How do you bid a jod ?

[Scott Knott 14]

How do most of you bid your jobs, do you bid by square foot or do you figure by the hour? For example I was called this week to bid two houses one was 1000sq ft single story just mold and dirt on vinyl siding, and the other is 2000 sq ft two story that i think i can cover with a 10 ft latter and an 8ft wand this house also has just green mold & dirt. I know prices will change from state to state the average around here seems to be $150 for a double wide mobile home. If i were to bid $350-$400 on the 2000sq ft do you guys think i would be in the right price range?

Starting out in this, learning how to clean a job seems to be the easier part compaired to learning how to bid a job right.

[One Tough Pressure 580]

I do not generally wash houses, but I would like to comment on pricing. Price varies by each area, and by each washer.

Each person has different costs in equipment, insurance, and other misc. overhead.

Some people also use such things as the X-Jet and wash in half the time, so they charge half the price that you might, but they do 5 to 6 houses a day.

If you have not already, figure out what your operating costs are then go from there.

[ron p 500]

the way to do your est. will depend on how easy you find it to do the math.

Some people can do an est by the sq ft of the living space.

I find that you can get short changed this way because of the styles of homes. Diffrent peak heights,dormers,they dont add garage space,ect....

this goes for sq ft also-just too much math,peaks,dormers,overhangs,ect.....

I like liner foot priceing.

Take a measureing wheel[home depot $45] and walk around the house. Whatever that number is you multiply times your lin ft price. $1 to $1.50 a lin ft or single story to $2 to $2.50 per lin ft for 2 story. Depending on degree of diffaculty.[your price my differ].[also your price will or will not include things at this price]

Some guy's like to charge extra for stuff like gutters,front step's,front walk,ect...i dont tell the customer the lin ft or whetever method i use. I just tell them what is included and what is'nt in my quote. I dont want to argue over math.

Flatwork goes by sq. ft.

Fleet goes by the piece.

Decks can go diffrent way's but i use sq ft plus lin ft on the railings.

Some jobs/add ons are done by T&M [time and materials].

Lastly buy a book at www.amazon.com

"how much should i charge?" by ellen rohr

it is money well spent.

[bulletproof 14]

So if you charge by the linear foot which is basically a distance measurement, aren't you short changing yourself by not including the height. How do you compensate for this?

[Mike Williamson 198]

bullet:

Not really, most guys who charge by the linear foot charge more for taller buildings. If I charge $1.00 per linear foot to clean a 50 foot wall that is 10' high, I'll make $50.00. If you charge $0.10 per square foot for the same wall, you'll also make $50.00. So long as your rater per unit is sufficient to make the money you feel you need to make, it doesn't matter whether you calculate it on the square foot, the linear foot, or whether you figure the displacement of the entire house! :)

[ron p 500]

if you have a nice easy way to figure out the TRUE sq ft of 2 of the same houses but one has a 3/12 pitch roof and the other a 6/12 pitch roof. I want to know about it.

To tell you the truth, if after est say 3 house's, you cant EYEBALL them and give a snap price after a quick walkaround. Your going to waste to much time giving est.

my stride is 3 ft, so walking a house is fast and easy.

Remember when you do an est. or after you collect a check, your time started when you started to drive to that location.

This BS about making $75 per hour is in most cases not calculated correctly.

Deck job-1/2 hour travel,fuel,cust. not home-return 1/2 hour.

Then cust want's to go over things in person

1/2 travel,fuel-sell the job 30 min,1/2 travel home

right their is 2 1/2 hours plus fuel and you still might not get the job.

most contractor's or price chart's dont include travel time or selling time, nor lost time doing est. where you dont get the job.

[bulletproof 14]

boy. I never looked at it that way before and it really does give you alot to consider when estimating these jobs. It's like someone said :" Time is money" and you hardly ever have enough of any

[ron p 500]

this is one of the main reasons that contract's are so important.

You can sell the job once and wash for a year.

