I want to pick your brains on some things I have always had trouble with. The main problem is that I am honest to a fault. Now don??t confuse me on this because some would say that honesty is a virtue and I don??t want to quibble with that point.
I find myself spending sometimes several hours of unpaid time developing a proposal that is reflective of what the client asks for and oftentimes what I know they are going to need. I try very hard to do some cursory research to find out what I am going to be faced with as far as records go and try to develop a price to do the job. I prepare a good written proposal.
The response probably 80% of the time is silence or a gasp at the price. Now I am a solo guy, so I know I am a lower than others around me so that is not even a point of consideration, but make no mistake I do not give my work away.
Now sometimes with some callers I will just tell them a range over the phone and ask them if they want me to develop a proper proposal. While other times, maybe I get suckered in by thinking these folks are serious, and I develop a proper proposal and it goes nowhere.
I kind of want to hear from you guys how you inform your potential clients of the costs without going to the time and effort of preparing a proposal & being able to find the price 6 months later if they call you.
I've got notepads galore and finding something easily months later is a pain & the ability to go back in time and see what you priced a job at is much easier with a proper proposal.?ÿ
With regard to the 6-months-later thing:?ÿ I usually compile all the proposal research and correspondence documents into a PDF and save it to a folder named (duh) Proposals.?ÿ I start the filename with the date of creation and follow that with a short description of the job and/or the client name.?ÿ So a proposal to topo the city hall parking lot created on September 15, 2017 might have the filename "20170915 City Hall Parking Topo."?ÿ That makes it easy to search for past proposals by file name or date.
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For complex proposals I'll create a subfolder in the Proposals folder using the naming scheme described above for the subfolder.?ÿ That allows me to store lots of documents that may be associated with the proposal.
I, too, prepare well thought out and precise proposals, because we are required by law in California to have written contracts.
I have been thanked for preparing such a detailed, proposal.
I also think people are "shopping around" my proposal.?ÿ I do the work, someone else gets the job for $50 less.
I never back down on a price.
I only keep proposals for less than a year.
I generally prefer to have a short time limit on my proposal offerings for acceptance.
What kind of time limit do you put on your proposals?
As for the folder on your computer for proposals.....well I do that already, have always done that. But how do you track the ones were they are folks that you know are just shopping for prices and you tell them a range without preparing a good and proper estimate and a month later they call you back and darn you don't remember cause you thought it was a fishing expedition??ÿ?ÿ
Edit: and back to the main question. How do you guys minimize time spent on developing a proposal knowing they are probably just gonna blow you off. I don't really like quoting a "range" but damn it is easier.
Whenever I gave a guesstimate over the phone, I would always qualify that it is a guess and that I'd have to do some research before I could give them a more solid estimate or fee quote.?ÿ In short, make sure they know that they can't hold you to whatever dollar amount you toss out.?ÿ Normally with someone who seemed to be just shopping around, I'd give a fairly broad range and explain that the actual cost would depend on several factors.?ÿ
A lot of people needing a survey have never hired a surveyor before and may never hire one after this one time, so they don't have much idea of what they need.?ÿ A lot of times, these people appreciate a few minutes of education.?ÿ When they're done shopping, that few minutes might earn you enough consideration in their hiring decision that if your real estimate is 50% more than the other guys, they may go with you because of a higher degree of confidence that you will do the job well and deal with them honestly.
If they didn't show any interest in knowing what's behind the fee amount, then I'd often say something like "The terrain and other conditions in this area varies a lot, so a property about the size of yours might cost as little as $1500 or as much as $50,000 to complete a survey.?ÿ Feel free to call me back when you're ready to discuss it in greater detail."
If someone calls back months later after I gave them a very rough number or range over the phone, we're back to square 1.?ÿ If they're ready to talk details, then we may get to square 2, preparing a real estimate.?ÿ Whatever number I gave before is essentially meaningless unless it's in a proposal I prepared.
Don't consider yourself bound to a rough guess fee amount that you allowed yourself to be coaxed into giving them over the phone when they weren't ready to be serious enough to work with you to determine just what they needed and for you to prepare a written proposal.?ÿ Allowing yourself to be bound to a rough oral estimate is not a matter of your honesty.?ÿ It would be a matter of your gullibility.?ÿ If the idea of not "honoring" your previously roughly guesstimated fee (even though they didn't honor you as a professional enough to properly discuss the details and understand what they were asking for) really bothers you, then any time, every time, habitually, and without exception, when you give an oral estimate, always, always, always qualify it clearly as being only a rough guess and that you can't give them a more accurate estimate without knowing more details.
Preparing a good estimate for a survey at a location that you're not already very familiar with conditions and circumstances takes a lot longer than the few minutes it takes to ask a few questions to determine if the person on the other end of the line is serious.?ÿ That 5 minutes or so it takes to learn if they are interested in giving you details or learning about what service they get for a certain fee amount can be a really good investment in saving time preparing proposals that have almost no chance of turning into paid work.
Put a "valid for" time period of no more than 6 months on your proposals.?ÿ After that, it's discretionary for you whether you honor that fee estimate or adjust it based on your rates having increased, your having learned something new about the location since preparing the proposal, or finding out that the prospective client is a PITA that you would rather not work with.
Throw away any post it notes with seemingly random $ figures on them as you run across them.?ÿ All they're good for is confusing you and giving you heartburn.
