Hopecraft is a tool a homeowner uses before they ring anybody: they type their address, get a true 3D model of their actual house, design the extension on it, and see honest costs and the planning position — at their own kitchen table. What reaches a builder afterwards is a brief he can price from, from someone who has already faced the numbers — and it goes to one builder, not to a list.
Here are six ways to count what that's worth. Same story each time, measured differently.
Today the builder can't tell which enquiry is which until he's driven out, measured up and written a number — so all ten get the hours, and seven were never real. With Hopecraft the sorting happens before the phone rings: the daydreamers meet a realistic cost band at home and quietly drop out. Same ten households, same job — but the dead seven never cost him an evening.
| Ten enquiries | Without Hopecraft | With Hopecraft |
|---|---|---|
| Never real | 7 — discovered after a visit each | 7 — filtered out at their kitchen table, before any visit |
| Borderline | 2 — visited, then stall | 2 — arrive with budget and planning already faced |
| Real job | 1 | 1+ (see 05) |
| Hours spent | 30 | ~9 |
| Hours per won job | 30 | ~9 |
Quoting the never-real seven costs 21 of the month's 30 quoting hours — usually evenings and weekends, and priced into every job he does win. At a £40/hour charge-out equivalent, dead quotes burn about £840 a month, over £10,000 a year, of billable-grade time finding out that nothing was there.
| Monthly ledger | Without | With |
|---|---|---|
| Quotes priced | 10 | ~3 (the real ones) |
| Hours quoting | 30 | 9 |
| Hours on never-real enquiries | 21 | ~0 |
| Recovered time @ £40/h | — | £840/mo · £10k+/yr |
Flip it round: hold the quoting time fixed at 30 hours a month and ask what those hours buy. Today: ten quotes, three genuine, one job. Fill the same 30 hours with pre-qualified enquiries only — every one real, dimensioned, budget stated — and they buy ten quotes, all genuine: about three jobs at the same one-in-three win rate. The diary didn't change; what filled it did.
| The same 30 hours | Filled by the phone | Filled by qualified briefs |
|---|---|---|
| Quotes priced | 10 | 10 |
| Of which genuine | 3 | 10 |
| Jobs won (1-in-3 on genuine) | 1 | ~3 |
| Jobs per quoting hour | 0.03 | 0.10 |
Measure by trips. Ten visits a month, one becomes a job: a 10% strike rate, with fuel and mornings carrying the other nine. Qualified up front, he visits only enquiries that survived the cost band — and each visit starts half-finished, because the dimensions, the wall, the planning flags and the budget arrived on paper first.
| Per month | Without | With |
|---|---|---|
| Site visits made | 10 | 3–4 |
| Visits to never-real enquiries | 7 | 0 |
| Jobs won | 1 | 1–2 |
| Strike rate per visit | 10% | ~30–50% |
The strongest version, because it grows the top line rather than defending the bottom. The two borderline enquiries were real intent with wrong expectations — a budget out by half, or a planning surprise waiting at week six. The tool repairs rather than merely filters: the honest cost band resets the budget before the visit, and the permitted-development flag turns "the council said no" into a known step. If one of the two becomes quotable, the job count doubles without a single new enquiry existing, and with no extra marketing spend during the pilot.
| Ten enquiries | Without | With |
|---|---|---|
| Real job, ready now | 1 | 1 |
| Borderline | 2 → both stall | 2 → ~1 repaired, quotable |
| Jobs won per ten enquiries | 1 | 2 |
| Extra marketing spend | — | £0 during the pilot |
Small monthly numbers hide the annual truth. Seven dead quotes a month is 84 a year; at three hours each that's 252 hours — more than a full working month, every year, spent proving that enquiries weren't real. Give a builder his month back and he can build with it, quote with it, or go home with it. All three beat the current use.
| Per year | Without Hopecraft |
|---|---|
| Enquiries that were never real | 84 |
| Hours spent finding that out | 252 |
| Equivalent working days | ~31 — a working month plus |
| What the homeowner paid for that time | Nothing — it's priced into won jobs |
Every number above is illustrative and says so. If your real numbers are different — and they will be — that's exactly the conversation worth having. Drag these to yours: