Should you have an "estimate day"?

An email asking about estimating:

Steve, I have a couple questions.
 
1. You mention you have an "estimate day." For someone who is not established and working mainly off referrals, such as yourself, if I told a prospect that I wouldn't be there for 3 or 4 days to give an estimate, wouldn't they find someone else who would come right out to estimate? Seems like it.
 
2. Why the 2-stroke, and not the S-stroke?
 
-Tracy

My Reply:

Hi Tracy:
 
Good morning.
 
Right…I took an entire day to do my estimating.  I found that it works better instead of trying to squeeze in estimating between jobs.  Plus my uniform was different when working vs when I did estimates.  And I always wanted to look my most professional best on estimate day (polo shirt, dockers, etc).
 
But you are right in the fact that when you are first getting started, it's best to do them as quickly as you can.  I would line up 10, 12, 15+ estimates on fridays, but obviously for someone who is fresh out of the starting gate, they won't have that many to do.  So each estimate can certainly be fit into a working day between jobs or after jobs.
 
As far as your comment though "wouldn't they find someone else who would come right out to estimate".  Yes, that could happen, but I didn't find that to be the case overall.  The trick is to semi-close them on the phone and convince them you are worth waiting for.  If they know you're good and trustworthy, they will wait.  Trust me on that one.  I had a schedule consistently 5 to 8 weeks backed up with jobs.  You would think folks might call other window cleaners to get their jobs done sooner, right?  They didn't.  They waited for me and my teams.  Again though…similar to what I talked about above, at the beginning, you really don't have that reputation yet.  So for the first few months, I would recommend jumping on any and all interested prospects as soon as possible.
 
I used the 2 stroke because my specialty was residential glass.  I didn't feel the need to learn the s stroke because I wasn't spending my days doing large panes of commercial glass.  How large is a normal residential window?  Not too large.  So I could very quickly (5 to 7 minutes in/out) do these size windows with my good 'ole 2 stroke technique.  My focus has been and will always be residential glass so that's why I do what works best for residential.
 
Have a great weekend.
 
Regards,
 
Steve
256-546-2446