Key Takeaways
- An HVAC quote is not a lead. A full system replacement runs about $5,000 to $14,000 for most homes, so every quote sitting in a folder is a five figure job with nobody's name on it.
- Nearly half of the residential service businesses doing $10 million a year say following up on estimates produces 11 to 15 percent of their income, per the ServiceTitan Residential Industry Report polled by Thrive Analytics across more than 1,000 US contractors.
- The whole build is one Go High Level workflow: an opportunity stage trigger, five texts on wait steps, and two stop conditions.
- The stop is the part that decides whether people like your texts or hate them. A reply ends the drip, and a quote accepted tag skips everything remaining.
- The gotcha that catches people: a stage trigger fires every time a card moves in, including when you move it. Turn re-entry off and filter the trigger before you switch it on.
A homeowner got a text two days after an HVAC company sent him a quote. Nobody typed it. Nobody in the office remembered to send it. Two hours later he was asking how soon he could get on the install calendar, and a system swap that was about a week from going cold got booked.
That is the build we walked through on The Trade Stack this week, click by click. Five texts, one workflow, zero typing. If you have a folder of quotes nobody has touched in three weeks, this is the hour that pays for itself. We are On Point Tech Solutions in Los Gatos, and we build this for trade businesses across San Jose and the Bay Area.
A quote is the most expensive thing you own
In this trade a quote is not a lead. It is a five figure job that already has your labor in it. You drove out. You crawled around an attic. You sized the system. Then the price goes in an email and everybody waits.
Angi and Modernize both put a full system replacement in the $5,000 to $14,000 range for most homes right now, and Modernize is drawing on 56,000 real homeowner projects. So the folder is not a to do list. It is money.
The number that should sting is this one. Thrive Analytics polled more than a thousand US contractors for the ServiceTitan Residential Industry Report. Nearly half of the companies doing ten million a year said following up on estimates brings in 11 to 15 percent of their income. That is not a nice to have. That is a truck. And most owners send the quote and then just wait, while the customer calls two other companies.
Chapter one: the trigger and the first text
The build hangs off your pipeline, so the pipeline has to be real first. You need one stage called Quote Sent. When the tech or the office drags a card into that stage, the workflow starts. That is the trigger: opportunity stage changed, stage is Quote Sent.
Then one wait step. One hour. Not one minute, because you were just standing in their kitchen. Not one day, because by then they have three prices in their inbox. One hour.
Then text number one, in plain words, with their first name in it. The quote is in your email, here is what it covers, text me right back with any questions. Trigger, wait, text. That is the spine, and everything else stacks under it.
The test was simple. Drag a card into Quote Sent, watch the clock, and an hour later the text lands with the first name filled in, in the same thread the office already uses. Nobody touched anything. And that one text does something a follow up call cannot. It gives the customer somewhere to ask the awkward money question without picking up the phone.
The four texts that follow, and the one nobody sends
Same workflow. Just wait steps and messages stacked underneath, and each one has a job.
Day two answers the money question before they ask it. The price includes the permit and the haul away, and it can be split into payments. Day four is proof: two lines about the last job like theirs, and the warranty. Nothing salesy. Day seven is the honest deadline. The price holds for thirty days and the install calendar fills up before it expires.
Day fourteen is the one almost nobody sends. Should I close this out, or do you still want it? That is the whole text. It works because a yes or no question is easy to answer. Just checking in is not a question at all.
One setting while you are in there. In the workflow settings, only allow actions between 8am and 8pm. Otherwise the day seven message fires at six in the morning and you look like a robot, which is the exact thing you are trying not to look like.
The stop is the part that matters
The worst thing this build can do is keep selling to somebody who already said yes. So it gets two exits.
The first is a reply. If they text back the drip stops, because a human is in the conversation now and the robot steps out. The second is a tag. When the office marks the quote accepted, the workflow checks for that tag before every remaining message. Tag is there, nothing sends, the card moves to Won.
That is the test that actually counts. Not that it sends. That it stops. Anybody can build something that texts people.
The gotcha that costs somebody a Friday afternoon
Your pipeline is not a place to tidy up.
The stage trigger fires every single time a card moves into Quote Sent, including when you move it. So somebody sits down on a Friday to clean up the board, drags thirty old cards into the right stage, and thirty people who got a quote back in April get a text asking if they have any questions.
Two settings stop it. Turn re-entry off, so a contact runs through this once and only once. And filter the trigger so it only fires on a card coming in from your estimate stage, not from anywhere on the board. Build both before you switch it on, not after.
Why this matters for Bay Area and San Jose businesses
Bay Area homeowners shop harder than most, because the prices here are higher and the wait for an install is longer. A quote from a San Jose HVAC company is going to sit next to two others, and the one that stays in the conversation is usually the one that gets the job. Not the cheapest. The one that answered.
That is the whole case for marketing automation in a trade business, and it is why Go High Level San Jose contractors keep landing on the same build. You are not adding a sales system. You are making the follow up you meant to do happen whether or not anybody remembers. It carries straight across too. Plumbing, electrical, roofing, remodeling. Any trade that sends a written price and then waits.
Practical steps
- Build one pipeline stage called Quote Sent, and get the office in the habit of dragging cards into it.
- Create a workflow with an opportunity stage changed trigger, filtered to that stage, coming from your estimate stage only.
- Add a one hour wait, then text one with the first name and what the quote covers.
- Stack four more texts on wait steps: day two on money, day four on proof, day seven on the deadline, day fourteen asking if you should close it out.
- Set the action window to 8am to 8pm and turn re-entry off.
- Add both stop conditions: end on reply, and check for a quote accepted tag before every message.
- Test it three ways before it goes live. That it sends, that a reply stops it, and that the tag stops it.
Watch the build
Everything in the video was built on a training demo account. The HVAC company, the customer, the phone number and the quote amount are fictional, so nothing here is a measured result from a real campaign. The build is real and the tests are real. The customer is not.
Want it running by tomorrow
On Point Tech Solutions is a Go High Level consultant in Los Gatos, serving San Jose and the Bay Area. We build websites, funnels and automations like this one, and our clients own what we build. Done for you, or taught to your office with the SOP in your hands. Either way it is yours.
Come see the rest of it at optechsol.llc.