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Bidding work

3

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
I bid jobs, and some owners say fine, do it. Then others start whining about the cost. today I looked at a job. I can cut the weeds, but tree and brush work will need to be done by a tree company with a chipper. The guy owns a very expensive lot in La Costa Ca, and starts in by saying it was cut two years ago. The brush regrew, and the Fire Dep. decided it needed to be done again not me, I told him. Then he starts in about the cost, again I told him I have no control what someone else charges. I didn't tell him I am raising my price 15.00 this year yet. On the way to see the work, I see a hose going up on a rock pile lot I have done for a few years. I won't miss that one. Stan
 
37chief I get the same whining around here, when I am looking at and pricing and bidding landscaping work and the customer starts whining about the price, the price go's up! oh and don't forget to pay chief :lol:
 
Not trying to start something here, but it sounds a little like you are doing a bit of whining too. Dealing with customers is part of the job. They want it for less, you want more. I mean, right?
 
Sometimes it is hard to except that losing bad customers is okay for business. It is a fine line, but customers who take a lot of your time in the bidding process or don't like to pay are not worth having. Having the attitude that the customer is always right is fine but I only allow them to be right once. I don't give them a second chance to convince me they are right a second time.
 
When I spend 2 1/2 hours includes leaving my place, and returning for 150.00. Plus if I have a helper I don't think I am whining. stan
 
"On the way to see the work, I see a hose going up on a rock pile lot I have done for a few years. I won't miss that one. Stan"
Sorry, Stan that one went over my head. What does it mean?
 

I have a friend who is a very successful builder. He works up a price for the prospective customer, gets the approval, then comes back with some thing that he forgot to put in. If that works he'll come back a few days later with something else, bigger money this time. He keeps going until they scream then backs off a little.
 
Change order contractor, sooner or later that gets old real quick, no way to conduct a contracting business. If a competent/experienced contractor can't pin down the complete scope of work, inclusions/exclusions, minus unforseen conditions or changes by the customer/owner,that contractor is really doing the customer a dis-service.

Then again, some people you can't please no matter what. I am managing a job for GSA in a federal building for the US Marshals Service and we excluded a portion of the work clearly in the contract. The owner of the GC firm we have the contract with states he was misled, thinks that we included it, yet the contract says different. What set him off was the price we gave him to do it.
 
(quoted from post at 13:48:39 02/15/18) I bid jobs, and some owners say fine, do it. Then others start whining about the cost. today I looked at a job. I can cut the weeds, but tree and brush work will need to be done by a tree company with a chipper. The guy owns a very expensive lot in La Costa Ca, and starts in by saying it was cut two years ago. The brush regrew, and the Fire Dep. decided it needed to be done again not me, I told him. Then he starts in about the cost, again I told him I have no control what someone else charges. I didn't tell him I am raising my price 15.00 this year yet. On the way to see the work, I see a hose going up on a rock pile lot I have done for a few years. I won't miss that one. Stan
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found out a long time ago if you can't make them happy during the estimating/bidding phase you will never make them happy. Many times I simply refused to bid, a few time's I withdrew the bid. Never lost money on the ones you don't get but can loose your tail on the ones you beg for.
 
an old contractor I worked for used to say "there is a big difference between bidding a job and buying a job". there are a lot of contractors up here that will low ball bid a job hoping to make it up on extras and change orders and when they don't come they usually go under with their suppliers eating a lot of money on material and supplies. they end up in bankruptcy and reamerge under a new name 3 months later.
 
(quoted from post at 15:59:24 02/15/18) Change order contractor, sooner or later that gets old real quick, no way to conduct a contracting business. If a competent/experienced contractor can't pin down the complete scope of work, inclusions/exclusions, minus unforseen conditions or changes by the customer/owner,that contractor is really doing the customer a dis-service.

