Old leads: the quotes nobody answered are your cheapest jobs

Old leads are the quotes you sent and never heard back on, and they are the cheapest jobs you can win this quarter. The person has already found you, already asked, already seen a number. All that is missing is a reason to decide. Three short touches over a week, a text, an email and a call, cost you an afternoon and bring a share of those quotes back as booked work. No ads, no new enquiries, no new website. Just the pile you already paid to create.

What the unanswered quote pile is worth

Every trade has the pile. Quotes typed up, sent, and then silence. The owner reads silence as "no", moves on to the next job and never looks at the list again. Silence is not "no". Silence is usually "not yet", "I got distracted" or "I am waiting to see if you chase me".

Here is the sum, labelled as an example so you can put your own numbers in.

A roofing firm in Surrey has sent 40 quotes in the last six months that were never answered. A new roof is worth £8,000 on average (verified trade value; the range runs £4,000 to £19,000). Say one in ten of those quotes becomes a job after three touches. That one in ten is an assumption for the sum, not a promise. Swap in your own figure after the first run.

40 unanswered quotes x 10% = 4 jobs
4 x £8,000 = £32,000 of booked work
Cost: one afternoon of texts, emails and calls

What does that mean? The work is already quoted and priced. You are not finding new customers, you are finishing a conversation you started. How do you know? Count your own pile. Open the quotes folder, filter to "sent" with no reply, and multiply by your average job. Why does it matter? Because a new enquiry costs money to create and still has to be surveyed and quoted. An old quote has had all that spent on it already. Every one you recover is almost pure margin against the marketing you already paid for.

The same sum works at plumber scale. A call-out is worth £80 to £150 (verified trade value). Sixty unanswered quotes for repairs, one in ten recovered, at the bottom of the range: 6 x £80 = £480 from an hour of texts. Smaller number, same logic, and the plumbing version is worked through in plumber old quotes and cold leads.

What the search data says about old leads

Almost nobody searches for this, which is exactly why it works. On 13 October 2026 the UK run-rates (Google Ads UK, Jan to Aug 2026) were:

Compare that with what owners do search for: "plumber woking" at 508 searches a month, "plumber kingston" at 448, "electrician woking" at 359 (same source and date). The attention goes on getting new enquiries. Nobody is thinking about the enquiries that already came in. That is your edge. Your competitor is paying £9.83 a click (the advertised cost per click for "plumber woking" on that date) to find strangers, while your quoted customers sit in a folder waiting to be asked.

There is no local version of this search either. "Database reactivation" with any Surrey town after it shows effectively zero. You will not find a supplier by searching for one. You will find the method, and the method is below.

What are the three ways to go back to old quotes?

Option 1: Ring every one of them yourself

What it means: you sit down with the list and the phone and call each one. How you know it works: a call is the strongest touch there is. A real voice, a direct question, an answer on the spot. Where it falls down: time, and the order of touches. Forty calls is a full afternoon, half go to voicemail, and a cold call out of nowhere after three months of silence puts people on the back foot. The person has to remember who you are before they can say yes. It also tends not to happen. The afternoon gets eaten by a job, and the list goes back in the drawer. Who it is right for: a firm with under 15 open quotes and an owner who is comfortable on the phone and will actually block the time.

Option 2: A follow-up sequence in a CRM you set up yourself

What it means: a CRM, the list of every enquiry and job in one place, with a built-in sequence that sends a text on day one and an email on day three, then reminds you to call on day five. How you know it works: the warming touches arrive before the call, so when you ring, they already remember the quote. The sequence runs without you. Where it falls down: set-up time and discipline. Someone has to type every old quote into the CRM with a name, mobile, email and job value, write the three messages, and keep the thing fed when new quotes go out. When a customer replies "can you do it in March?", the sequence does not know what to say, and the reply waits for you. Who it is right for: a firm with 15 to 60 open quotes at any time and someone in the office who will own the tool.

Option 3: A reactivation system that runs the touches and handles the replies

What it means: a database reactivation system, a built sequence that takes the list straight from your quoting tool, sends the text and the email in your words, answers the easy replies ("yes, March is fine, which week?"), books the survey or the start date into your diary and stops the moment someone says no or opts out. The call on day five goes to you only for the ones who have warmed up. Bad Boy Labs builds this as Database Reactivation. How you know it works: it is option 2 with the typing and the reply handling removed, so nothing waits on the owner. Where it falls down: it is a build, with a set-up week, and it needs a clean source of quotes to read from. For a dozen quotes it is more than you need. Who it is right for: a firm with 40 or more open quotes, a steady flow of new ones, and nobody at a desk to answer replies within the hour.

