07/07/26: DBM Growth Workshop - Sales Coaching with Brad Huebner

Intro

This client-only Mastermind welcomed guest expert Brad Huebner of Hammer & Grind to walk through his Profit Sales System, a framework for moving away from free estimates and toward a paid consultation model. This isn't about tactics; it's about understanding what's really driving your close rate and your time investment before a job ever gets signed.

Why This Matters

Every hour spent driving to a job, walking a property, and building an estimate is an hour that has a real dollar value attached to it, whether or not that job ever closes. Builders who treat every lead the same way, regardless of how serious the prospect actually is, end up spending the most time on the people least likely to hire them. Shifting how and when you qualify a lead changes the entire economics of your sales process.

What's Happening

1. The Real Cost of "Free"

In a traditional sales process, a lead comes in, gets a phone call, gets a site visit, and then gets a full estimate, often before you know whether they are financially or emotionally ready to move forward. Depending on the size and complexity of the job, that entire process can represent several hours of owner or salesperson time. At a reasonable hourly value for an owner's time, that adds up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars spent before you know if the job will close.

2. Moving the Qualification Point Earlier

The fix is not to skip estimates, it's to move the moment of commitment earlier in the process. Instead of jumping straight to a site visit, a short discovery call comes first. On that call, the builder gathers the information needed to understand the project, the timeline, and the decision makers, and then asks for a commitment (a paid consultation or on-site visit) before investing further time. This single shift dramatically reduces wasted hours on leads that were never going to convert.

3. Why the Consultation Fee Has to Matter

A consultation charge only works as a filter if it's meaningful. A token fee doesn't change behavior, because it doesn't cost the prospect anything to say yes. The fee should be set high enough to cover the time an estimate actually takes, and high enough that a homeowner who isn't serious will opt out on their own. Builders who offer design work as part of their estimate should treat that as a separate, chargeable deliverable, since a design is a tangible asset the homeowner keeps regardless of whether they hire you.

4. Asking Questions That Uncover Readiness

The discovery call works because of the questions asked, not because of a script that pressures anyone into a decision. Questions like "who else is involved in this decision" help identify whether every decision maker is present before momentum is lost. Questions like "how long have you been thinking about this project" and "have you worked with a contractor before" reveal financial readiness, expectations, and whether extra education is needed before a prospect can move forward. None of these questions are about pressuring a sale; they are about understanding where the prospect actually stands.

5. Giving a Ballpark to Find the Real Budget

Sharing a wide price range early in the conversation, anchored high and then followed by a lower figure, isn't about predicting the final price. It's about surfacing the prospect's real budget so both sides know whether the conversation is worth continuing. Once a range is shared, staying quiet and letting the prospect respond matters more than anything said afterward. Talking through that pause often erases the progress the rest of the call built.

6. Listening More Than You Talk

The builders who close the most work tend to be the ones asking good questions and listening, not the ones delivering the most information. A homeowner should be doing the majority of the talking on a sales call. When a builder does most of the talking, the conversation shifts from a consultative discussion to a simple order-taking exercise, which is exactly what leads to being compared on price alone.

Key Takeaway

There's no single right answer here, it depends on who is doing the selling and what you're trying to accomplish. If you're an owner wearing every hat in the business, including sales, a paid consultation protects the one resource you can't get back: your own time. Every unpaid estimate you drive to is time not spent running the business. But if you have a sales team or appointment setters, especially ones on commission, that math changes. Their job is to get reps and go out on calls, so charging a fee to filter leads can actually work against you by reducing the volume they need to close deals.

There's also a marketing angle worth considering. If most of the builders in your market have moved to paid consultations, offering a free estimate can become a point of differentiation, especially if you're newer to a market and trying to build volume and visibility. The right approach isn't about following a trend, it's about matching your sales structure and growth stage to the model that actually serves it.

What to Look At in Your Business

Who is actually doing your sales calls, you as the owner, an admin, or a dedicated sales rep? Your answer should shape whether a paid consultation makes sense.
If you have sales reps or appointment setters on commission, does charging for consultations help or hurt their ability to generate volume?
If you're the one wearing the sales hat along with everything else, how much of your week is going toward estimates that never turn into jobs?
What are your competitors in your market doing, mostly free estimates, mostly paid? Is there an opportunity to differentiate either way?
If you switched models tomorrow, would your current lead volume support that shift, or would you need to rebuild your marketing around it first?
Do you have a documented process for qualifying leads before committing time, regardless of who is running the call?
Do you currently charge for estimates or consultations? If not, what would a fair fee look like based on the time your estimates actually take?
Does your intake process include a discovery call before any site visit is scheduled?
Are you asking questions that reveal who the real decision makers are before investing time in a full estimate?
When you give a price range, are you anchoring high first, or defaulting to your lowest number?
On a typical sales call, are you talking more than your prospect is?
Do you have a documented, repeatable sales process that your team follows consistently, regardless of how busy or slow the week is?

Resources For You

Brad shared a few of his own tools directly with the group. If you want to put what he covered into practice, start here.

No BS Guide - the nine questions Brad uses on every discovery call to separate serious buyers from tire kickers.
The S.A.C.R.E.D. Process - why sticking to a documented sales process, even when it's tempting to make exceptions, is what keeps a pipeline predictable.
The Profit Sales System Flow Charts - three versions of the sales process, depending on whether you're the one selling, you have an admin handling calls, or you run a dedicated sales team.