Then again, some people you can't please no matter what. I am managing a job for GSA in a federal building for the US Marshals Service and we excluded a portion of the work clearly in the contract. The owner of the GC firm we have the contract with states he was misled, thinks that we included it, yet the contract says different. What set him off was the price we gave him to do it.
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Yeah, except some customers demand you under bid or you're out of the game. I'm talking multi million dollar contracts with big companies. Then once you have the job you have to study the contract and make sure you pick up all the extra work you are asked to do. I was working for a large oil company one time when they thought they'd cut a fat hog by bidding refinery turnaround work for a fixed price. They were all smug until they opened the bids and analyzed them. I went to PA to a meeting and asked the main guy during a break in our meeting how their plan was going. I said it's funny how the low bidder has the highest extra work rates and is a scam artist and the reasonable bidder has the reasonable extra work rates and is an honest contractor. He said "how'd you know?" and was angry. I told him I had done a little contracting work and wasn't born yesterday. I got in trouble because they thought I had somehow seen their bids and was making fun of him. Of course they had to take the low bid, and could not bring themselves to estimate at least some extras. The contractor made a killing on the job, $20 million project with $30 million in extras. And they guy I had talked to got fired. I got fired too for sneaking a peak at their bids. Ha ha ha ha. I always found another job.
 
A small quoting fee for time consuming quotes, discounted at completion of a work order, can weed out the worst of the cheapskates/time wasters. It does not have to be much, just enough to cover most of your actual time and travel costs to write a quote. Paid quotes are most effective when a business is either swamped with more work than it can handle, or when no one is buying anything from anyone.
 
I used to do quite a bit of welding here in my shop. I had a flat rate and stuck to it. If a prospective customer wanted to whine about the estimate I gave him, I would tell him that I just didn't have time right now to get to it and he'd be better off to go somewhere else. If they persisted, I'd do the job but raise the estimate nearly double and when they questioned it I'd tell them it's to help pay for the aggravation of dealing with a cheapskate. They would usually see the funny side and I get their job done for them. If not, Oh well didn't need the hassle anyway, finally quit and just do mine now that I'm retired.
 
If bidding the work is part of a person's chosen occupation he must expect to get some and lose some. You will go broke if you get no work, but so will you if you are low on every job.
 
Used to get called to blow snow with tractor and blower, never advertised. I told them that I don't do looking for work off the farm , but if they can't find anyone that does this kind of work , I wouldn't see them stuck. I charged $60.00 per hour from the time I left my yard , till I finished their drive way. Some of these homes were rentals , up long farm lanes. I always told the folks I needed the payment in cash dollars in my hand when I was done. And if I thought that I might get jerked around for the money, I would leave the last 40-50 feet of driveway full of snow, and walk to the house and collect my money, then finish the job. Never got cheated out of my pay, got told off a couple times, lol. And told I was taking advantage of them, next time they called , I would just remind the guy about how unhappy he was with my work last time , and maybe he should call someone else. These people were not neighbours , just renters looking for a cheap house, and had no idea about the hidden cost of living outside of town.
 
I've got a lawn care business on the side. I try to figure how long its going to take me to mow, weedeat and blow off everything. I normally charge $40/ hour. Unless there is a lot of weedeating. Then the price goes up. I've been doing this since I was 12(I'm now 30). If it's a big yard I'll take on a little extra on the bid just to make sure I'm not shorting myself. If someone doesn't like it fine. Get someone else. If I had to go buy everything new today and start over I'd spend close to $30k for what's hooked to the back of my truck. A lot of people think everyone has a lawnmower from walmart. I don't care if I get the business or not now. I'm going to make money at it or I'll stay home.
 
Sounds like the oil company didn't know how to assemble a bid. We get bids with alternates all the time. As a private company they don't have to take the lowest bid.
 
How does he get away with "he forgot to include", all he'd get from us is "I bet you remember to include it next time" - he'd eat what he forgot to include in his bid.
 
Change orders are used when the scope changes - and the owner/engineer sets the scope. Anyone allowing change orders without changing the scope has no business managing a project.

We work on hard bids to municipalities, they usually have an engineer write the scope of work and all work is bonded. If you screw up and find that the 5 mile of pipe that is to buried 8 foot is on a rock ledge that sits 3' down and you didn't build that into your bid you eat it. Walk off the project and the bonding company takes over and they take your house.
 
(quoted from post at 10:21:59 02/16/18) How does he get away with "he forgot to include", all he'd get from us is "I bet you remember to include it next time" - he'd eat what he forgot to include in his bid.
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He doesn't work for construction management companies or prime contractors. He is the prime contractor and he works for homeowners, and pretty much just very well off homeowners. A few years ago he was on a pretty big remodeling and addition job for nearly a year, and he was able to buy a moderate sized Komatsu excavator, dozer, truck and trailer, off the profit from that one job.
 
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