How to Get More Jobs as a Contractor (Starting With the Ones You Already Quoted)

Every article on this topic tells you to run ads, post on social media, and ask for reviews. Fine advice, all of it slow, and all of it aimed at the wrong end of the problem.

If you're a one-to-ten person shop, you almost certainly have more work available to you right now than you can take. It's just not sitting where you're looking for it. It's in your sent folder, your old invoices, and the three leaks below.

Work through these in order. The first one is free and pays this month.

1. Close the quotes you already sent

Do this before anything else.

Go back through the last 90 days of estimates. Count the ones that never got a yes or a no — just silence. For most shops that's somewhere between 30% and 50% of everything they quoted.

Put a dollar figure on it. Twelve open quotes at $4,000 average is $48,000 of work you already did the driving, measuring and pricing for. It is the cheapest pipeline you will ever have, and most contractors abandon it after one unanswered text.

Silence almost never means no. It means they got busy, they're waiting on a spouse or a bank, or they're comparing you against two other numbers and won't admit it. All three are fixed by showing up again.

Send one message to every silent quote this week. Not "just checking in" — give them an easy out:

Hi Dave, circling back on the deck quote from last month. Totally fine if now's not the time — just let me know either way so I can close it out or hold your spot.

You will get replies. Some will be no. Some will be "oh — yeah, we still want to do that." That second group is your next two weeks of work, and it cost you nothing.

Then keep doing it: four to six touches over 30 days on every new quote, from now on. The full schedule is in the contractor lead follow-up guide.

2. Mine your past customers

Second cheapest source of work, and almost nobody does it.

Your customer from two years ago already knows you, already trusts you, and already knows what your work looks like. They cost nothing to reach and they don't shop you against three competitors.

Pull your invoice list from 12–36 months back and text them. Not a marketing blast — a specific, human note:

Hi Sarah, it's Mike from Smith Plumbing — we did your water heater a couple winters back. Just checking everything's still running right. Also doing a few bathroom jobs in the neighbourhood this fall if you'd been thinking about that vanity.

Two things happen. Some book work. Others send you to a neighbour, which is the highest-quality lead that exists.

Do this twice a year. Put it in your calendar now, because you will not remember. There's more on this in how to get repeat work from past customers.

3. Answer the phone faster than everyone else

The contractor who calls back first wins an outsized share of jobs, and it's usually not the best contractor. It's just the available one.

A homeowner with a leak calls four numbers. Two go to voicemail and never call back. One calls Thursday. You call in fifteen minutes. You're now competing against one person instead of four, and you set the price anchor.

If you can't answer while working — and you can't — the fix is a same-day rule: every missed call gets a text back within an hour. Even just "On a job till 4, I'll call you then." That text alone puts you ahead of most of your competition.

4. Get your close rate up before you get your lead count up

Everyone wants more leads. Fewer people know their close rate, and the close rate is where the leverage is.

At 20 quotes a month and a $4,000 average:

• 25% close = $20,000
• 35% close = $28,000
• 45% close = $36,000

Same leads. Same driving. The difference is follow-up, how the quote is presented, and how fast you respond. Doubling your leads means doubling your ad spend and your unpaid evenings. Moving your close rate ten points means changing what you do after you hit send.

Chase the percentage first. It's free, and it makes every lead you buy later worth more.

5. Raise your prices instead of chasing volume

Counterintuitive, but the fastest way to a better year for a lot of shops is fewer, better jobs.

If you're booked out and still not making money, more jobs won't fix it — the pricing is wrong. A 10% price increase on a shop doing $300,000 is $30,000, and it usually costs you the customers you least wanted anyway.

The ones who leave over 10% were the ones calling at 9pm and questioning every line. More on the how in how to raise your prices as a contractor and win more jobs without lowering your price.

6. Then, and only then, go looking for new leads

Once the first five are running, the usual advice actually works:

• Google Business Profile. Free, and it's where local searches land. Photos of real jobs, current hours, and reviews.
• Reviews. Ask every happy customer the day you finish, in person, while they're standing in the finished room. Not by email a week later.
• The other trades. The electrician, the plumber, the realtor, the property manager. Referrals between trades are the most reliable lead source small shops have, and they cost a coffee.
• Photos of your own work. Before and after, taken on your phone, posted anywhere local people look. You do not need a marketing strategy. You need pictures of the thing you built.

The honest summary

More jobs, in order of what pays fastest:

1. Follow up on every quote you've already sent — this week
2. Text your past customers — twice a year
3. Respond to new calls within the hour — always
4. Fix your close rate before buying leads
5. Price for profit, not for volume
6. Then build the lead sources

Number one is free, takes an afternoon, and for most shops finds work worth more than a year of ad spend. It's also the one nobody does, because it requires remembering something on day 7 while you're under a sink.

That's the entire reason QuoteChaser exists — you send the estimate, it runs the day 1 → day 30 sequence by text and email, and it shuts off the second the customer replies.

Keep reading: Contractor lead follow-up: the full system · How to re-engage old quotes · How to get repeat work from past customers · How to quote a job