With the advent of the Home and Garden Show season, it’s time to get ready for the shows in your area. One good Home Show can result in enough leads to carry your business right into summer.  However, unless you come up with a system to qualify all those leads, you could wind up spending more time appointment-hopping than money-making.  So, how do you weed out the lookers from the buyers?  Here’s one alternative….

Rather than use a legal pad at your show booth for prospect’s names and numbers, create a Prospect Information Form. It should be a simple form that either you or the consumer fills out while visiting your booth. Besides the obvious Name, Address and Phone information, equip your Prospect Information Form with questions that will really help you qualify them. For instance…

  1. Area to be reconditioned?               Approximate size:
  2. Is your garage a one, two or three car garage?
  3. Do you consider your driveway to be long (4 car lengths or more), or short (3 car lengths or less)?
  4. What is the condition of the existing concrete?
  5. Good to some light cracking ?
  6. Several large cracks?
  7. Very poor condition?
  8. On a scale of one to ten (ten the highest), how high a priority is your concrete refinishing project?
  9. Besides CTi, what other alternatives have you considered for the project?
  10. Is someone at home during the day incase we have a cancellation and can get to you sooner?
  11. When would you like us to contact you for an on-site appointment?
  12. Immediately
  13. 2 – 4 weeks
  14. 2 – 4 months

In terms of qualifying your prospects, questions 6, 7 & 8 are the important ones.  You might argue that question 5 is as important, but the answer to question 8 is the true answer to question 5.  By using two questions aimed at the same objective, you can get very precise with your qualifying. Once you’ve got your Prospect Information Form looking the way you want it, run on down to Kwikie-Print and have them make up some pads for you.

By now you should get the picture. Remember, with potentially hundreds of Home Show leads, you’ve got to be able to qualify them. No reason to waste your time following up with folks who aren’t serious about their prospective CTi work.  By creating your own Prospect Information Form you will both look more professional and be able to follow up in the most profitable manner.