating a list?

• Look at what’s most popular with your customers
• Keep a list of items in an easy to access place (one where you can preferably copy and paste)
• Regularly check your prices to ensure you’re offering the best deal
• Consider putting together ‘bundles’ for your customers to make your pricing easier
• Look back over past quotes to get your pricing right
• If you don’t offer ‘national’ fixed prices then work out fuel/travel costs on a per mile basis. This will allow a quick calculation to determine your expense on getting to site which can be included into your quoted figure.
• Work out product cost and what mark up or margins you’ll be happy to make. Establishing a standard margin will allow you to quickly work out your sale price quickly and easily (Emma – not sure if this is for another post in the future but it does have weight when working out price lists in my opinion?)

Build as you go! It could prove a huge overhead to sit down and work out a price for every possible aspect of your trade, even if you do carry out similar work on a daily basis. Every time you write up a new quotation it is worth an extra couple of minutes saving it t your PC for future use.

And you know the cherry on top? YourTradebase can even help you create a list with its own ‘personal price list’ feature. Want to know more? Take a read here.