Government. They have their ways. They can't do thing any other way.
"Justification" probably just means making a list of tasks you expect to complete in the office together with an estimate of hours to complete each and your rate sheet.
A piece of advise: When making that list make sure you include everything in detail. For example, instead of "resolve collected data" as a task break it up into several little tasks, with hours for each, like:
- Download and archive raw data
- Convert data to StarNet format
- Edit data as required
- Assign control weightings
- Run preliminary adjustment
- Examine results, propose reobservations as necessarry
- Assign reobservation data
- Run final adjustment.
- Examine results.
- Print final adjustment report
- Prepare comma delimited PNEZD format control file for use in field.
We used to do those surveys quite frequently. The problem is they do not understand what office time is on what they have listed as a surveying project. Therefor, they do not have a line item in their contract that they can attribute that expense to. The proper method for bidding that type of job is a loaded rate and or completing all office work on a laptop at the job site. I'm assuming that they loved your hourly field rate. It was probably less than half of what everyone else,who has played this game before, bid. They are going to try to convince you to only take the contract at the field rate and specified amount thereof. As I say I have performed these for several different government contracted multinational cleanup groups on several superfund sights. It is a good business to be in but they absolutely do not understand office time.
Tommy Young, post: 431711, member: 703 wrote: That looks like a subliminal message that I need to charge more.
You would be surprised by the number of jobs I see your crews on that I also submitted an estimate on. But I am busy and cant do all the work, nor do I want too, so I just smile and keep going.
JKinAK, post: 431715, member: 7219 wrote: ??they think my, office time price, should be 85% less than what I proposed.?
They haven??t asked you to change your fee ?? they just want you to explain it to them.
I??m only hearing this second hand but the stated facts don??t support getting offended - maybe they were nasty or demeaning but I'm not seeing that.Did you simply provide a fee or did you also prepare a proposal with a scope of work?
Is this lump sum or T&M?If it??s lump sum fee and nothing else then there??s less explaining to do.
If it??s T&M then tell them to make the contract for whatever price they??d like but don??t make it an NTE contract.Regardless, tell them what is going to happen in the office. Don??t itemize the costs or hours just say something like:
[INDENT]??Office work includes refuel survey truck, transfer field equipment to the office, finalize field notes, data download from survey instruments, field book indexing, photo indexing, clean and store field equipment, replenish field supplies consumed, raw data review (and edit if necessary), project control processing and documentation, field measurement processing, develop final measurement coordinates, drawing development (import, draft, annotate data, prepare and present metadata), final data and drawing check by field staff, edits if necessary, draft preparation of deliverables, independent quality control, edits if necessary, final hardcopy and digital product preparation, certification (as appropriate), project documentation, transfer of deliverables to required media, letter of transmittal preparation, delivery, data archiving, and work report review.?[/INDENT]More words here conveys more effort - add info about OPUS or base station position determination or precise ephemerides, or any other step that you are taking in support of their project.
We all know that clients typically don??t have a clue as to how much effort is involved in the field or the office - give them an idea of what happens?? it??s more than just pushing a button. We typically don't do a good job of conveying the level of effort when we simply say "office work" when we are talking about a large series of activities (on the other hand if you don't do most of those steps then maybe "office work is the best explanation you can give).
Don??t get into defending each step ?? that??s when it??s time to say?? sounds like you really have an interest in surveying ?? you might want to look into becoming a surveyor, there are some great bachelors geomatics programs what will teach you more about the profession.
I like this answer.
Seems odd to me that being a government department that they're even asking you to drop your price. It might be different here in Australia, but asking a particular service provider to drop their price would constitute a bit of favouritism, unless there was only one expression of interest. This considered I'd say that you are the only person who bid, and they're trying to align what you've quoted with what they estimated.
They've probably severely under estimated the cost, and with no other prices to compare your quote to as a sanity check they are flying a bit blind. I would not drop the price at all, only provide a thorough break down of costs for associated tasks, if they want to pay less than they can scale down the service they receive. If you start undervaluing yourself you'll potentially be setting a precedence for any future consultation with the client.
