Am I estimating too slow?

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Doc13067

Doc13067

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Bucks County/Philadelphia, PA USA
I’m an electrician (2 man show) in the philadelphia area and in the last couple of weeks we’ve gotten pretty busy after a slow spring. On the 13th I got a call from a prospective client asking about a generator. It just so happened I was passing his area when he called so I went right over to look at this generator job. When I arrived he explained it was actually three jobs that he may or may not do based on price. The first was a 200 A service, the second was a portable generator inlet with interlock kit, and the third was an auto standby generator (for which I have to do a load calculation, btu calculation, and then determine the appropriate size needed and work up the quote from there. On the 23rd I reached out with a question and he’d already hired someone else. I have a feeling that he was window shopping with that list of 3 separate jobs for me to work up quotes for. But my concern is, was i way too slow with this or is the customer unreasonable to ask for a laundry list of prices and then give the job to someone else in 10 calendar days?
 
Doc13067 said:
I’m an electrician (2 man show) in the philadelphia area and in the last couple of weeks we’ve gotten pretty busy after a slow spring. On the 13th I got a call from a prospective client asking about a generator. It just so happened I was passing his area when he called so I went right over to look at this generator job. When I arrived he explained it was actually three jobs that he may or may not do based on price. The first was a 200 A service, the second was a portable generator inlet with interlock kit, and the third was an auto standby generator (for which I have to do a load calculation, btu calculation, and then determine the appropriate size needed and work up the quote from there. On the 23rd I reached out with a question and he’d already hired someone else. I have a feeling that he was window shopping with that list of 3 separate jobs for me to work up quotes for. But my concern is, was i way too slow with this or is the customer unreasonable to ask for a laundry list of prices and then give the job to someone else in 10 calendar days?
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The first 2 are a back of the hand estimate that'd I have to them same day. The second would've been a day more for pricing options. He probably was window shopping so don't beat yourself up I'm sure he already had someone scheduled when he called you.
 
Thank you. I just take in the data on site and when I have time I go back to it and build up the quote and of course I am anal and wanted to present all three on one document. I definitely need to get better at knowing them off the top of my head.
 
It could be that type of work just isn't in your wheelhouse, and taking long to get a price is just a symptom of that. I speak from experience on this.

Last year, on 5 seperate occasions, I was "hired" to upgrade a service after an off-the-cuff price. I say "hired" loosely brcause I was given the job verbally and I never take money upfront

I got a permit and tried to make time to get POCO scheduled for a pigtail. And each time - 5 seperate times - by the time I got back with the customer to inform them that their job was on my schedule, they already had the job done by someone else.

The fist time it happened I was furious. By the time it happened 5 times, I had to look at myself and realize I need to just tell people I don't do service upgrades. The time frame is too unpredictable for how I manage all the subcontract work I do, therefore I don't prioritize those kinds of leads/jobs.
 
James L said:
It could be that type of work just isn't in your wheelhouse, and taking long to get a price is just a symptom of that. I speak from experience on this.

Last year, on 5 seperate occasions, I was "hired" to upgrade a service after an off-the-cuff price. I say "hired" loosely brcause I was given the job verbally and I never take money upfront

I got a permit and tried to make time to get POCO scheduled for a pigtail. And each time - 5 seperate times - by the time I got back with the customer to inform them that their job was on my schedule, they already had the job done by someone else.

The fist time it happened I was furious. By the time it happened 5 times, I had to look at myself and realize I need to just tell people I don't do service upgrades. The time frame is too unpredictable for how I manage all the subcontract work I do, therefore I don't prioritize those kinds of leads/jobs.
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This sounds like a very good and honest take on yourself and I’m sure it assisted you in bringing out a solution. I did the same with plumbing jobs (I tried to be an electrician and a plumber simultaneously lol). But my primary area of expertise is Service jobs and panels so I’ve got a problem lol. In all honesty, it really was just the generator holding everything else up because I wanted to present everything at once. It extremely messed up what they did to you by the way, when you were arranging with the poco. I had that happened to me once and that customer is banned forever. I have another post on here about it if you care to see the annoying details.
 
Doc13067 said:
This sounds like a very good and honest take on yourself and I’m sure it assisted you in bringing out a solution. I did the same with plumbing jobs (I tried to be an electrician and a plumber simultaneously lol). But my primary area of expertise is Service jobs and panels so I’ve got a problem lol. In all honesty, it really was just the generator holding everything else up because I wanted to present everything at once. It extremely messed up what they did to you by the way, when you were arranging with the poco. I had that happened to me once and that customer is banned forever. I have another post on here about it if you care to see the annoying details.
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I remember a thread of yours not long ago where homeowner ran somebody else in on your permit. Very messed up
 
I asked a roofer for an estimate Feb 6.
On the 17th I hadn't heard from him so I followed up, he said he was working up some numbers.

