The short version: to win more quotes, answer the buyer’s real questions on video before you ever arrive: what it costs, how you price, who you are, why not the cheapest option. When a customer watches before you quote, your number stops being a shock and becomes a confirmation. Here are the eight videos and where to start.
Here is what the customer is actually thinking when your quote lands, and it is not “is this good value.” Across more than 4,300 distinct homeowner accounts in our research — every state and territory, all 40 trades — the number one question by a mile is blunter: am I being ripped off?
“One company quotes $8,000; another says $12,000.” Concreter’s customer, Canberra
It is not one customer having a whinge. This is the single most common thing buyers say in the entire corpus, and it turns up in every state and every trade:
“You shouldn’t be paying more than $77 a square metre, plus gutters and downpipes.” Roofing customer, Perth
“I’m more than happy for a trade to make his fair share, but being blatantly ripped off makes me mad.” Electrical customer, Hobart
Two quotes, a four-grand gap, and no way to tell which one is fair. So the customer falls back on the only thing they can compare, the smaller number, and the race to the bottom is on. You turn up a stranger defending a price with no way to show why yours is what it is.
The fix is to stop arriving as a stranger, and to answer “am I being ripped off?” before you ever quote.
The cold quote
The pre-sold quote
In our field experience across SellMyService builds, close rates move from around a third to roughly four in five when buyers watch the videos before the quote. That is not magic. It is the difference between selling to a stranger and selling to someone who already trusts you.
The eight videos
Each one answers a single question every buyer has, in 60 to 120 seconds. You film them once and they work forever.
- The FAQ Video answers the questions you field at every kitchen table, so the customer arrives already knowing the answers.
- The Cost Video answers the number one question head-on: am I being ripped off? It explains what actually drives the price up and down in your trade, so a dearer quote stops looking like a rip-off and starts looking like the one that included everything. The most Googled question in your trade, and the one everyone else hides from. Start here; we have a full shoot guide for the Cost Video.
- The Pricing Video explains how you charge (hourly, fixed, tiered), so there is no sticker shock on site.
- The Fit Video says who you are not for. Saying no publicly is the strongest trust move there is, and it filters out the tyre-kickers.
- The Bio Video is 90 seconds of you, so the customer knows your face before you knock and the awkward first five minutes are gone.
- The Landing Page Video defuses the four fears at the contact form: spam, being hounded, privacy, and what happens next.
- The Customer Journey tells a real client’s story, before and after. Not a testimonial, a story the next customer sees themselves in.
- The Claims Video answers the second question every buyer has: are they legit? Put your licence, your insurance and the compliance certificate the customer should receive on camera (the CCEW in New South Wales, the eCoC in South Australia, the Form 4 in Queensland, whatever your state and trade calls it). Everyone says reliable; you show the paperwork before they have to ask.
The eight at a glance
| Video | The fear it kills | Length | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAQ | ”I’ll have a hundred questions” | 60-120s | Service pages, quote follow-up |
| Cost | ”Am I being ripped off?“ | 60-120s | Pricing page, quote follow-up, YouTube |
| Pricing | ”Sticker shock on the day” | 60-90s | Quote follow-up email |
| Fit | ”Are they even right for my job?“ | 60s | About page, above the quote button |
| Bio | ”Who is this stranger?“ | 90s | Email signature, About page |
| Landing Page | ”Spam, hounding, what next?“ | 60-90s | Beside the contact form |
| Customer Journey | ”Will it actually work out?“ | 3-5 min | Service pages, social |
| Claims | ”Are they legit?“ | 30-90s | Profile, service pages, LinkedIn |
Together they answer every question a buyer has before they have to ask it. That is the whole stack, and it is the engine behind getting found and winning the work.
Start with the one that scares you
Do not try to film all eight this week. Film the Cost Video. It is the highest-return one, because it meets the customer at the exact moment of the exact fear that loses you jobs: that you are the expensive one with something to hide. The take inside it that scares people most is “why not the cheapest” (the one the Cost Video shoot guide walks through), and it is also the one that wins the work.
If you only ever film three: Cost, FAQ and Bio. Cost kills the rip-off fear, FAQ saves you the same kitchen-table chat every time, and Bio puts a face to the name so you are not a stranger at the door. Those three carry most of the trust on their own.
Film the Cost Video this week
Block 90 minutes. Write one sentence on what drives your prices up and down. Phone on a tripod, window in front of you, talk to one customer not a camera. Land the point in the first ten seconds. Put it on your pricing page and your quote follow-up. That single video does more than the other seven combined when you are starting out.
What if filming feels impossible
- You hate being on camera. Most tradies do, for the first thirty seconds. Talk to one real customer in your head, not the lens, and do it in one take so you cannot overthink it. Rough and real beats polished and fake every time; buyers trust the bloke who sounds like himself.
- You are a solo operator. Even better, because you are who they are hiring. The Bio and the Cost video matter most for you: the customer is buying you, so let them meet you before the quote.
- No finished jobs worth filming yet. Start with the talking-to-camera ones (Cost, FAQ, Bio, Fit) that need nothing but you and a phone. The before-and-after Customer Journey can wait until you have a job worth showing.
What this looks like in the real world
Take a concreter in Canberra. Every customer who rings has already had two wildly different quotes, “one says $8,000, another says $12,000,” and walks in quietly assuming someone is having them on. So he films a two-minute Cost Video: what actually drives a driveway price (access, the fall, the reo, the slab thickness, prep, and ripping up the old one), and why the cheap quote almost always leaves half of that out.
Customers watch it before he visits. By the time he is on the verge with the tape out, nobody asks “why are you dearer than the other bloke.” They ask “so the cheap quote skipped the reinforcement?” He stopped defending his price and started explaining theirs. Same concreter, same rates. The only thing that changed is that he answered the rip-off question before he arrived.
Sell before you quote
The tradies who win more quotes are not better salespeople. They have just done the selling already, on video, before they arrive. The quote stops being a negotiation with a stranger and becomes a handshake with someone who already trusts the number.
The Prove It Fast Start walks you through naming your goals, scoring where you stand, and building the eight videos that make your worth visible before the job. Film one this week, the Cost Video, and watch the next quote go differently.