How Good Construction Estimating Can Get You Jobs
In the construction business one of the tasks that have a small return on your time is the one of providing estimates. Construction Estimating has been the Achilles heal to most small general contractors. You invest a lot of time travelling and then depending on the job, several hours talking with the client to then inspect for the requirement of the job to not be assured that you are going to get the job after all. A kitchen is a kitchen. You know depending on the size of the kitchen how long it will take to demolish it and how long it will take to fix or put up some walls. Then after that it is a matter of budget and taste of the client to determine the cabinetry and ultimate cost of job. After so many years in the business I have found that the jobs that I did get were more due to other factors having little to do with meeting me or one of my associates in person. One of those factors is: Initial phone consultation. That initial phone consultation should be as thorough as possible. So much so that you should be able to give the client a complete estimate with at least three to four options with pictures of cabinetry in a report type format. Another factor is: the estimate itself. Put in a lot of extras and pictures of the outcome. Remember, very few customer can actually visualize their desired outcome. But if your initial phone call can get them to describe their current kitchen and their desired outcome and you can actualize this in an estimate, you are ahead of the pack. One key factor is: consistent communication. But this does not have to be phone calls at all times. Become their trust adviser when it comes to issues regarding their homes. Email them, fax them, mail to them. But whatever you do, do not stop communicating. But communicate smartly. All the mentioned avenues of communication simply require either a press of a button or a lick of a stamp. All of the above shows that you take your business and most importantly their business seriously and that you are interested without investing the man hours and overhead expenses of paying personnel to do several visits for a deal they may not get just because they simply offered them a one page estimate full of numbers and no visual application. |