Bids that go out and never get followed up
Follow up a week after sending, and again before award.
A bid goes out on Thursday and the next fire starts Friday. By the time anyone thinks about it again, the GC has awarded the work to someone who called. Most subs don't follow up because the estimator is already pricing the next job and the owner assumes silence means no. Following up isn't pushy. The GC is buying from forty subs, and the ones they hear from are the ones they remember when a number needs a second look. It also tells you early when you lost, so you can stop holding crews and material for a job you didn't get.
Three moves, in order
What CFOS does about it
The CFOS bid pipeline holds each bid with its value, bid date, and chance of winning, so you can sort by bid date and see what's waiting on an answer. Lost bids are kept in the pipeline, not deleted, so you can look back at who you lost to and how often. When you win, the bid becomes a job with its contract value, and your estimate imports as the job budget by cost code. Roles and permissions let you give the estimator the pipeline without opening the rest of the numbers.
Who owns this: Estimator.
At $8M, you have several bids out at any time. A one page list of open bids with follow up dates stops you from losing them to silence. It takes ten minutes on a Monday.
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Step 04: Estimating system
The estimate maps one to one onto the job cost codes, so variance means something the day it appears.
Other problems step 04 solves
Other things that go wrong
What owners ask
Following up on construction bids?
Follow up a week after sending, and again before award. A bid goes out on Thursday and the next fire starts Friday. By the time anyone thinks about it again, the GC has awarded the work to someone who called. Most subs don't follow up because the estimator is already pricing the next job and the owner assumes silence means no. Following up isn't pushy. The GC is buying from forty subs, and the ones they hear from are the ones they remember when a number needs a second look. It also tells you early when you lost, so you can stop holding crews and material for a job you didn't get.
Which part of the system fixes this?
The step is number 04, estimating system. The estimate maps one to one onto the job cost codes, so variance means something the day it appears. It's drawn from chapter 4 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
Is this normal for my trade?
Across the 48 trades that publish a figure, net profit at $1M to $5M averages 7% before taxes. If you're well under that and this page describes your month, the two are usually the same story. The published average tells you where the pack is, and your own job costing tells you where you are, which is the number that pays payroll.
Where do I start?
Add a follow up date to every bid when it goes out, usually a week later, and a second date a few days before the GC's stated award date.
How often should I follow up on a bid?
Once about a week after you send it and once before the award date is plenty. More than that and you're a nuisance. If the GC says they'll decide by a certain date, write that date down and call the day after.
What should I say when I follow up?
Keep it short and specific. Ask if they have everything they need from you, if they have questions on scope or price, and when they expect to award. That gives them an opening to tell you about a problem you can still fix.
Can I fix this without touching anything else?
You can try, and it doesn't hold. Step 04 depends on step 01, job cost structure and step 03, overhead calculation. Install it ahead of those and it produces numbers the field won't trust, which is worse than the problem you started with.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.