It's nine at night and you're still pricing a quote. One supplier sent a price by email, another on WhatsApp, and you're still waiting on the delivery cost.
If every quote starts like that, AI won't make it quicker by writing faster. The slow bit isn't writing the quote. It's waiting for the prices.
I've seen this up close. One of my clients trades steel, and every complex quote took her 2 to 4 hours. Here's what changed, and what you can check in your own business this week.
Why does every quote start from scratch?
Because the prices come in from all over the place, and nothing pulls them together.
For her it was steel prices by email, cutting costs over WhatsApp and transport by email again. No template, and no one place to see which deals were waiting on what. Every quote started from nothing: chase the prices, add them up by hand, add her margin, write it up.
She kept track of every deal in her head. Quotes went out late. Deals stalled when a supplier didn't get chased.
Give that mess to ChatGPT and you'll get a nicely written quote with whatever price you gave it. That's quicker to type. It isn't quicker to quote.
What actually cut the time?
We didn't start with the writing. We started with where the prices go when they arrive.
A steel-trading client's complex quotes went from 2 to 4 hours each to 20 to 40 minutes. She still signs off every offer.
Three things changed:
- One screen with every deal on it. She can see which quotes are ready, which are waiting on a supplier and which are new. She doesn't have to remember.
- Prices go straight onto the right deal. She copies a price from WhatsApp or an email once, and it's filed against the right deal. No retyping.
- Reminders do the chasing. If a supplier hasn't answered in 48 hours, she gets a nudge. Every morning at 8am, a WhatsApp message lists every open deal.
When the prices are all in, a draft quote is ready in her client's language, with her margin already added. She reads it and signs it off before it goes anywhere.
Look at what saved the time: sorting out where the prices go, not a cleverer way of writing. That's also what any AI needs before it can help you quote. I've written more about getting that order right in Fix the Process Before Adding AI.
Where does your quoting time actually go?
You don't need anything built to find out. Take your last three quotes and, for each one, write down:
- Where each price came from: email, WhatsApp, a phone call or a price list.
- How long you waited for the slowest one.
- How long it took to write once you had everything.
If the waiting took longer than the writing, writing faster won't help much. Get all your prices into one place first, even if that's one folder per job and a rule that every price goes in it the day it arrives.
If the same supplier is always the slowest, ask them for a price list you can quote from, and confirm the price once the job's agreed. That's one less wait on every quote.
If the writing really is the slow part, that's where AI helps. Give ChatGPT or Claude two or three of your old quotes and today's prices, and ask it to write the new one in the same layout. Check every number before it goes out. If you send proposals rather than quotes, How to Stress-Test Your Proposals With AI Before Your Clients Do covers the next step.
Then the quote goes quiet
Sending the quote is only half the job. On a UK forum where tradespeople swap tips on quoting, one reply put it well: "most small trades don't follow up consistently, they just mean to."
I don't leave mine to memory. After my sales calls, the follow-up email is written for me to check and send.
You can do a simple version today. When you send a quote, ask ChatGPT, Claude or whichever AI you use to write the follow-up there and then, and put it in your calendar for four days' time. On the day, change a word if you need to and send it. For more on replies that slip away, see How to Stop Leads Slipping Through the Cracks.
Where this leaves you
Before you pay for anything that promises to write your quotes with AI, look at your last three. If the time went on chasing prices, sort that out first. Your quotes can only go out as fast as your prices come in.
