What happens to a quote after you send it, and why nobody measures it

Try this

Ask anyone in the building two questions. How many quotes went out last quarter? How many turned into orders?

Almost no firm can answer the second one. Which means nobody is managing the most expensive moment in the business: the point where you have already paid to win the enquiry, priced the work, and sent the number.

Where quotes actually die

Most lost quotes are not lost on price. They just never come back. The buyer got busy, the project slipped, a competitor followed up and you did not.

Follow-up fails for a boring reason: it depends on a person remembering, during a busy week, to chase a quote from three weeks ago. Some weeks that happens. Most weeks it does not.

The fix

Take remembering out of it. Every quote gets a chase sequence the moment it is sent: a call scheduled, an email that references the actual job, a check-in that keeps going until there is a yes or a no.

Not one reminder after a week. A sequence that runs as long as your sales cycle does, automatically, with the salesperson stepping in when the buyer responds.

Firms that do this find the same thing: a meaningful share of “dead” quotes were never dead. Nobody had asked.