Which one should you pick?

Bottom line: under 15 quotes, ring them this week; 15 to 60 with someone in the office, run the three-touch sequence in a CRM; over 40 with nobody at a desk, build the system, because unanswered replies are where recovered jobs die a second time.

The reason is in the example above. Four recovered roofs are worth £32,000. If the sequence sends 40 texts and 12 people reply, the money is in those 12 replies being answered inside the hour. An owner on a roof cannot do that. A system can. If you have someone in the office who will answer replies as they land, the CRM option is the honest choice and the money stays with you. If you do not, the system earns its keep on the replies alone. The roofing version of the full sequence, with timings, is in the roofing quote follow-up system.

How to do it this week: the three-touch sequence

1. Pull the list (Monday, 30 minutes). Open your quoting tool or the sent folder in email. Filter to quotes sent in the last six months with no reply. Put them in a sheet: name, mobile, email, job, quoted value, date sent. Sort by value, highest first. Done looks like: one sheet, every row with a mobile number, biggest jobs at the top.
2. Remove the ones you do not want (Monday, 10 minutes). Jobs you would now turn down, customers who were difficult, quotes so old the price no longer holds. For out-of-date prices, keep the row but mark it "requote". Done looks like: a list you would be happy to win every row of.
3. Touch one, the text (Tuesday, 10am). Send this, with your details in: "Hi [first name], it's [your name] from [Business]. I quoted you for [job] on [date]. Is it still something you want doing? Reply YES and I'll check dates, or NO and I'll close the file. Reply STOP to opt out." Under 160 characters if you can. Done looks like: every row sent, and a column for the reply.
4. Answer every reply within the hour (Tuesday, all day). YES gets two possible dates. A question gets a straight answer. NO gets "No problem, thanks for letting me know" and the row is closed. Done looks like: no reply older than an hour at 5pm.
5. Touch two, the email (Thursday, 9am). To everyone who did not reply. Subject: "Your [job] quote from [Business]". Body: "Hi [first name], I sent a quote for [job] on [date] for £[value]. I have not heard back, which usually means life got busy. Two things that might help: the price holds until [date], and I have space in [month]. If you'd like to go ahead, reply to this and I'll call you. If you've gone another way, a one-line reply saves us both a chase. [Your name], [mobile]." Done looks like: sent, and a column for the reply.
6. Touch three, the call (Monday next week). To everyone who has still not replied, in value order. Script: "Hi, it's [your name] from [Business]. I quoted the [job] back in [month] and sent a note last week. I'm not chasing, I'm closing files. Is it a yes, a no, or a not yet?" Voicemail: say the same thing, then "a text with YES or NO is fine". Done looks like: every row marked YES, NO, NOT YET or NO ANSWER.
7. Book the yeses, diary the not-yets (same day). YES goes in the diary with a confirmed date. NOT YET gets a date to go back, three months on, written into the sheet. NO gets closed. Done looks like: a sheet with no blank outcomes.
8. Write down the result (Friday, 5 minutes). Quotes touched, replies, jobs booked, value booked. That single line tells you whether to run it every quarter by hand or build it. Done looks like: a number you can say out loud.

Mistakes we see

• Chasing with a discount. "I can knock £500 off" tells the customer the first price was padded. Chase with dates and a decision, not money. Keep the price.
• Only calling. A cold call after months of silence has no context. Text first, email second, so the call lands on a warm memory.
• Chasing everything equally. Sort by value. Ten minutes on a £19,000 roof is worth more than ten minutes on a £400 repair. Do the big ones first and properly.
• No close. Each touch ends with a yes, no or not yet. "Just checking in" invites more silence. "Is it a yes, a no, or a not yet?" gets an answer.
• Doing it once. The pile refills. Put a recurring reminder in the diary for the first Monday of every quarter, or build it so it runs without the reminder.

Do you want your pile sized?

Send me the count of quotes you have sent in the last six months with no reply, and your average job value, and I will tell you what the pile is worth, which rows to chase first and whether a CRM sequence or a built system is the honest answer for your volume. Yes, and I will send it back within two working days. No, and the eight steps above will recover a share of it on their own this week. Which is it? The system itself is described on the Database Reactivation page.