WANOFree worksheet — the whole thing, right here
Your CRM is full of jobs you already paid for. This worksheet finds them.
The Dead Lead Recovery Worksheet — a 10-minute audit, a fill-in math table, and the exact 5-step process (with two ready-to-send texts) to revive dead roofing quotes yourself. Free, and actually useful.
Size your pile in 10 checkboxes.
An honest CRM audit that tells you in two minutes whether you have a five-figure problem.
Price it with your own numbers.
Dead quotes × your job value × a conservative 3% revive rate. The math is usually uncomfortable.
Fix it this week.
A 5-step DIY playbook with two copy-paste revival texts — prior-customer compliant, opt-out language included.
The math of a dead quote
You drove out. You climbed the roof. You measured, you talked shingles at the kitchen table, you sent the estimate.
Then — nothing.
Here's what the research says happens next: 73% of leads never get a second follow-up. The average rep quits after about 1.3 attempts. But most deals close on attempt 3 to 5. (Lead-response research; roofing market studies.)
So the quote isn't dead. It was abandoned. There's a difference — and the difference is worth real money.
Run the rough version right now:
- Quotes you sent in the last 12 months that went silent: probably dozens.
- Average residential job: $8,000–$25,000.
- What you paid to generate each of those leads: $124–$300 if you run ads.
You already paid for these people. They already gave you their number. They already let you on their roof. They're the warmest list you'll ever own — and they're sitting in a folder nobody opens.
This worksheet does three things:
- Sizes your pile. Ten questions against your own CRM.
- Prices your pile. A fill-in table — your numbers, not ours.
- Gives you the playbook. Five steps and two ready-to-send texts to revive dead quotes yourself, this week.
No pitch until the last paragraph, and even then it's short. The worksheet works whether you ever talk to us or not.
Part 1
How big is your pile?
Open your CRM (or your email sent folder, or the clipboard stack). Check every box that's true. Be honest — nobody's grading this but you.
- 1. I can't pull a list of every estimate I sent in the last 12 months in under five minutes.
- 2. I don't know the exact number of quotes that never turned into a job.
- 3. Nobody follows up on a quote after day 7. If they haven't called back by then, it's over.
- 4. I've caught myself saying “I think I followed up on that one… maybe.”
- 5. Follow-up lives in someone's head — no sequence, no schedule, no reminder that actually fires.
- 6. I have estimates from last storm season that never got a single call-back from us.
- 7. I've never texted an old estimate list. Not once.
- 8. Past customers (finished jobs, 2–5 years back) never hear from us unless they call first.
- 9. When a homeowner ghosts after a quote, we assume they went with someone cheaper — but we never actually asked.
- 10. If a rep left tomorrow, their follow-up list would leave with them.
Count your checks: _____ / 10
0–2 checks
Your follow-up is tighter than most of the industry. The math table below will tell you if there's still meat on the bone.
3–6 checks
You have a pile. Probably a five-figure one. Keep going.
7–10 checks
Your CRM is the most profitable neglected asset you own. The next two sections exist for you.
Part 2
What's the pile worth?
One formula. Your numbers.
Dead quotes × average job value × realistic revive rate = recoverable revenue
The industry benchmark for reactivating a dead list by text: 3–8% of contacted leads book. Use the low end. If the low end still makes you flinch, that's the point.
| Line | Your number | Worked example |
|---|---|---|
| A. Estimates sent in the last 12 months that never became a job | __________ | 60 |
| B. Your average job value (full replacement runs $8,000–$25,000; use YOUR number) | $__________ | $10,000 |
| C. Conservative revive rate — write in 0.03 (3%) | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| D. Jobs recoverable (A × C, round down) | __________ | 60 × 0.03 = 1.8 → call it 1–2 jobs |
| E. Recoverable revenue (D × B) | $__________ | $10,000–$20,000 |
That's the floor — one small list, the worst-case rate, one pass. For scale: the published industry benchmark case is 850 old estimates → 32 booked jobs → roughly $126k in 14 days. That's a big list and a well-run campaign, not a promise. But the mechanism is the same one you're holding.
