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Three steps, three places to leak
Your quote funnel has three steps: an inquiry comes in, a quote goes out, a job gets booked. Every business leaks at every step — the goal isn’t zero leaks, it’s knowing which leak is biggest so you fix that one first. Let’s run an example with round numbers so you can see the method, then you can drop in your own.
The example (illustrative numbers, not a claim)
Say a solo operator gets 40 inquiries in a month. Of those, 30 become quotes — ten people never got a real response, got one too slowly, or were asked for details by text until they drifted off. Of the 30 quotes, 12 book. So the funnel reads: 40 → 30 → 12. The overall close is 12 out of 40, but that’s not the useful number. The useful numbers are the two conversion points: 75% from inquiry to quote, and 40% from quote to booked job.
Leak 1 — Inquiry to quote (the response leak)
In the example, ten inquiries died before a quote existed. This leak is almost always about speed and friction: no form capturing details up front, no automatic confirmation, replies sent hours later from a truck. This is the leak a proper quote-request form plus an instant confirmation email fixes — the cheapest leak to plug, and the one worth plugging first whenever your inquiry-to-quote rate sags.
Leak 2 — Quote to booked (the follow-up leak)
Eighteen quotes in the example never booked. Some were never going to — budgets, tire-kickers, a cousin who “does it cheaper.” But a share of them simply went cold in silence. This is the follow-up leak: no check-in, no value-add, no deadline, no breakup email. A five-email sequence running automatically is how a one-person business follows up like a company with a sales rep.
Run your own numbers
- Count last month’s inquiries — every form, message, and call you can find
- Count how many got an actual written quote
- Count how many booked
- Whichever step lost the bigger share is your next project — only that one
Small improvements at the worst leak beat overhauls everywhere. If inquiry-to-quote is the hole, build the form-and-confirmation step. If quote-to-booked is the hole, build the follow-up sequence. One fix, one month, measure again.
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