Good Estimate

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You have to look at your performance over a period of time, not just one bid. If you find that you come in at the bottom consistently you need to look at what you are doing wrong. If you are consistently second or third with a few wins I would say that you are right where you should be.

-Hal
 
hbiss said:
You have to look at your performance over a period of time, not just one bid. If you find that you come in at the bottom consistently you need to look at what you are doing wrong. If you are consistently second or third with a few wins I would say that you are right where you should be.

-Hal
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Makes sense thanks
 
readydave8 said:
I don't want to work for customer that is looking for cheapest electrician and have often thought middle bid is likely the correct price
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If you are bidding a project for a commercial GC they only take the lowest responsible bidder.

If you are bidding on something for a homeowner, they play that game with you.

-Hal
 
I think it's good to occasionally compare with someone. Maybe a coworker, boss, peer, etc.

I freelanced some estimating back in 2009-2010. After not winning a few, the boss told me he wanted to figure one as well as me, on a restaurant.

After I got it done, I called him to compare.
He was at $128k
I was at $131k
He was surprised how close we were, and submitted my number

We didn't win it.
He found out the winning bid was $45k

We had the right number, it just happened that someone came along and put his own neck in a guillotine.
 
James L said:
We had the right number, it just happened that someone came along and put his own neck in a guillotine.
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Yup. And that right there is where the term "responsible bidder" comes in. A GC or owner knows what the job is worth and doesn't want to do business with someone who is going to lose his shirt halfway through the job. Likely in that case the bid will be thrown out and the next lowest bidder chosen.

About that time you hear from the first bidder about how they missed some item somewhere.

-Hal
 
hbiss said:
If you are bidding a project for a commercial GC they only take the lowest responsible bidder.

If you are bidding on something for a homeowner, they play that game with you.

-Hal
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Not true unless your bidding jobs "off the street".
 
hbiss said:
No such thing as a "right" number. Do you mean the winning number, the lowest bid? How your number compares to the others?

-Hal
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In my opinion, contacting will guarantee that you will eventually go broke. It's like that old series on TV ... "Can You Name That Tune in Three Notes". That's why I changed to service & maintenance.
 
mtnelect said:
In my opinion, contacting will guarantee that you will eventually go broke. It's like that old series on TV ... "Can You Name That Tune in Three Notes". That's why I changed to service & maintenance.
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Different strokes for different folks. If all I did was service work, I’d make a fraction of what I make now.
 
hbiss said:
Yup. And that right there is where the term "responsible bidder" comes in. A GC or owner knows what the job is worth and doesn't want to do business with someone who is going to lose his shirt halfway through the job. Likely in that case the bid will be thrown out and the next lowest bidder chosen.

About that time you hear from the first bidder about how they missed some item somewhere.

-Hal
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You're one of the rare ones here that understand that commercial GC's don't just run with the low bidder. Most GC's have a list of "responsible EC's" that they trust their numbers and ability to do the job. I would get call from GC's to tell me my number is out of whack and may have missed something. Sure enough, I did. A lot of folks here think you can low-ball and then kill them on CO's. That's the last thing a GC wants...is to look bad to the owner
 
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