Q & A Decoding Estimates for Construction, Landscaping and Lawn care #2

could you give me some feedback on why I didn't get it sometimes what you're going to hear is you were too low and that's going to be that's going to blow your mind you're going to be like what do you mean I was too low you were missing something and you probably were and if you do it for this price down here and everybody else is here this is a gap that you're leaving on the table you can up the ante up to this part get just below the next guy and still get the job uh pricing for sprinkler installation has he done any sprinklers yet no Okay so the very first thing is do you guys live in a house yes house and apartment do you have friends or family that you could start to install sprinklers for them they Supply you the materials that or they pay for the materials whether you do it at your own house you do it for a friend you do it for a relative you literally do it for free you take a stopwatch you time how long it takes you to do the first job you compare that you do another job you do another job you don't make any money but you're not it's not costing you anything because every time you install sprinkler system now you're learning how to install a sprinkler system you're learning how to do it faster you're learning how to do it better but more importantly than that you're learning that if you install 300 linear fet of sprinkler system it takes you 20 hours now you have a basis for how you break down your bid you know your material list for installing 300 linear fetus sprinkler systems and 20 hours of labor involved as well and then you can go into a bid for somebody you don't know and you can break it down I want to make $50 an hour for 20 hours so I need $11,000 for my labor cost the materials for 300 linear fet of sprinkler system are around $250 so I know my bid's got to be $1,250 for that portion of it I want to add 5 or 10% for overhead for insurance for everything else so then 10% of $1,250 is what another $125 so my bid would be375 literally that's how you'll start out with your very first sprinkler installation if you've never done one before and then you look at what other people are bidding cuz you're not going to get every job but you've got to bid it you're going to try to bid jobs even that you don't want because you wanted the feedback you want to have the in with the customer to be able to go you know I understand I didn't get the job but I'm trying to refine I'm trying to learn I'm trying to grow could you give me some feedback on why I didn't get it sometimes what you're going to hear is you were too low and that's going to be that's going to blow your mind you're going to be like what do you mean I was too low well you know I two other bids the next bid for that same sprinkler was $1,800 and the other bid was was $1 1975 and you came in at 1375 I feel like you were missing something and you probably were okay you probably were missing something saved your butt the feedback now tells you that that 300 linear feet of sprinkler system you were willing to sell for 1375 you didn't get you can up your price to 1575 or 1775 and still get it's called leaving money on the table there's a lot of times where your bid's way down here Francisco your bid's down here and everybody else is up here and you don't get the job and guys are like yeah but we could do the job for this well you're an idiot if you do it for this price down here and everybody else is here this is a gap that you're leaving on the table you can up the ante up to this part get just below the next guy and still get the job and sometimes the feedback that you're going to get was well I feel like the next guy was was you know more experienced and things like that and then that tells you as a salesperson the image that you're conveying you've got to change that as well so lots of little things that you could tweak and you got to understand the bidding process you got to understand when you're uh bidding too low or bidding too high you really want to get your mind you want to get your mind into the customer's mind because that customer's mind is going to be very similar to the next one to the next one to the next one and you're going to want to try to learn to read customers understand where they're coming from so that you can modify how you bid down the road does that help out yes it does thank you all right good deal do we have a third question this is the last question you had is a pricing grading is it for square foot is it for uh for grading oh grading yes grading so the grading such as skid loader grading as in what are we doing what there's lots of different gradings we're talking