Matt McCrory, post: 431755, member: 10684 wrote: I like this answer.
So do I, Good Luck.
Stick to your guns, but provide a detailed explanation of what it takes to get the job done. They will likely accept it and your proposal and justification will likely be used when computing the next government estimate for the same type job.
The contracting officer likely knows nothing about surveying. You will be the teacher and will benefit from it.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Will they provide the compd and drafting?
Any surveyor who believes they MUST get every survey job of which they are aware has a HUGE problem.
Matt McCrory, post: 431685, member: 10684 wrote: I received an RFP email for surveying services, it included location monitoring wells and bore locations. It is a little farther than I was wanting to drive to go and do it, but I figured what the heck, I will put enough in it to make money and be worth the headache. mind you this is a federal contract which requires me to have special safety qualification and what not, that I currently do not have. I have enough work for 2 months lined up, as it is right now, so I am not worried about starving or keeping the lights on.
Just got notice that I "potentially" have the job but they think my, office time price, should be 85% less than what I proposed. Now they want a justification of why my price is so high.
My wife says I am an A hole a lot of the time and I try to consciously be aware of that when replying to potential clients, but I am currently baffled at how I should reply
A-This is my price to operate, and make a living, Thank you have a nice day.
B- Haggle with them and agree on a priceI am leaning to answer A.
First if it's a Federal Contract, at least in Texas, it would have had to have been an RFQ not an RFP. While your mileage and state laws may vary, it's not uncommon to negotiate the price. In fact the RFQ nearly requires that once the selection has been made then price CAN be negotiated. If an agreement cannot be made, then they move on to the next qualified. Rinse and repeat. That being said, I'm working on one RIGHT NOW where I was selected, and then they thought my price was too high. So I obviously was the most qualified but using the public money, they wanted a little less cost. We were able to reach a price whereby we both were happy. It's a rockin job to be sure and one that I will look at for the rest of my life.
I don't negotiate on little lot jobs because the margin isn't there. However, on massive (to me) projects, I'm not so obtuse that I hurt myself or alienate future, large scale, clients. I have dropped my price more than a few times to maintain quality projects. EVERY time I've done this, I've received additional QUALITY projects from those clients and, surprisingly, they never question my price on the second or tenth rodeo. I take it as the "getting to know someone" process.
The current project I'm on I reduced the price by 17% to meet in the middle. I'll still make money and have a good repeat client. Some folks just like to haggle and I'm all to happy to oblige, when the time is right.
Kris Morgan, post: 431823, member: 29 wrote: First if it's a Federal Contract, at least in Texas, it would have had to have been an RFQ not an RFP. While your mileage and state laws may vary, it's not uncommon to negotiate the price. In fact the RFQ nearly requires that once the selection has been made then price CAN be negotiated. If an agreement cannot be made, then they move on to the next qualified. Rinse and repeat. That being said, I'm working on one RIGHT NOW where I was selected, and then they thought my price was too high. So I obviously was the most qualified but using the public money, they wanted a little less cost. We were able to reach a price whereby we both were happy. It's a rockin job to be sure and one that I will look at for the rest of my life.
I don't negotiate on little lot jobs because the margin isn't there. However, on massive (to me) projects, I'm not so obtuse that I hurt myself or alienate future, large scale, clients. I have dropped my price more than a few times to maintain quality projects. EVERY time I've done this, I've received additional QUALITY projects from those clients and, surprisingly, they never question my price on the second or tenth rodeo. I take it as the "getting to know someone" process.
The current project I'm on I reduced the price by 17% to meet in the middle. I'll still make money and have a good repeat client. Some folks just like to haggle and I'm all to happy to oblige, when the time is right.
