The quote that takes three hours: where the time goes

Most small companies know that quoting takes too long. Fewer know where the time actually goes. When you look closely, the hours are rarely spent on the part that needs a skilled person. Most of it is looking things up, copying them across and waiting.

A worked example

Say a quote takes three hours from the moment the enquiry arrives to the moment it goes out. This is an invented example, but it will look familiar. Here is one way those three hours might divide up:

• 45 minutes finding the last similar job, to see what was charged and what went wrong.
• 35 minutes working out quantities and costs from the price list, which lives in a spreadsheet nobody fully trusts.
• 50 minutes building the document: copying an old quote, deleting the previous customer's details, fixing the formatting.
• 30 minutes waiting on a supplier price or an answer from a colleague.
• 20 minutes of checking and a last round of corrections.

Add those up and you have 180 minutes. Now ask a different question: in how many of those minutes was someone using judgment? Probably the second half of the calculation and the final check. The rest was fetching and typing.

Time your own, once

You do not need to guess. Pick the next three quotes and have the person writing them jot down, on paper, roughly how long each stage takes. Do not ask them to hurry, and do not turn it into an inspection. You want the real picture, and people tell the truth when they are not being graded.

Two things usually show up. The same stage is slow every time, and the slowness has little to do with how hard the job is.

Judgment is a small part of a quote. Fetching is most of it.

Where the time goes, and what to do about it

Looking for past jobs

If finding the last similar job means searching through email, the fix is a simple list. One row per job: customer type, what was done, price, how long it took, anything that surprised you. Fill it in when the job closes. It takes two minutes then and saves forty later.

The price list nobody trusts

When people are unsure whether a number is current, they check it, and checking is slow. Choose one price list, give it one owner and put a date at the top. Update it on a schedule, such as the first of each month, and tell the team that this is the only version.

Rebuilding the document

Copying an old quote is how mistakes get in. A leftover name, an old date, a line item from another job. A proper template, with the standard wording written once and blanks only where the job differs, removes both the time and the risk. A tool can also assemble a first draft from your price list and past jobs. A person then reads it, corrects it and sends it.

Waiting for answers

The wait is often for something you could have asked for in advance. If you always need three facts from the customer, put them on the enquiry form so the quote starts with them. If a supplier price changes rarely, record it with a date and refresh it weekly rather than phoning every time.

What stays with a person

The price itself. Whether to take the job. How much risk you are willing to carry. Whether this customer is one you want more of. Those decisions are the reason the owner or a senior estimator looks at the quote at all, and a faster process gives them more time for exactly that.

What a good result looks like

Do not aim for a quote in five minutes. Aim for a quote where the fetching is done before a person sits down, so that their hour goes to thinking. If three hours become ninety minutes and every quote uses the same wording and a current price list, you have gained time and also fewer errors.

Where to start

1. Time the next three quotes, stage by stage.
2. Pick the slowest stage and ask what the person is actually doing during it.
3. Start the past-jobs list today with the last ten jobs you can remember.
4. Give the price list one owner and one date.
5. Build one template and retire the habit of copying old quotes.

Next: What to write down before your best person goes on holiday