One spreadsheet, three texts, five minutes a day
Most quotes don't lose to a competitor's price. They lose to silence. The homeowner meant to call you back, then the kids had practice, the water heater kept limping along, and three weeks later they can't remember which of the four plumbers they liked. The shop that texted them on day two got the job.
The fix is a follow-up cadence: one touch at day 2, one at day 5, one at day 14 after you send the quote. Day 2 catches the people who had a question and never asked it. Day 5 catches the people comparing bids. Day 14 closes the file, and it still lands a surprising number of jobs from people who just needed a nudge.
You don't need a CRM to run this. You need a Google Sheet, three saved texts, and a daily phone reminder. The whole build takes under an hour, and here are the exact steps.
Build the tracker (15 minutes)
Go to sheets.google.com on any computer, sign in with your Google account (the same one that runs your Business Profile is fine), and click Blank spreadsheet. Name it Quote Tracker.
Type these headers across row 1, one per column:
- A: Name
- B: Phone
- C: Job (three or four words, like "40 gal water heater")
- D: Quote amount
- E: Date sent
- F: Day 2 sent
- G: Day 5 sent
- H: Day 14 sent
- I: Status (Open, Won, Lost)
Bold row 1 and freeze it so it stays put when the list grows: select row 1, then View > Freeze > 1 row. From now on, every quote you send gets a row the same day. No row, no follow-up, no system.
Write the three texts (copy these)
Keep each message under 160 characters so it arrives as one clean text instead of getting split. Here are three that work, with the character count so you know how much room you have when you customize them.
Day 2 (128 characters): "Hi Sue, Mike from Badger Plumbing. Wanted to make sure the water heater quote came through OK. Any questions, just text me back."
Day 5 (147 characters): "Hi Sue, Mike from Badger Plumbing. Checking in on the water heater quote. Happy to walk through the numbers or adjust the scope. What do you think?"
Day 14 (149 characters): "Hi Sue, Mike from Badger Plumbing. Last note from me on the water heater. If the timing is not right, no problem at all. Text me if anything changes."
Swap in the customer's name and the actual job every time. "The water heater quote" gets answered. "Your recent estimate" reads like a robot. And notice what the day 14 text doesn't do: no guilt, no fake deadline, no "prices go up Monday." A homeowner in Waukesha has seen every pressure tactic. Plain and friendly wins.
Text the number the customer gave you when they asked for the quote, and stop the moment they say stop or no. Three spaced messages about work they requested is normal business. Blasting a purchased list is a different thing entirely, and it's the thing that gets numbers flagged.
Save the texts so sending takes 30 seconds
The system dies if you have to retype the message every time. Save each one as a keyboard shortcut on your phone.
iPhone: Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement, tap the plus sign. Put the full message in Phrase and a short trigger in Shortcut: fu2 for the day 2 text, fu5 for day 5, fu14 for day 14. Now typing fu2 in any text thread expands to the whole message, and you just fix the name and the job.
Android with Gboard: open any text field, tap the gear on the keyboard, then Dictionary > Personal dictionary > your language, and tap the plus sign. Same idea: full message in the top field, fu2 in the Shortcut field.
If you quote by email for bigger jobs, save the same three messages as Gmail templates. In Gmail on a computer: gear icon > See all settings > Advanced tab > turn Templates on > Save Changes. Then compose the message once, click the three dots at the bottom right of the compose window, and choose Templates > Save draft as template. Sending a follow-up becomes Compose > three dots > Templates > pick one.
The daily five minutes
Set a repeating reminder on your phone for the same time every workday. Right after the last job works for most owners, something like 4:30pm. The reminder text should tell you exactly what to do: "Open Quote Tracker, send follow-ups."
The routine when it fires:
- Add a row for any quote you sent today.
- Scan the Date sent column. Anything sent 2, 5, or 14 days ago with an empty checkbox column gets its text right now.
- Type today's date in the Day 2, Day 5, or Day 14 column as you send each one.
- If someone replied since yesterday, answer them personally and skip their remaining follow-ups. The cadence is for silence, not conversations.
- Mark Won or Lost in the Status column the moment you know. Won rows are jobs to schedule. Lost rows still matter, more on that below.
The five minutes is the system. The spreadsheet and the saved texts exist only to make those five minutes so easy that you actually do them on a Thursday in July when you're tired.
When the sheet stops being enough
Run the manual version for a month first. It proves the habit, and it teaches you what your quotes actually do: how many go silent, which jobs close on the day 2 text, what a Lost really looked like. That knowledge makes every later tool decision easier.
If you already pay for field service software, it can send the cadence for you. Jobber has automatic quote follow-ups in its settings, and Housecall Pro can do the same for estimates. Use what you're paying for before adding anything new. Otherwise, HubSpot's free CRM can log quotes and set follow-up reminders, though for a one-truck shop the sheet holds up fine.
One more use for the tracker: the Lost column is a list of people who wanted the work and didn't buy yet. Once a season, send the open-ended ones a single text: "Hi Sue, Mike from Badger Plumbing. We quoted your water heater back in March. If it's still on the list, happy to take another look at the numbers." Some of those jobs come back. Without the sheet, you'd never know who to ask.