And one more number before you scroll on: whatever you wrote on line E, you already paid the ad cost to create it. At $124–$300 per lead, a 60-quote pile represents $7,400–$18,000 in marketing spend currently earning nothing.
Your line E: $__________. That's what the rest of this worksheet is for.
Part 3
How to revive them yourself
This works. It's not a teaser — it's the actual process. The catch isn't the method, it's the discipline of doing it every week. More on that at the end.
Before you send anything, two rules that aren't optional:
Prior relationship only
Text only people who contacted YOU — requested a quote, got an estimate, hired you before. Never a purchased list, never a scraped list. That's the legal line and the decency line, and they're the same line.
Opt-out from message one
Your first text includes "Reply STOP to opt out." Anyone who replies STOP comes off the list permanently, same day, no exceptions. (If you're texting at volume from a business number, that number should be A2P 10DLC registered — your phone provider or CRM can do this. Registered numbers honor STOP automatically.)
Step 1
Pull the list (30 minutes)
Export every estimate from the last 12–18 months that didn't become a job. From JobNimbus, AccuLynx, spreadsheets, wherever they live. Delete anyone who: told you no explicitly, already hired someone (if you know), asked not to be contacted, or has a wrong number. What's left is your revival list. Even 40–50 names is enough to start.
Step 2
Segment by recency (15 minutes)
Two buckets. Warm (0–6 months): they still remember your face — text these first, they revive best. Cool (6–18 months): still worth texting, but lead with a reason to re-engage — season, weather, a price check before material costs move. If any bucket ties to storm damage or an insurance claim, flag it — those have natural urgency and bigger job values ($15,000–$25,000+).
Step 3
Send the first text
Personal, specific, short. You're a roofer they already met — sound like one. Send from your real business number, during business hours, and reference their actual estimate.
Template 1 — the warm reopener (0–6 month bucket)
Template 2 — the seasonal reopener (6–18 month bucket)
Swap the season for whatever's real in your market. Don't invent urgency — the weather provides plenty.
Step 4
Answer fast, close human
Replies come back within minutes or not at all. When one lands, respond inside 5 minutes if you possibly can — homeowners hire the roofer who answers first (78% go with the first responder; lead-response research). The text reopens the door. The phone call closes the job. Never try to close by text. Track everything in one ugly spreadsheet: name, date texted, replied Y/N, booked Y/N, job value. Four columns. That sheet is your proof this works.
Step 5
Follow up, then repeat weekly
No reply after 3–4 days? Send one gentle nudge (“No rush — want me to just email over the updated number?”). Deals close on attempt 3–5; one text is not a campaign. After three total touches with silence, retire the contact. Anyone who says STOP is out instantly. Then put 30 minutes on your calendar, same day every week: new dead quotes in, texts out, sheet updated. The list refills itself — every week you're in business, quotes go quiet. The roofers who win at this aren't better texters. They just never skip the 30 minutes.
Do it weekly — or have it run itself
Everything above works if you work it. That's the honest catch: the method is simple, and the failure mode is the same one that created the dead pile in the first place — a busy week, a skipped session, and the list goes cold again. If you've got the discipline, this worksheet is all you need, and we mean that.
If you'd rather it just run — the pull, the segmenting, the texts, the fast replies routed to your phone, the tracking — that's the thing we build. We run the reactivation campaign on your existing list first (100+ aged contacts is the sweet spot). If your reactivation campaign doesn't put at least one estimate on your calendar within 30 days of launch, you don't pay another cent — and we refund your setup fee. Either way, do the math section. Fifteen minutes to find out what's sitting in your CRM is worth it whether you ever talk to us or not.
15 minutes, no deck — and if the math doesn't work for your company, we'll tell you that too.