how many bids would you give a customer before you stop bidding

[huggytree]

im a subcontractor

i do most of my work for prime contractors

ive been used in the past for bids....they tell the homeowner they will get them 3 bids.....typically these guys know who they are using before the bidding process..they just get 2 more bids to show the homeowner that their current plumber is giving them a fair price.......they just keep using subs for bids

i now stop bidding after giving 3 bids w/o getting a job out of it......im sure sometimes the prime contractor didn't get any of the jobs....but since i have no way of knowing i cant just bid 5-10x to realize im never going to win.

ive had some extreme cases...one remodeler used to have 3+ bids a night for me....this went on for a month....they threw me 1 job out of 80+ bid......had a new home builder have me bid multiple condo projects and houses over the course of years....i figured i had $3,000 in bidding time...the last straw with him was 5 revises on a house.....he won the house, but didn't give it to me.......if my prices were too high why did he have me revise to bid on a new house costs me a couple of hours...if i 1/2 ass do it its still 1.25 hours

is stopping after 3 bids reasonable?

[Freelancier]

As reasonable as anything. Look, it's your business, you need to run it so that you are profitable. One of the steps to getting there is to stop doing unprofitable tasks.

I know that when a client calls me up blind and asks for a quote while holding me at arm's length that I'm not getting the job, so I don't bother bidding at all. It's just the nature of the sales mating dance that we get asked to do things that we don't want to do and we get to decide how hard up we are.

[Harold Mansfield]

Your line of work is different since you work with a lot of contractors.

I do work as a sub contractor to agencies a lot, but I don't submit a bid on every job. I'm either their go to guy or I'm not. If I am they already know my rates.

When I have to bid on a job directly to the client, I send one. That's it. And I don't spend hours putting it together either.

I understand clients shop around, that's just the nature of the beast. But there are some people that just like collecting bids. They actually enjoy the process of making people jump through hoops far too much. They'll spend 3 months collecting bids and playing one contractor against another, when the entire project could have been finished in 4 weeks. Those always end up being trouble and never worth the money.

[billbenson]

I'd say given your industry, go by gut feel, likely profit and work load. Like Harold said, you have an industry that has a time consuming bidding process. Even if you are bidding by the job though, it really comes down to time and materials. Once you have done one quote for a job, changes shouldn't be that difficult to do. You have already entered in the costs of fixtures, hours of labor etc.

Do you have a program you are using for these types of quotes. Hopefully you are using something that maintains fixture and plumbing materials costs, your hourly rate etc. I hope you aren't doing these things manually every time looking up fixture costs etc for every new quote you do??

[Wozcreative]

I do my work, and I do it well. I'll even spend that extra time on it to get it right. But if a client wants to use up my time with phone calls, bids and meetings then I just weed them out as low priority or just say I'm too busy all together. If after a few bids you feel that you won't get the job, just ask them straight up what your chances are. What are they looking for? Cheaper on price? Time spent doing it? The service you can provide vs what others cant?

Why not put a time stamp on your bids (only valid until # days)—this may speed it up that they might come to you?

[Harold Mansfield]

Why not put a time stamp on your bids (only valid until # days)—this may speed it up that they might come to you?

I always do this now. Especially if there are negotiations on price. It's only good for a certain amount of time. I've had people call me months later with, "Hey, I'm ready to take that deal you offered 6 months ago". Um, nope.

[huggytree]

I always put a 30 day limit on my bids....that's just to cover my butt if there's a price increase (copper once went up 300% in 4 months)'

I could only find a record of 2 bids I did for this latest guy...so I gave him a 3rd bid.....I typically figure out fixtures which can take 1-2 hours....on this bid I just threw $15k in fixture allowance and did a 1/2 assed quick bid....I may be $200-300 high or low, but it took me only 30 minutes to figure it out....I saved that $200-300 in my time.

this stuff never happens with existing customers....its all new potential customers doing this stuff w/ me

I also e-mailed the contractor asking for details on the other 2 bids....he gave me decent answers....he's a well known builder but ive found some well known guys who are pieces of sh*t and just use subs