How should a solo owner screen enquiries?

With three or four consistent questions asked before any detailed response, covering what the work is, where, when and roughly what budget, which establishes viability in a minute.

Is screening off putting?

Done well it is the opposite, since a few specific questions read as competence, and being told quickly that something is not a fit is better than a slow non answer.

What proportion of enquiries are not viable?

Frequently around half in service businesses, between the ones outside the area, the ones well below budget and the ones who were never going to proceed with anybody.

Screening Enquiries That Are Never Going To Convert

A solo owner answers every enquiry properly. It is a point of principle and it is costing him a day a week.

Of the enquiries he answered last month, several were outside his area entirely, several had a budget a fraction of the job, two were competitors, and three were people gathering quotations for an insurance claim with no intention of proceeding.

Each of those got a considered reply, a price and in two cases a site visit. None of them were ever going to become work, and all of them could have been identified in one exchange.

Step 1: decide what makes an enquiry viable

Area, budget range, type of work and timescale. Write the four thresholds down, because screening against unwritten criteria is just instinct.

Step 2: ask the same questions every time

Consistency is what makes screening quick and fair. Improvised questions produce different judgements about identical enquiries.

Step 3: ask about area first

The cheapest disqualifier and the one that removes the largest number of enquiries in a single question.

Step 4: ask about the work specifically

What it actually is, in enough detail to know whether it is the kind of job you do, since a category name covers a great deal.

Step 5: ask about budget as a range

Which is answered far more readily than a figure, and is the approach set out in qualifying by budget without being pushy.

Step 6: ask about timing

Somebody who needs it in three weeks and somebody thinking about next year need entirely different responses, and both deserve an accurate one.

Step 7: publish the thresholds

Area, minimum job size and what you do not do. This screens before anybody enquires, which is cheaper than screening afterwards.

Step 8: decline immediately and kindly

The same day, with a reason and a suggestion of who might help. A good decline generates referrals more reliably than most completed jobs.

Step 9: recognise the quote gathering pattern

Insurance claims, landlord comparisons and procurement exercises, where a quotation is needed and the work is going elsewhere.

Step 10: keep the screening short

Four questions is screening and twelve is a form nobody completes. The purpose is a viability check rather than a full brief.

Step 11: never screen out the small but real

Somebody with a small job today is frequently somebody with a large one next year, and a rude decline closes both.

Step 12: record what you declined and why

The pattern shows what the website is attracting wrongly, which is usually fixable with a paragraph.

Step 13: separate screening from pricing

Which is the conversation covered in pricing conversations you have fifty times a month.

Step 14: let the screening happen before you get involved

An assistant asking the four questions consistently, declining what falls outside the thresholds with a courteous explanation and passing on only the viable enquiries with the detail already gathered gives a solo owner back the day a week he currently spends on work that was never available. Set it up through install the widget and train your bot. The agency version sits in filtering agency enquiries that were never going to sign, and the cover question in taking a day off without losing every enquiry. The sector view sits under small business.