Sometime in mid-late March, I was complaining to builder friend that I still hadn't got estimate. He arranged for the roofer that does his work to come look at job. This roofer gave me a price March 23, which I accepted.

Roofing work still has not started, I wonder if sheeting and rafters are more rotten than they were in February
 
I've tried to hire people to do various things to my property and never get responses. No reply after 1st contact. nothing. I just do it myself. So after 10 days I would assume someone wasn't interested to do my job.
 
James L said:
It could be that type of work just isn't in your wheelhouse, and taking long to get a price is just a symptom of that. I speak from experience on this.

Last year, on 5 seperate occasions, I was "hired" to upgrade a service after an off-the-cuff price. I say "hired" loosely brcause I was given the job verbally and I never take money upfront

I got a permit and tried to make time to get POCO scheduled for a pigtail. And each time - 5 seperate times - by the time I got back with the customer to inform them that their job was on my schedule, they already had the job done by someone else.

The fist time it happened I was furious. By the time it happened 5 times, I had to look at myself and realize I need to just tell people I don't do service upgrades. The time frame is too unpredictable for how I manage all the subcontract work I do, therefore I don't prioritize those kinds of leads/jobs.
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In hindsight, that was your biggest mistake. Upfront money locks the customer in. I'm not saying you should be dilatory about getting things done, but you're not burning time in the background to no good end.
 
gadfly56 said:
In hindsight, that was your biggest mistake. Upfront money locks the customer in. I'm not saying you should be dilatory about getting things done, but you're not burning time in the background to no good end.
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I'll take a down payment for large material orders and provide lean releases for the materials. It makes the customer feel like they're ahead and makes you feel the same way.
 
gadfly56 said:
In hindsight, that was your biggest mistake. Upfront money locks the customer in. I'm not saying you should be dilatory about getting things done, but you're not burning time in the background to no good end.
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I'm just so used to subcontracting that collecting money upfront doesn't even come to mind. I see my biggest mistake as going outside of the niche i've created for myself.
 
farmantenna said:
I've tried to hire people to do various things to my property and never get responses. No reply after 1st contact. nothing. I just do it myself. So after 10 days I would assume someone wasn't interested to do my job.
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Most contractors have more important things to get done like the jobs they already have going, not to sit there with there nose up your a**. Let them get there s*** done and they’ll get to you.
 
James L said:
I remember a thread of yours not long ago where homeowner ran somebody else in on your permit. Very messed up
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Man that was crazy. I showed up to mark the ground rod locations and the guy is doing the service. I was waiting on the poco and the township and this other guy is doing some rushed nonsense where he was keeping the original single family service and rerouting it instead of doing all new equipment for 3 units. I returned the remainder of the deposit and any materials I couldn’t return and kept 8 hours of labor for myself and cut all ties. I actually passed the other day and saw that his old stuff is gone. So it appears that they had to do it my way after all, only I wasn’t there to do it and they wasted time having this other guy do whatever he did.
 
I hired an estimator to do it for me, because I can't do it fast either. Some people have that talent, but not me. I lost way too many jobs before I hired someone to estimate for me. He doesn't use any software, he just looks at the job and I give him current materials pricing and he works up a quote for it, usually within a couple of days. If I end up doing it a different way than he was figuring and it costs more, I let him know and he takes that into consideration the next time.

If we can't get the bid to them within a couple of days, we let them know when we'll have it done. We use a software package that sends an email to the customer with the contract and lets us know when they accept it. Immediately after they accept the contract, we ask for a down payment of about 1/3 the total for jobs that are over a few hundred dollars (this is specified in the contract and made clear to them verbally also, before even sending it to them).
 
Mr. Serious said:
I hired an estimator to do it for me, because I can't do it fast either. Some people have that talent, but not me. I lost way too many jobs before I hired someone to estimate for me. He doesn't use any software, he just looks at the job and I give him current materials pricing and he works up a quote for it, usually within a couple of days. If I end up doing it a different way than he was figuring and it costs more, I let him know and he takes that into consideration the next time.

If we can't get the bid to them within a couple of days, we let them know when we'll have it done. We use a software package that sends an email to the customer with the contract and lets us know when they accept it. Immediately after they accept the contract, we ask for a down payment of about 1/3 the total for jobs that are over a few hundred dollars (this is specified in the contract and made clear to them verbally also, before even sending it to them).
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Do you have your estimator full time, or is he a contractor doing your bids piece work?
 
My estimator is part-time. He never wanted to be full time, because he was a retired electrical contractor and didn't want to work all the time anymore.
 
IMO, if you miss out on a job now and then because you are not in a position to quote it fast enough, thems is just the breaks. I would not get real excited about it unless it becomes a big number.

Personally, I think ten days is a long time to get an estimate for small projects like these. If i were the potential customer and heard nothing back for ten days after requesting an estimate for something like this, I would likely go elsewhere as well.
 
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