If residental is your niech, then keep accurate records of each est. Even if you dont get the job. If you do get the job snap a pic and on the back of the pic write the amount of each chem you used,what chems you did use and your selling price. Then leave a note on if you should have charged more money.

I learned this trick from an old painter/wallpaper hanger.

He use to write the info of how much paint or wall paper he used in each room on the back of the light switch cover.

In 2 years when they want to re-do the room he has the info just a twist of the screwdriver away.

When you send out your spring post card's you can also address them RESIDENT with the price. You might just get a new homeowner to call you or the homeowner went with someone else and did'nt like the work.

keep at the one's that got away, you never know.

[Paul B. 523]

The first few jobs you do in each category will be WAG's, after that they will be SWAG's.

WAG = Wild-ass guess

SWAG = Scientific wild-ass guess

To take Ron's tracking method one step farther - you can set up a spread sheet or data base with the following information.

Customer Name (last name first)

Project Number - Each bid is assigned a number (GPC-005896-S)

Type of Job (Brick Cleaning; Concrete Cleaning; Deck Cleaning, etc.

Date of the Project (Month & Year)

Address

Areas (township, city, etc.)

Type of advertising that brought customer to your company (flyer, newspaper ad, etc.)

Phone Number

Estimate (in dollars)

Contract (awarded jobs in dollars)

The Estimate and Contract columns are totaled (by month, by year, etc.)

This portion of information allows you to sort by customer, date, type of job, areas you worked in, what type of advertising was most effective, how many jobs were bid, how many awarded, value of bids, value of awards. The information is retreivable quickly and can be sorted many ways.

Other info I keep: taxes collected by county; travel cost by job; estimating time; travel times; chemical type, amounts and mix ratios along with costs; equipment run time; fuel used (cost); and specific notes of the estimate/job (there are others but I don't remember off top of my head).

Each estimate/project gets a folder and all info goes in this folder along with photos. The folder is started as soon as the request is made for an estimate. The data base is updated at each phase or as required.

Only track as much info as you think may be necessary, review every so often and make necessary adjustments.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Welcome to the board, Paul! :)

[Paul B. 523]

Thanks!

Good to be here with a bunch of nice folks.

I'll try not to live up to my nick-name "Mean Papa".

I'm glad to see your site is doing well, but then I'm not surprised... (I'm omitting adjectives so I don't look like I'm trying to ****-** but pick a bunch of good ones for yourself and know that I meant them and was sincere when I thought about them!).

Sorry, didn't think ****-** was a bad word!

[ron p 500]

on the start-up of this site we/beth/members got spammed with porno so i think the programming auto delete's some keywords.

[Pams Pressure & Clean 64]

Paul,

As a real newcomer to the business we would be very interested if you would be willing to share what system you are using for tracking.

Did you set up your own db? or are you using a commercial package like Quickbooks or similar?

We have so far been relatively successful in bidding and winning a fair majority of them. But a good tracking system is something we have been racking our brains on. Setting up the particulars seems to be the toughest part..

Any tips are appreciated..

Pam & Cujo

[Paul B. 523]

I personally like Microsoft "Access" for customer and related tracking - it comes bundled with Microsoft Office or can be purchased separately. You can print various specific reports and export mailing list info, etc. It's not the easiest to learn if you've never used a data base before. I would suggest buying a book for it vs. hunting and pecking for info with the programs help command.

For a very simple tracking method you can set up an Excel spread sheet. It will not give you specific reports, but you can sort by columns/rows. You can set up several pages and tie pages together, using 1 page to enter all data, then create other pages that may contain only specific tracking data you want (simpified for viewing).

There a lot of things you can do with a sprad sheet like Excel. It can be used as a Ledger, set it up to calculate mix ratios, equipment/parts list, calculate shipping costs, calculate over head costs, track purchase details (equipment/parts/supplies), track mileage and other expenses.

The size of your business and budget and what software you may already have may play a determining factor in selecting a solution to your software needs.

What "exactly" are you trying to track?