Rant: I used to hand every new Detroit client a 3 page contract, now it's a 5 line text and my close rate doubled
Spent 4 years watching people in Corktown ghost me after I emailed over those long PDFs, so last spring I switched to just texting the price, the date, and what I won't do, and now 8 out of 10 say yes on the spot, anybody else drop the paperwork and get better results?
Man, the part nobody talks about is what that text does to the type of client you end up with. When I ditched the contract my prices actually went up because the people who text back fast are the ones who already decided they want you, they just needed a number. The folks who want to "review the terms" were never gonna book anyway, they were shopping five people and using your PDF as free homework. Short text filters for people who move quick and pay quick. The scariest part is you lose the paper trail, so now I just screenshot the whole thread before I start any job.