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Best kept secret of being a successful Electrical Contractor.

There are many things that have to come together to take your company to the next level.

We have experienced them all. At Best Bid. We have lived through times when  business was  good and we have seen it when business was bad but there is one thing that gets you through all seasons of you Electrical Contracting Career and we will give you our secrete later on in this post.

When you are just starting out in business you may not understand the basics of how things work. Getting projects to bid on may be one of them.
Most areas have a local plans room where most of the work that is bidding will be posted. This is a great place to start looking for new work. We suggest that if you are just getting your company started that before you start throwing bids out slow down and approach this in a systematic order. Watch the invitations for bids come in and who the General Contractors are. You will start to see some of the same names over and over. See who is bidding on the type of work that you want to do. Next you want to track which General Contractors are winning the work. You will start to see a pattern. This is just phase one.

These are some quick examples:

Dodge Report-

http://www.info.com/dodgeleads

 isqft-

http://www.isqft.com

Memphis Builders Exchange

http://memphicbx,com

Missoula Plans Exchange

https://www.mpe.us/online-plan-room

Butte Builders Exchange

Montaniabid

https://montanabid.com/

Texas BX

https://www.virtualbx.com/

LDILINE

http://ldiline.com/

Alabama

Florida

https://www.firstfloridaplanroom.com/

Next you should inquire about your top 3 or 4 picks and find out how they are to work for. Do they finish the projects quickly, do they pay on time, etc. So what you are doing is recruiting a group of contractors that you want to work for that win work, easy to work with, and pay their bills.

At the same time you should create mock estimates for the jobs that are being bid in your areas by these General Contractors and see where your estimate would have landed. This is called testing the water. Find out what Electrical Contractors are bidding and research them as well. How many people do they employ, what are they good at and what are they struggling with. Knowing all the players is important.
By tracking these things you can start to see who the electrical contractors are winning most of the work in your area and you can also dial in where your price need to be to beat them. BY using software like the Best Bid Hybrid Pro-www.bestbidestimating.com you know your cost. Now you can dial in on what profit, overhead, labor rates that you would need to use to win the work. (Knowing the cost does not always mean you can get there) but you can see if changes need to be made to be competitive. Now you have dialed all of this very important information in like a football team recruiting star players for the next season.

Now you start recruiting your General Contractors.

  • Create a simple get to know you package and give it to your select list of contractors
  • Let them know that you would like to start providing them electrical estimates.
  • Offer to do some free work such as change bulbs out in their office or put in an Occ sensor. Just something to break the ice.
  • You may have to bid a job or two very cheap to get their attention. If you are only a few dollars low they will use contractors that they know and trust.
  • It is hard to break into the club but they cannot afford to discount a low price on bid day.
  • Maybe tell a General Contractor that id favored to win a project that you will only bid with him on this particular project.
  • Get low, get the job and over perform like crazy. Provide submittals in record time. Micromanage the project and give the best performance of your life. Provide temp power before even being asked. Wire the job trailer etc.
  • Being the new kid in town you have to shine. Make using you a better experience. Show up without having to be told. Do things like telling them that you will have your rough in inspection on XX day without them having to ask.

Now for the secrete.

You cannot survive being low on every project but now that you have your foot in the door your goal is to become their electrical contractor of choice.

By bidding low and performing well they know your pricing is great and your work is great so the next time that secrete design and build project comes along guess who they ask?

The whole process is to build relations. It is more than work. You MUST MAKE PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS to do well in Electrical Contracting and life in general.
These special jobs I am speaking of you will be bidding as a team against a budget not other competitors. They want choose you if they don’t like you or in public work you are always high. This is how you make money in Electrical Contracting. These projects can produce great rewards. Relationships!

Partner with us to help you achieve your goals. Best Bid Electrical Estimating Software & On-Screen Takeoff Solutions. Let us teach you how to estimate or estimate better!

At Best Bid we not only sell top rated electrical estimating software & On Screen Takeoff Solutions but we also provide advice from years of electrical experience. Do you want to just be someone’s customer or do you want to be part of a team? Selling and teaching Electrical Estimating is our only focus. We can help you like we have helped others for the past 25 years.

Best Bid Electrical Estimating Software provides:

#1 Rated Electrical Estimating Software with On-Screen Takeoff module built into the software.

  1. Unlimited License
  2. Free Tech support
  3. Lifetime Updates
  4. Personal friendships

We also have an On-Line school for Electrical Estimating teaching the structure of electrical estimating. We offer a one of a kind tool for creating or modifying PDF drawings called the Accura Cadd PDF Draw.

We also do:

  1. Freelance Electrical Estimating
  2. Freelance Drafting
  3. Teaching and training
  4. Consulting
  5. Mentoring

Hope this post will help you be a better Electrical Contractor.