Looking to convert more leads into customers for your construction or remodeling business? While the concept is easy to understand, it can be difficult to execute successfully. As a general contractor or remodeler, you’re likely competing with at least one other firm every time you submit a proposal or put in a bid. And the costs of not being able to convert a lead into a client are twofold: 1) You’ve lost the revenue from the project, and 2) you’ve lost time and effort creating and submitting the bid. So how can you score points with a client and gain the advantage that wins you the project? These five tips can help put the ball in your court.

1. Design to Impress

It’s not always enough to be the best-qualified person for the job; you have to present your plans in a top-notch way. That means you want every client-facing plan, from your initial proposal (if you’re a designer) or bid (if you’re a general contractor) to your floor plans and any other schematics, to be as professional-looking as possible. Typing in a proposal or bid in the body of an email, for instance, won’t cut it! Your proposal should at a minimum include cost estimates for materials, labor, taxes and overhead—but every firm competing for the job will be offering that as well. To take your proposal to the next level and truly impress potential clients, make your proposal a professionally branded and beautiful document, with actual product images and clearly presented information that can be digested at a glance.

Tip: Houzz Pro software lets you clip and save images and product details from any website, which you can then easily drop into your proposals. 

Also, whether you’re an interior designer or a general contractor, let the client know about the added value in your presentations to come. Being able to share that you offer designs online and can even take them through a life-size walk-through of the floor plan in 3D at no extra cost, will give you a strategic advantage over competitors who don’t offer these things — or who charge extra for them.

“The 3D tool helps us to win jobs, because [prospective clients] can see what they’re going to be paying for, and it helps them move forward with their projects and spend money on upgrades,” says Lindsay Floyd of remodeling company Kimber Homes in Oklahoma.

For designers, presenting clients with online Mood Boards offers added value, because it helps them easily visualize your designs. Using Mood Boards “has helped cement our clients’ trust in our skills and design knowledge,” says designer Jennifer Messina of Dreamlife Design.

2. Tout Convenience

Convenience is a huge selling point, so the more online options you can offer potential clients, the better. Being cloud-based, Houzz Pro lets you offer online approvals of estimates, proposals and designs — along with contracts and even invoices. It “makes contract signing and approvals very easy,” says Blake Eastwood, CEO of remodeling firm Entire Home in Canada.

There are other ways to provide convenience as well. For designers, Houzz Pro’s Room Planner lets clients see in one place all of the products and services for each room being built or remodeled, and how adding or subtracting products and services affects the overall budget. Clients (and you and your team) even can leave comments for products individually.

For your own convenience, using Houzz Pro’s customer relationship management tool (CRM) means you'll never misplace prospective client info again. You can access your leads from your office or on the go on your phone, which means you’ll be more organized and able to follow up with your leads more quickly and conveniently. Especially with more competitive bids, the professional who responds most quickly is often the one who wins the project!

3. Talk Up Speed and Accuracy

In this era of same-day deliveries and all kinds of instant gratification, clients expect speedy turnarounds and responses at every stage of a project. If it takes you two or three days to respond to an inquiry or submit a proposal or bid, you might lose a project even if your business is the best qualified for the job. The way to stand out is to show leads how you can respond quickly without sacrificing accuracy. And the key here again is software. For GCs, Houzz Pro’s takeoffs tool is the first step, as it lets you quickly and accurately measure and mark up your plans right onscreen.

“Houzz Pro Takeoffs cut my time spent estimating in half,” says Kory Robison of Robison Home Builders. “It gives me more time to run my business and be with my family.” 

“I really love that tool when it comes down to estimating the plans,” says Diego Meyer of G. Meyer Construction in Florida. “I’m able to get everything [done] extremely accurately and quicker.”

You can then easily turn those takeoffs into estimates, and with a click turn estimates into proposals, meaning there will be no lag time — and much less chance for human error. Plus, the Estimate Builder comes pre-populated with a database of materials and services with local costs, saving even more time. The software “cuts my research time down a whole lot,” says professional estimator Julie Bowman. 

“I drop the template in, make a couple edits to it, and have an estimate out to a client in 10 minutes,” says Taghi Shaw of Waze Construction in Massachusetts. “I’ve had clients send us measurements that they took — rough measurements — and expect an estimate. Being able to plug that information into our templates really makes things easy for us. I've been able to secure bids just on that fact.”

And the accuracy extends to every part of a project, whether you’re a designer or contractors. “I was doing everything from scratch,” says interior designer Holley Pokora of Philadelphia, referring to presenting, tracking, invoicing and more. “There’s too much room to make mistakes, which is a costly lesson to learn. Taking on the software has just ramped up my procurement profitability incredibly.”

4. Commit to Communication

Good communication and transparency are high on clients’ wish lists for the contractors they hire, but it’s all too easy to let good communication and providing details slide because you’re focusing on doing the actual work. So you can gain an edge by affirming your commitment to both of these things. Houzz Pro’s client dashboard is like command central for communications, keeping everything in one place and easily accessible for both you and clients. You can also keep clients in the loop by sharing daily project logs. These logs create a record, make clients feel involved and cared for, and also make things easier for clients because they won’t have to call or text to find out what’s going on with the project. It’s the modern way to communicate, and certainly an added value to mention to your leads. 

“We use the dashboard feature to upload progress pictures daily,” Shaw says. “Clients trust you when things are professional and organized.”

The dashboard also includes a project timeline that lets clients of both designers and GCs view where the project is on the timeline at a glance, without having to pick up the phone or dash off a text or an email to you. “The timeline feature is just amazing,” says Susan Heinz of the Heinz Group, a residential contracting firm in Florida. “Clients can see exactly how their project is progressing…. It is really nice that you can get as detailed and granular as you want, with the ability to add notes and schedule specific arrival times.”

5. Offer Online Payment Options

Many general contractors and designers still have cash-only operations. If that’s you, know that offering the flexibility and ease of online payments is a surefire strategic advantage when it comes to turning leads into clients. And Houzz Pro has you covered here too. You can do more than just send invoices through the cloud; you can accept deposits and bill payments online as well.

“My customers love how we do electronic invoicing and payment options,” says Raymond Chung of the Raystruction Group, a home remodeling company in Delaware. “My customers don’t have to ask if I accept credit cards or checks or ACH, because Houzz Pro offers everything directly to them, and they can do it at their own leisure, so they don’t have to hand me a check.” 

Bonus Tip: Track Your Success Rate

Tracking your bid-hit ratio — that is, the number of bids you’ve submitted compared with the number of bids you’ve won  — can allow you to spot trends that have prevented you from winning bids and fix them for the future. It can also help you identify the types of projects that tend to work out for you, so you can target those more going forward. In fact, regularly dipping into insights and analytics can help you boost business performance overall!

Putting all of these tips into practice might be just what it takes to turn prospective clients into paying ones. And even just one new client can be a source of repeat business or referrals, so it pays to invest a little time in adopting software that helps make that happen. Try Houzz Pro at no cost today and see the difference it can make for your business!