Let’s talk about some strategies that will help you win more job bids.
Use the Local Contractor Advantage
If you are bidding on certain types of local municipality or government work, you may have a local contractor advantage if the job is in your own hometown. This means that your bid can be a certain amount higher (5% is typical) and you would still be selected over a lower cost bid. So if you’re a local contractor and you know that you’re going to be competing against some out of town contractors, you’ve got a 5% advantage. You may be 4 or 5% higher than a low bidder, but you’re going to get it because you’re within that 5% range.
When you notice a bid package come out and it has that advantage to it, you need to pay attention to it because there’s potential to pick up work by using the local contractor advantage.
If you’re an out of town contractor and you’re really interested in a job and they do offer a 5% advantage, you should go ahead and prepare your bid like you normally would. Figure your labor, your materials, your equipment, your overhead – everything just like you normally would. At that point, you would go back and look and see where in your bid you could cut that 5% and still feel comfortable that you are submitting a profitable bid.
Keep Records of Your Bids
Record what happens in the bidding process. I record mine on a regular basis. In most cases, when you are doing a certain type of work, you’re generally bidding against the same contractors year round. I like to keep my bid tabs from each job, and look back at the bid items that I was beat on. Where did so-and-so beat me and how did he beat me?
Then the next time you have a job similar to that one and you know you’re going to be bidding against these contractors again, try to figure out ways to get more creative. Maybe you need to put some different people in place to speed up production. Maybe you just need to add more people. Maybe you didn’t have enough labor or enough personnel on the project to do it in the time the project required.
Don’t Bid Too Low
Although you certainly want to try to get the work, coming in too low can be to your disadvantage. For one thing, even if you get the job you might not make any money. But for another thing it might even get your bid kicked out if you are too much lower than everyone else. Some municipalities or some governments will throw your bid out if you are more than 10% lower than the next lowest bid. They look at it like you may have missed something.
Present a Professional Quality Bid
Present yourself professionally in everything you do. Send your bid in a professional quality format that clearly provides the information that is expected in the request. Email it to the project owner or General Contractor. ProfitDig does this for you. Just sayin’….
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