Quotation success? - How do you fare these days?

[Dave_L]

How many jobs on average are you guys looking at a week/month?

How many of these quotations do you convert to secured jobs, roughly?

Times are tough - on average I look at 5-6 jobs a week (sometimes more, sometimes less) and the jobs can range from a £200 "loss-leader" job to a £30,000+ private road job.

I reckon at the moment, we convert 1 in every 8 to 10 quotes - how are you finding it? It can be very demoralising to spend valuable time and money visiting the jobs etc offering advice & quoting for the work and then seeing your competitors doing the work!!

Rates at the moment are very very unpredictable...............and on the floor!

[msh paving]

last week priced a job was a coversion to holiday let,total prices that came back

contractor 1 £142,000
contractor 2 £143,500 that was my main contractor
contractor 3 £158,000
contractor 4 £110,000
all prices +vat

they gave it to the £110,000 guy how the ---k can he cut 40k of a 2 bed holiday conversion with a new raft floor MSH

[Dave_L]

Crazy!

You'd have to question Contractor No4 on his price - as it is too cheap looking at the others..........what has he forgotten to include??

[GB_Groundworks]

doing 2-3 quotes a week, getting 1 not getting the other and never hearing again from the others. roughly speaking that kind of ratio and most jobs have a 10 week lead time for planning apps etc its slow at mo. but recent sunny weather has improved things up here anyway. like you say its a reet bummer as we say up here to take 2 hours pricing a job to hear someone else has come in 5k under your best price. trying to work on reputation not price though but its hard in these times.

gi

paste from other thread:

tell me about it priced a sand school for a lady the other day and came in at £20,200 for a 40mx20m arena. material cost with bulk discounts were 15,800 then plant and labour and a bit of profit to get to that mark. she replied saying shed had a quote for £15,000k.

i asked if it was the same spec but she said he had said he knew what he was doing and hardcore was sufficent rather than clean single sized 70mm for drainage bed. and builders sand would do rather than silica sand and fibre stabiliser we use. i can't afford to do a proper job for that money, i'd rather not do the work than cut corners.



Edited By GB_Groundworks on 1238966271

[Rich H]

Doing 3-4 quotes/week at the moment. Conversion dropped from 75% (all 12 months of 2008) to 40% on a rolling average for the last six months. Because most of my work comes from BNI referrals, the conversion rate is much higher than prospects who used to come my way from advertising, where the conversion was typically 25%.

Was getting a bit skinny but landed 7 weeks work from Friday night and Saturday morning's quotes. Thank God.

[lutonlagerlout]

still working away but have a lot less booked in than previous,as has been said a lot of lads are heavily discounting prices right now to get work,which is bad for all of us
LLL

[GB_Groundworks]

Do you tink people are going in low, getting on site then adding extras to make it pay?

[Dave_L]

Maybe so Giles - but are they getting paid for the extras?

"Busy fools" comes to mind.

[techauthorbob]

On the flip side of this I have asked two companies for a tarmacing quote of about 200 sq metres - neither came back and one is working about 1/4 mile away!
I need a concrete drive resurfacing and next door want the same
Is tarmac the best or would blocks be better?
Anybody any good near Bradford?

[DNgroundworks]

Tech - just out side my area im afraid im in preston.

I wouldnt recommend laying tarmac over concrete but im sure others will advise best.

[MatthewWakeman]

Well it does not seem to be slowing down in the midlands i have priced 32 jobs over the last 2 weeks. Currently booked into last week in may, we do about 3.5 a week prices seem to be holding up as well.

To be honest we were expecting it to slow down and put a few things in place like selling new plant we had on finance and bought older second hand kit, dropped the expensive office in favour of working from home, so we are pleased prehaps its the old addage improve and not move

regards
matt
driveway company

[Dave_L]

Well, Matt....you are bucking the trend.......rates are on the floor down here and many are sitting tight.

Mind you, 32 jobs priced in 2 weeks??? That's astounding!

You definitely did the right thing in sending on kit with finance on it. Fortunately (or unfortunately) we have large premises and don't have the 'luxury' of being able to move out when work gets a bit slack!!

[DNgroundworks]

Id say the same, im busier now than i am this time last year - probably due to doing alot more advertisng, but still getting out priced on say a third of the jobs ive priced for.

Been speaking to directors of a large local building firm and they reckon itll start getting a bit more like it was towards the end of the year, what do you guys think?

[dig dug dan]

pircing up some jobs, but all the big landscapes i can't compete with the "newbies" that have started up from nowhere.
Got enought till ned of may at the mo, but getting a lot of CV's in the post from people looking for work.
Just had the best month on the crusher hire side of things in 4 1/2 years, so thats really good news. Had both crushers out together on many occasions!

[DNgroundworks]

Godd to hear Dan, went for a demo on sat at leeds, any luck i might be havin a crack at it soon!