BloomingRock
Quotes stall on the missing details
In a small shop, quotes don't usually sit because the price is hard to work out. You know your rates. You know roughly what the material costs and how long the setup takes.
They sit because someone is looking for something. The drawing came in as an attachment last week. The customer sent a new revision, or maybe that was a different part. The note about the tolerance on the bore came from a phone call, and now it lives in someone's head or on a sticky note by the saw.
So the quote waits. Not on the math. On the hunting, then a callback, then another day because the person who took the call is out on the floor.
Gather first, then price
The fix I like is boring on purpose. Every request goes through one short checklist before anyone opens the quoting sheet. It doesn't need new software. It can live in a shared spreadsheet tab, a simple form that lands in your inbox, or a note pinned in the job folder. Whatever your team already opens every day.
Start here. Keep it short enough that people will actually fill it in.
- The drawing, saved in the job folder, named so the revision is obvious.
- The revision letter, confirmed with the customer and not guessed from the file name.
- Material and finish, plus anything the customer said they'd supply.
- Quantity, and any other quantities they asked you to price.
- The due date, and whether it's a real date or a hope.
- Notes from the call, written down next to the drawing.
- Who asked, and the best way to reach them with a question.
The rule that makes it work is simple. If a line is blank, the job doesn't get priced yet. Someone asks the customer that one question first, and the answer goes on the checklist so nobody has to ask twice.
That's it. You're not changing how you price. You're making sure the person pricing has everything in one place when they sit down to do it.
Why one fix, and why it has to be handed off
A checklist like this only helps if it gets used in a normal busy week, not just the week someone sets it up. That's why I work the way I do.
First I look at how quotes actually come into your shop. Email, phone, a customer walking in with a print, a text to the owner's cell. Then I set up one fix in the tools you already use. Usually that's this kind of checklist, shaped around what your shop really hunts for. Then I hand it off, so your team knows who fills it in, where it lives, and what happens when a line is blank. After that it's yours to run.
Once a checklist like this is steady, it's also a good place for AI to help. It could pull the revision and due date out of the request email, for example, so someone checks it instead of retyping it. But the checklist comes first. AI on top of a messy process just makes the mess faster. I wrote more about that on the page about making AI stick.
I'm taking on my first few shops now. If your quotes sit for the same reasons, what's the one detail your shop hunts for most before a quote can go out?
~Diana