Ideas for commercial BID?

[Mixon427]

I am in the process of closing a commercial contract with a retirement community property. Im thrown off on what to bid. Any Ideas? MOW TIME: 1-2HRS EDGE TIME: 1-2HRS TRIM TIME: 1-2HRS BLOW TIME: 1-2HRS BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF PROPERTY VIA GOOGLE MAPS: http://www.google.com/mapmaker?ll=30...99916243457562 * ITS CALLED THE HAVEN @ WINDERMERE* Ball park estimate? I appreciate it. -MIXON

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Last edited by Mixon427; 08-27-2012 at 11:24 PM.

[xandrew245x]

Lawn care business tips

Originally Posted by Mixon427 I am in the process of closing a commercial contract with a retirement community property. Im thrown off on what to bid. Any Ideas? MOW TIME: 1-2HRS EDGE TIME: 1-2HRS TRIM TIME: 1-2HRS BLOW TIME: 1-2HRS BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF PROPERTY VIA GOOGLE MAPS: http://www.google.com/mapmaker?ll=30...99916243457562 * ITS CALLED THE HAVEN @ WINDERMERE* Ball park estimate? I appreciate it. -MIXON If I was you I would take a visit there, measure all mow able areas and find the sq footage. Measure all the areas that will need trimmed and edged, I can trim 1-2 feet a second depending on what i'm trimming. Once you figure out how many square feet you will be mowing, estimate how long it will take you to mow all of it, I can mow/trim/blow an acre of land in about an hour, takes about 40 mins to do the mowing. Blowing off everything generally doesn't take to long, but it all depends on how much area you have to clean off. Your best bet would be to walk the areas that will be blown off at about the pace you would be working to get a general idea of how long it will take. Once you figure out about how long everything will take you, give them a price.

__________________

Carlisle Lawn Care

[dpld]

are you asking if it will take 1 to 2 hrs for each part of the service or is that how you bid it?

1 to 2 hours to mow but yet you got the same time frame for blowing.
i hope you are not using google earth to do estimates, you need to go there and walk the property and take measurements.

eyeballing and guessing are a sure fire way to either over price yourself out of a job or under price yourself into the poor house.

1 to 2 hours may not sound like much of a difference but times 4 for each part of the service you are guessing it to be a half day worth of work or a whole day.
from a customers perspective that is a big difference and from a business owner's perspective that is a huge difference.

by visiting the property you get to see a first hand look at the lay of the land and you will be able to take note of any trouble area's and by measuring the lawn area, bed area and the black top area in terms of square footage you will have the answer to just about everything.
you can also take a headcount on shrubs and small trees and categorize them by size.

too many people guess with their pricing and the bigger the property the more of a science it is and every stone needs to be turned over.

once you get all the exact details you can use one of the estimator calculators on this site.
i don't know how accurate they are and they are only as effective as the information you provide it and it has to be better then eyeballing.

the only advice on the calculators is that you need to be realistic in your operating costs and profit percentages.
you can not inflate any numbers and say you want a 40% profit or the calculator is gonna price you out of the water.
it is only as accurate as the information you give it.

good luck.

[Steve]

Let us know what you measure and then what you come up with.

[Mixon427]

Thanks for the info guys. I did walk the property and take pictures, however I did not take measurements. I was thinking they might have the property square footage information along with a map that they could give to me. Would that justify my bid instead of having to measure out by hand?

-Mixon

[dpld]

Originally Posted by Mixon427

Thanks for the info guys. I did walk the property and take pictures, however I did not take measurements. I was thinking they might have the property square footage information along with a map that they could give to me. Would that justify my bid instead of having to measure out by hand?

-Mixon

not all site plans are accurate especially if the place was developed in increments.
there may area's that were added later and not on the plan as well as they may be just for the total sq ft of the entire property.

you can not take a second party's word when it comes to measurements and there is no substitute for boots on the ground doing it yourself.

you need to make that a automatic given that any property you bid you take all measurements in the beds, lawn and hard surfaces as well as any other specs and considerations and keep on file.

the more information you have about someones property the more you can look like a true professional and answer every question they have.
nobody wants to under bid a job and lose money but over bidding a job is losing money too because you most likely did not get the job.

you need to keep in mind that being a small place for the elderly that they are a corporation and whether big or small all corporations get approached every day by companies that have expensive marketing and well trained sales people and it is easy to get the rug pulled out from underneath you by them.

you have to be consistent and approach every potential customer the same way with a attention to detail and get into a routine constantly following a system of checks and balances because it is how you run that aspect of your business that will determine if you are a success or not.

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

Originally Posted by Mixon427

Thanks for the info guys. I did walk the property and take pictures, however I did not take measurements. I was thinking they might have the property square footage information along with a map that they could give to me. Would that justify my bid instead of having to measure out by hand?

-Mixon

if they do its the building, parking lot and grass.

[lxarth]

Maybe you figured out your bid, maybe not. But I wanted to put in my thoughts.

First of all you have to get yourself a measuring wheel. Then you can get precise measurements of the lawn areas, planting beds, and all areas to be edged and trimmed.

I got mine for free from a customer (along with a lot of other tools) for a quick cleanup before he moved a couple years back. You don't have to spend a lot of money of them, but they are a bid-saver.

I do this for every property. Then I store the information, and can use it to compare to other bids. This way, if you bid it, and find out later that it was too low, it will help you the next time you have a property of similar size.

Blowing will probably be your biggest guess. I recently had a chance to bid on 3 apartments. The owner said he will hire me, but he has to fire the other company first...they have some small print in his last contract he didn't see.

As soon as I know I got the bid...as soon as I start working for him...I will post how I came up with my bid. It might not help you with this one, but I hope it will help others in the future.

If you haven't finished this bid...get back over there and measure out the grass, the planting beds, edges/trimming, and the parking lot. We can get you a bid with that.

[Mixon427]

Good lookin out fellas! I did go back to the property to measure and record total head count of shrubs and tress. I measured 75,000 sq ft of mowing/edging area/total shrub count=957/total tree count=151.

Im proud to say I won the bid and was contracted 2 days ago. I start immediately following the dismissal of the previous company.

The owner and I shook hands at a weekly service @ $800.00 monthly**mow,edge, trim, and blow. All other landscaping/additional services are priced separately.

Did good?

Mixon
GTeamLandscaping

[Mixon427]

In the next 2-3 weeks I start on a leveling job for a client whose back yard is sloped. Do I virtually use the same bidding process?

Thanks for advice.