The Distress of Success
Numbers can be tricky and you can appear to suffer from success. The new, educated consumer and the popularity of design shows has proved to be “bittersweet,” says Mark Richardson.
Homeowners are more aware yet more confused because of the number of choices they have. This, Richardson believes, has led to a lot of phone calls but not as many jobs. “Our lead flow has gone up, but our close rates have gone down,” he says.
Others agreed that their close rates had gone down in the past few years. Yet Ken Klein says his close rate has gone up “because our whole marketing effort is geared to reducing the number of calls” by focusing on trying to increase the quality of the calls. “The people we call, we want to have already made a judgment decision that we’re the people they want to use.”
The roundtable participants are probably closing on the same number of jobs — maybe even a few more, historically — but because they’re receiving more inquiries, the close rate, which is a percentage, has dropped. Klein, by filtering his prospects, is increasing his odds of a higher percentage closing.