Pre-qualify ALL jobs prior to electrical estimatingBefore estimating electrical projects it is a good time to play 20 questions with yourself (and the bid requestor) to determine if you have a good chance of winning the job or not. Consider who you are bidding against (consider your competition). 1) Have you bid against them in the past? 2) Can you compete with them? 3) Do you have any advantage over the competitors? 4) Any disadvantages?
This practice is not necessarily ethical, but it happens every day. It is called a check bid. It is really hard to make a profit when you specialize in doing check bids! Example Scenario 2: You are asked to bid work in a facility when they have used the same contractor forever. They may be honest-to-goodness willing to award the contract to the lowest bidder but, the contender contractor staff knows the facility inside and out. They know that there are certain empty conduits that they can just pull wire into. Since you are not familiar with the facility, you think that you need to install the conduit. Your bid ends up higher and you bid for nothing. Often times you can ask a lot of questions and get a gut feeling about if you are disadvantaged from the git-go. If you think you have a slim to none chance of winning the bid, take your electrical construction estimating skills else. Answer these other questions prior to bidding: 1) Do you have the manpower capability to start and finish the project? 2) Do you have the foremen or staff capable of running the project? By pre-qualifying jobs prior to bidding, you focus on bidding jobs that you have a high likelihood of winning and avoid unnecessary bidding. Return to Home page
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