If you aren't going to talk price to these people then you will get shut out, often it isn't a even a total contract price but it's a matter of parts of the contract, in this case its office time that has them negotiating. Trust me on this, it may not be worth throwing out the baby with the bath water over that, there are lots of ways around that issue.
I agree with [USER=29]@Kris Morgan[/USER] . There is a good chance that they picked you as the most qualified candidate, and now are inquiring about differences they have in their own estimation. Everyone likes to talk about "government workers this and government workers that" in a negative context, but I would bet that the federal government has some very stringent rules on hiring the most qualified, and not misusing federal dollars. These guys might just be trying to exercise the guidelines. It more-than-likely means they are not going for the lowball bid and that's a good thing.
Any government(state or city) RFP in this area that has price as part of the RFP will get pulled and revised to not include price as a measure of competency. Government funded RFPs are qualification based first, then the cost is negotiated. If a price cannot be negotiated the agency moves to the #2 qualified candidate.
Request a scoping meeting. It is usually about the understanding of scope than the rate. Once you get down to apples and apples, the rest can usually be negotiated. The only apples they will get for 85% less than market rate are rotten.
I would guess this is a scope issue and not an hourly fee question. Unless your office rate resembles a capital defense attorney that is.
As for negotiated fees with government agencies. It is common for them to request an audit to come up with what they feel is an acceptable overhead and profit. If you complain about how government spends your money then you don't get to complain about this. The agencies I work with will make exceptions for smaller firms if their standard rates are comparable to local industry standards.
zammo, post: 431764, member: 9087 wrote: Seems odd to me that being a government department that they're even asking you to drop your price. It might be different here in Australia, but asking a particular service provider to drop their price would constitute a bit of favouritism, unless there was only one expression of interest. This considered I'd say that you are the only person who bid, and they're trying to align what you've quoted with what they estimated.
They've probably severely under estimated the cost, and with no other prices to compare your quote to as a sanity check they are flying a bit blind. I would not drop the price at all, only provide a thorough break down of costs for associated tasks, if they want to pay less than they can scale down the service they receive. If you start undervaluing yourself you'll potentially be setting a precedence for any future consultation with the client.
They aren't asking him to lower his price, they just need to justify spending more tax money than was in the estimate.
Matt McCrory, post: 431685, member: 10684 wrote: I received an RFP email for surveying services...mind you this is a federal contract which requires me to have special safety qualification and what not, that I currently do not have.
Are you going to have to get these safety qualifications prior to accepting this project?
Matt McCrory, post: 431685, member: 10684 wrote: I received an RFP email for surveying services, it included location monitoring wells and bore locations. It is a little farther than I was wanting to drive to go and do it, but I figured what the heck, I will put enough in it to make money and be worth the headache. mind you this is a federal contract which requires me to have special safety qualification and what not, that I currently do not have. I have enough work for 2 months lined up, as it is right now, so I am not worried about starving or keeping the lights on.
Just got notice that I "potentially" have the job but they think my, office time price, should be 85% less than what I proposed. Now they want a justification of why my price is so high.
My wife says I am an A hole a lot of the time and I try to consciously be aware of that when replying to potential clients, but I am currently baffled at how I should reply
A-This is my price to operate, and make a living, Thank you have a nice day.
B- Haggle with them and agree on a priceI am leaning to answer A.
My price is based on what I believe it will take to do the work and cover the cost of overhead.
It's always easy to think of smart-alecky cynical responses -- they are rarely profitable. When folks ask me why a particular estimate is so high I usually sit down with the file and try to send them an honest explanation -- there is usually a good reason -- something they're not thinking about sitting at their desk and looking at numbers -- the terrain out there is especially difficult, or the research I've done in that area has been very time-consuming, something like that. I agree with whoever above said it doesn't sound like any sort of demeaning or accusatory thing, try to handle it professionally and you might turn a buck.
Holy Cow, post: 431776, member: 50 wrote: Any surveyor who believes they MUST get every survey job of which they are aware has a HUGE problem.
Bingo!
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk