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Lowering your price to bid
- Thread starter Finish Blademan
- Start date
Cat is ALL
Well-Known Member
The small do it yourself companies **** any real company off. In the end they leave half the quality of workmanship you would and you most likely get asked to fix it in the end anyway. Its not only the extremely low bidders, its the people hiring someone who's 40% less then the competitors prices. They have to use some common sense and pick someone with a reasonable price.
Atleast here, you aren't bound by law to pick the lowest bidder, I don't know what it is like down there.
Atleast here, you aren't bound by law to pick the lowest bidder, I don't know what it is like down there.
eRay
Well-Known Member
My uncle used to be the person preparing the bids for a large concrete block company. His favorite saying was " The only thing worse than bidding too high and losing a job is bidding too low and getting it."
Yes!
Hello.
Yes, the good qualified operators are all on unemployment, replaced by laborers.
Here in Texas the big push is for undocumented Mexicans.
Only trouble is that there is the WIA, Workforce Investment Act, retraining for the bunch of us.
In another month I will have completed paramedic training.
I might not jump back on a machine again, at least not full time.
Hello.
Yes, the good qualified operators are all on unemployment, replaced by laborers.
Here in Texas the big push is for undocumented Mexicans.
Only trouble is that there is the WIA, Workforce Investment Act, retraining for the bunch of us.
In another month I will have completed paramedic training.
I might not jump back on a machine again, at least not full time.
Fordpickupman
Member
some....
I estimate for a smaller company, The competition is still desperate. A few have filed bankruptcy and then restructure, change their name a bit and are back at it the next day like nothing happened. Still fighting the same morons, different names.:Banghead
I estimate for a smaller company, The competition is still desperate. A few have filed bankruptcy and then restructure, change their name a bit and are back at it the next day like nothing happened. Still fighting the same morons, different names.:Banghead
Boophoenix
Well-Known Member
I resemble this remark a bit. However I "don't" do cut throat work. In my area it's the other way around the big guys are sinking there heels into our jobs. Which were the jobs that weren't worth their time to even look at a few years back. They've even fallin back into residential work at times.
I personally can't compete with some one who has bulk pricing for there fuel, parts, supplies or better equipment pricing than myself. I don't have the luxury of doing work large enough to buy a machine for and pay it off on that one job. I have to survive from job to job and add them all together to make ends meet. At the same time I keep my overhead low to survive. I'll be here next year and the year after and so on. If it gets slow enough I'll take a labor job somewhere for a while.
As far as there end of work they can have it. I don't want all the head ache of being big. I'll sub to a couple that I enjoy working with a side from that I'm cool with chilling at home compared to losing money or not getting payed.
Because in the end I'm just out to make an honest living at something I enjoy is all nothing more nothing less. Which is what I'd like to think we were all trying to accomplish in something we enjoyed doing.
Last edited:
Fordpickupman
Member
Yup...
That is the only reason I go to work, if I did not have to work I would be out cutting firewood, snowmobiling, camping, hunting, building hotrods, etc, etc. I only work to support my family and my bad habits. Now a days I work to support my family, all I can afford. I have to barter and scrounge for my hobbies to flourish
That is the only reason I go to work, if I did not have to work I would be out cutting firewood, snowmobiling, camping, hunting, building hotrods, etc, etc. I only work to support my family and my bad habits. Now a days I work to support my family, all I can afford. I have to barter and scrounge for my hobbies to flourish
stock
Senior Member
These are the times we are in folks,work is being bought ,corners cut etc etc.Spoke with a drainage contractor who won a job went to start last Monday and was called into the office to be told that all they were paying e3 a meter less than he had quoted if he wanted the work at that price well and good if not they had another contractor ready to start.
They were not accepting any extras ,no day rate nothing, all they will allow is the price per meter that was on the table ,any rock was BoQ rates ,mistakes were as his expense.He still took the work as there was nothing in the offing.
They were not accepting any extras ,no day rate nothing, all they will allow is the price per meter that was on the table ,any rock was BoQ rates ,mistakes were as his expense.He still took the work as there was nothing in the offing.
Fordpickupman
Member
Ouch
Its enough to make you wish you could just cut them off. No more bids. Or play along and get the price worked down to some stupid low price and then come back and say, "oh, I'm sorry, I can't do it now"
. Work them and the other guys that are willing to play the game. Somedays I wish I was estimating for a GC, then I think about how it would be to not be able to sleep at night and be worried about someone breaking my legs for treating them dirty like that. I think I will stay where I am. They will get their's.....ointhead
Its enough to make you wish you could just cut them off. No more bids. Or play along and get the price worked down to some stupid low price and then come back and say, "oh, I'm sorry, I can't do it now"
. Work them and the other guys that are willing to play the game. Somedays I wish I was estimating for a GC, then I think about how it would be to not be able to sleep at night and be worried about someone breaking my legs for treating them dirty like that. I think I will stay where I am. They will get their's.....ointhead
Boophoenix
Well-Known Member
It's not a supply and demand scenario any more or what the market cab bare.
