Emailer: Hi, we need a big site (Over 10 acres in 7 parcels) with a lot of detail topo'd and a boundary survey. Our regular survey company is booked out and we need it by the end of the month. do you think you can accommodate us?
Me: Yes, I think we can make that happen. Attached is our proposal. We will need a signed proposal and a 50% deposit to get started.
Emailer: Thank you for the quick response, we're still waiting on a couple of other proposals.
How do the good people of the board respond to potential clients that are in a big hurry, but they're price shopping?
I've got a good mind to tell him sorry, we just picked up another big job and won't be able to get to you for another month...
TIA
Dougie
If they're requesting a quick turn-around, I set the proposal's expiration accordingly. I've gone as low as three days in an extreme case.
I remind myself that I'm likely pricing things too low if my clients jump on every proposal, but it's still hard not to let price shopping become personal.
50% up front for new clients without a valid payment history, and they don't get in front of the bread and butter clients. I have seen the "jump on it right now, work all night pricing" for some who wanted it "right freaking now". They went somewhere else.
I just give them the terms of my “yes”. This quoted off the top of my head in a typical proposal:
“If we receive the signed contract and non-refundable 50% retainer fee on or before 07.31.2023, then we anticipate completing the survey (weather/workload dependent) on or before 08.31.2023.”
If we learn that these are price shoppers after that, hope they miss the 07/31 deadline and remember this in future.
Here is a conversation I just had last week with a local friend who has a long time remodel business:
It occurs to me, that I never ask my potential clients directly, “are you getting proposals from other firms”?
That feels yucky, somehow.
But, maybe I should. The answer would certainly save me a lot of time up front on jobs I’ll never get.
It also occurs to me that your software engineer “might” almost “have to” shop around so that he can fill a spreadsheet for comparison, maybe not.
How do you figure out if you are being shopped?
I usually just assume that I am, then when I actually win a signed contract, I find out that I probably wasn’t. Or, I can assume based on repeat clients, etc.
Happy Friday!
~
We straight up ask if they are getting other bids. Some lie. And you can approach it asking if they’ve done this kind of work before and who they used and why they aren’t using them again.
If they're requesting a quick turn-around, I set the proposal's expiration accordingly. I've gone as low as three days in an extreme case.
That's a good idea. I don't think we set expiration dates on our proposals, but most of our work is for existing clients...
When we see the random rush job or what appears to be a price-shopper, it's not unusual to spend just barely enough time to get a decent idea of what it will cost in the worst-case scenario, then bump that number by a good chunk (like minimum of 20 or 30%, sometimes as high as double) to make sure that if we do by some chance get the work, it'll be worth our while.
I've got a good mind to tell him sorry, we just picked up another big job and won't be able to get to you for another month...
It's probably more profitable in the long run to tell them that.
My profitability has soared once I stopped bidding jobs. Simply the act of bidding is overhead that cuts into your bottom line. Jobs not won equate to money lost.
I give out estimates, but no longer do I bid and spend that time being the company setting a bottom line price for the bid winners.
The companies heavy into bidding construction all seem to fade away. I chatted with a new surveyor that worked for a company with over a hundred surveyors, they are no longer in business. The next place he worked for sluffed off the surveyors and they were construction focused with their surveying. Now he's working for an engineering firm, being a gofer for enginerds seems to be a sad way to go through life.
The next place he worked for sluffed off the surveyors and they were construction focused with their surveying.
I think you may have hit on one of the reasons JB's classes aren't drawing any new students. They can get a prevailing wage job, on a construction site; making a lot more money to start, with little or no education.
On the other side of that coin; who's going to pay those kinds of wages to someone doing lot surveys?
It's a catch 22
Jobs not won equate to money lost.
I understand your point. But, I think Uncle Paden has also commented along these lines, “I’ve never lost a dollar on a job I did not get (“win”)…”
In another life, I worked for a mid-sized engineering firm. We spent at least 80 man-hours developing a scope and budget for an 80 mile RR ROW job for the Navy, in Bremerton. Shelton to Gorst; they gave the job to somebody else...
In another life, I worked for a mid-sized engineering firm. We spent at least 80 man-hours developing a scope and budget for an 80 mile RR ROW job for the Navy, in Bremerton. Shelton to Gorst; they gave the job to somebody else.
I once wrote an elaborate scope and fee proposal for interior building survey of over 3,000 points inside multiple multi-story buildings for a government agency to test building interior navigation systems for first responders.
The engineers I wrote the proposal for were then told by purchasing that they couldn't sole-source the project and had to issue it publicly. The RFP specification language looked very similar to my original scope. AND it was issued as a small business set aside contract and we didn't qualify.
The happy ending is no small businesses submitted proposals due to the technical complexity and when it was issued as an open solicitation nine months later, I eventually got the job.
Hard to click “like” on those two stories, but I did it anyway.
What a world we live in.
Seems like work comes and goes like waves.
these lines, “I’ve never lost a dollar on a job I did not get (“win”)…”
Depends on the hours spent bidding.
There were some boundary RFP's from the BLM that required a bid and a bunch effort put into qualifying.
The one I really wanted was close and I put in what I thought was a very competitive bid.
They decided to pull the job.
Many hours went into that one. Total waste of time.
Never again; those RFP's find the circular file quickly.
I always feel stupid after going through some of those processes.
If I had to rank profitability I would go:
1. Oil and gas
3. Utilities
3. Ranch Boundaries/permitting
4. DOT legal work
5. Good developers/subdivisions/BLA's ect.
6. Mining (a dying industry)
7. Another dying surveying task-Large Mapping
9. Lot surveys
10. Construction
I'm not ranking ALTA's, I don't do them enough to even say.
Nothing is better than an oil well stake that's missing, drive 100 miles, plunk in a stake, drive back, all T&M, and they pay on time.
I once had at least $5000 into winning a multi-year contract for USFS surveys. At the last minute we were shifted to an eastern region of the state instead of the local, western, region we were led to believer we were getting. Told to "gear up" for a lot of fire related resurveys we never heard from the USFS again until the next qualification cycle came around.
I declined to participate!