What you said:
so a property about the size of yours might cost as little as $1500 or as much as $50,000 to complete a survey.
What the potential client heard:
blah, blah,?ÿ $1500 , blah blah
?ÿAnd they are going to be quite upset if you tell them more after doing the research.
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and a month later they call you back and darn you don't remember cause you thought it was a fishing expedition??ÿ?ÿ
That's where the consolidated PDF is handy - it contains everything you used in preparing the estimate, even if that's only a text file that says, "He's fishing, I told him somewhere between $5 and $5M."?ÿ
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?ÿSo you fellas in California have to give a written proposal and I gotta ask; How is that enforceable?
It is easier to track but doubt if it can be enforced??ÿ
Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely in agreement and supportive with written proposals and contracts but I just have no clue how they can be enforced.
I have a small firm (me plus two employees) and end up giving quotes over the phone quite often. What I try to do is email the client as soon as we hang up with a "just to confirm what we just talked about" message. That way we both have it written, and the potential client has all my contact info. I can search through the emails to find it also if needed. One trouble with this is when I switched email services a few years ago I lost all my old emails.?ÿ
I also keep a spread sheet with very basic info for verbal proposals, just the date, name, phone, general description, price.
You could always send yourself a quick text or email message etc.?ÿ as a reminder that you gave such and such a price for the job .?ÿ ?ÿthat way, you can easily search when you have a minute to sit down and put it in the "proposals" folder that Jim mentioned.?ÿ?ÿ
I also used the heck out of the voice memo feature on my iphone.?ÿ ?ÿgreat for a forgetful guy like me.?ÿ?ÿ
?ÿSo you fellas in California have to give a written proposal and I gotta ask; How is that enforceable?
I would assume that if a complaint is filed the investigator would request a copy of the contract. One of the punch list items.
It is taken seriously, someone who has been investigated could answer better.
(there is no requirement for Proposals to be in writing)
Lost a good response. Not gonna get paid for that third of an hour of composition either. "network change -- hit reload to lose everything". Grrr.
The gist of it being, take a deposit before doing any research. With the new year I'm considering using Square Appointments to take a deposit before doing any research. If they want an appointment at their convenience, they can pay a deposit big enough to cover my time doing the research and my gas to drive over and see their mansion or their shack and listen to their story. No research without a deposit. More time for hunting and fishing.?ÿ
With regard to the 6-months-later thing:?ÿ I usually compile all the proposal research and correspondence documents into a PDF and save it to a folder named (duh) Proposals.?ÿ I start the filename with the date of creation and follow that with a short description of the job and/or the client name.?ÿ So a proposal to topo the city hall parking lot created on September 15, 2017 might have the filename "20170915 City Hall Parking Topo."?ÿ That makes it easy to search for past proposals by file name or date.
?ÿ
For complex proposals I'll create a subfolder in the Proposals folder using the naming scheme described above for the subfolder.?ÿ That allows me to store lots of documents that may be associated with the proposal.
Ah-ha, the "Filename Database"!?ÿ Works great if the user is also the sole data entry technician and is meticulous about the file name format, and the "database" is a few hundred(s) of?ÿ entries.?ÿ ?ÿThings can go awry if a half dozen people are entering items over the years (decades) and are sloppy concerning file name format (170915 <> 20170915), and the "database" grows to tens of thousands of entries.?ÿ?ÿ
Don't ask me why I know this ??ÿ
I agree that standards are easier to adhere to if only one person is involved, and that hardware/software changes can complicate things over long period of time.?ÿ But the value of a proposal declines with time, and after a certain point it's not worth trying to resurrect a stale proposal - a fresh look at the job is a better approach.
?ÿSo you fellas in California have to give a written proposal and I gotta ask; How is that enforceable?
I would assume that if a complaint is filed the investigator would request a copy of the contract. One of the punch list items.
It is taken seriously, someone who has been investigated could answer better.
(there is no requirement for Proposals to be in writing)
Like Peter said, no requirement for written proposals.?ÿ That's just the mechanism for reminding everyone what was talked about or stated in terms of scope, fees and other particulars.?ÿ If it's written, there's no need to rely on memory, and it avoids the problem of you and the client remembering differently (i.e. I remember saying "anywhere from $1500 to $50,000" and client remembers "Blah, blah, blah... $1500... blah, blah, blah").
We are required to have a written contract in place prior to commencing work.?ÿ There are some limited exceptions to that such as work for other design professionals, previous clients with whom you've previously done work under a written contract, and a couple other narrow categories.?ÿ But for most, the written contract is required.
I've been involved as an expert for several Board enforcement cases.?ÿ In most, there is some aspect of contractual problems involved.?ÿ The Executive Officer of our Board has stated many times in presentations regarding enforcement matters that contractual problems make up the vast majority of the violations the Board sees.
With few exceptions, most of those could have been avoided had the licensee made sure that an executed contract was in place prior to beginning work, and/or had they used a standard contract form as devised by the CLSA or one of 2 or 3 other societies that represent surveyors in CA.
As I said before, you can usually tell the shoppers from the serious within 5 minutes on the phone, and quite often within a minute.?ÿ Whenever you provide a number to the folks who seem like shoppers, make sure it's very vague and you state that you can't provide a more accurate estimate without first determining various particulars about the site and service needed.
I didn't generally keep track of those phone estimates that never turned into written estimates, but did do that for written esimates similar to what Jim Frame describes.