It's now a lot of people are demanded to supply or someone else will or the bear is dictating the market.
I've heard of instances of people working to keep there emplooyees and not for profit. Which in some ways I can respect this. One way a fella willing to put his desire to make a profit aside so his help can feed their families. Oposed to letting everyone go and sitting back on the bank role built up by the above employees.
The downside is it drives prices down in an inflated world. I've yet to see product prices drop all that much from the rises we had from the fuel price highs yet. Everything is blamed on subprime, but I don't believe that was the only player. Fuel doubled along with alot of basic needs to survive. Leaving people who were stretched thin no where to turn. Granted some didn't truely qualify for the loans and this was the end result of a chain reaction.
An example three years ago I ate tuna on a regular basis. I payed about 33 cents a 6 oz can here for it. Now if you can buy it for 69 cents a can you've found a heck of a deal.
No where in this time frame did my income double or even increase in the slightest. It acually went down as work was slowing down as subprime was prepairing to strike fear into the powers that be. As things slowed contractors bottom lines were starting to get pinched so they started pinching back at the subs.
In my circle of work threw all these cost hikes there were never any surcharges or price hikes passed up the ladder as most subs did. One instance of this a fella I sub to now I use to be an employee for I know he never changed a rate for the better part of 8 years. He was still making a profit granted not the one he was making before, but he wasn't greedy and respected the contractor he worked for enough to honor his original prices as long as he made a profit. I saw hundred and two hundred dollar surcharge bills go across the main contractors desk for deliveres ( local deliveries ).
At one point the contractor discussed letting supers that lived far away stay home a few days a week as they had company vehicles and would trim the bottom line a little. This was when things were still good 4 years ago or so.
The fella I worked for and sub to now stuck by his original prices threw all of that and has managed to hold his prices. How ever he has been getting culled out of a few places he once worked in.
Four years ago they were 100% of our work. Now they are about 35%.
Threw all of this it boils down to as long as the main contractor made there 30% pluss profit they were happy. Trim that slightly and all respect and loyalty to those that helped produce those profits along the way are gone. Which was a learning lesson for me watching this transpire. I learned if everyone else is getting a bigger peice of the pie don't settle for the crust. Because the next time around you might not be invited to dinner.
I have yet to reach in for my my slice of the pie. Not sure when I will or if I will. As long as I'm making a profit to keep me a float I can be polite and wait my turn.
It's now a lot of people are demanded to supply or someone else will or the bear is dictating the market.
I've heard of instances of people working to keep there emplooyees and not for profit. Which in some ways I can respect this. One way a fella willing to put his desire to make a profit aside so his help can feed their families. Oposed to letting everyone go and sitting back on the bank role built up by the above employees.
The downside is it drives prices down in an inflated world. I've yet to see product prices drop all that much from the rises we had from the fuel price highs yet. Everything is blamed on subprime, but I don't believe that was the only player. Fuel doubled along with alot of basic needs to survive. Leaving people who were stretched thin no where to turn. Granted some didn't truely qualify for the loans and this was the end result of a chain reaction.
An example three years ago I ate tuna on a regular basis. I payed about 33 cents a 6 oz can here for it. Now if you can buy it for 69 cents a can you've found a heck of a deal.
No where in this time frame did my income double or even increase in the slightest. It acually went down as work was slowing down as subprime was prepairing to strike fear into the powers that be. As things slowed contractors bottom lines were starting to get pinched so they started pinching back at the subs.
In my circle of work threw all these cost hikes there were never any surcharges or price hikes passed up the ladder as most subs did. One instance of this a fella I sub to now I use to be an employee for I know he never changed a rate for the better part of 8 years. He was still making a profit granted not the one he was making before, but he wasn't greedy and respected the contractor he worked for enough to honor his original prices as long as he made a profit. I saw hundred and two hundred dollar surcharge bills go across the main contractors desk for deliveres ( local deliveries ).
At one point the contractor discussed letting supers that lived far away stay home a few days a week as they had company vehicles and would trim the bottom line a little. This was when things were still good 4 years ago or so.
The fella I worked for and sub to now stuck by his original prices threw all of that and has managed to hold his prices. How ever he has been getting culled out of a few places he once worked in.
Four years ago they were 100% of our work. Now they are about 35%.
Threw all of this it boils down to as long as the main contractor made there 30% pluss profit they were happy. Trim that slightly and all respect and loyalty to those that helped produce those profits along the way are gone. Which was a learning lesson for me watching this transpire. I learned if everyone else is getting a bigger peice of the pie don't settle for the crust. Because the next time around you might not be invited to dinner.
I have yet to reach in for my my slice of the pie. Not sure when I will or if I will. As long as I'm making a profit to keep me a float I can be polite and wait my turn.