Are you talking about pre-qualifying sales leads?
I've sold remodeling and construction, never electrical services (at least not by without other work)
Pre-qualifying leads is about making sure you aren't wasting your time going out to spend an hour with every person who calls the office and just wonder's what some fantasy job might cost but will never buy.
The best pre-qualifying is just chatting with the person on the phone first, find out what work they want done, what sort of budget they have, if they've already talked to someone about financing, if they've had other types of projects done. Once you've gathered enough info, give them a price range over the phone and see if they flinch.
From a friendly 5 minute conversation, you can tell if you've got a customer who's serious or not. You make money on production. Estimating and bidding takes time away from production and costs you money. It usually happens in evenigns and weekends so you should consider its cost at overtime rates.
You can't afford to waste your time with tire kickers. I've known people who have said that every lead is a potential sale and pre-qualifying leads is a bad idea. For a small shop with no full-time sales staff, I think it's the only way to survive.
