Bidding Success

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Deere John

ArboristSite Operative
Joined
Feb 2, 2001
Messages
368
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15
Location
Northern Ontario, Canada
Do you track you success rate for bidding jobs? I remember doing that and overall, me thinks I remember a 73% success rate.

Homeowners were good - greater than 80%.
Businesses were better yet, but the payment terms were excessive
Provincial government was good to0 - better than 60%
Municipal government was a little tougher - 35% or so
Strictly telephone enquires were strictly 0%
and social agencies that wanted their minimum of 3 bid were also 0%

How did/do you do in your market?
 
I never kept track, but because virtually all of my work was referrals I would have to say that my residential work was 80%-90% or better. If I got a call from a referral, it was practically sold before I got there. Your numbers on the other categories seem right on the mark.
 
I don't think we keep track of the bid success rate, but I know we keep track of the sources. i.e. repeat, referral, yellow pages, etc.
 
I'd say about 80 - 85 % almost all residential. If I bid a nasty job, I make sure I bid it high enough that I don't regret it and there's always guys around who only need to make enough to cover the beer.
 
Yes its funny how we usually never get the calls for the easy take downs. Too much competition from the handy neighbour, lawnguy, brother-in-law with aluminum ladder, mini-Mac saw and yellow poly rope or the guy down the street that would wack it just for the firewood in it. Beer generally involved in all above transactions.

I never tracked referals etc. I will do that for snowplowing, because most people will tell without being prompted. Good idear.
 
Most of my work seems to come from an ad in a local papers classifieds. If they call, they seem committed, over 90% of the time anyways. The folks that leave me hanging are generally trying to get some of the federal money for fire mitigation landscaping work and seem to need a few bids to apply. If they get the money, fine, if not then they aint doin nuthin. Referrals are probably 100%. If they call after getting my name from a previous client, they want something done. I've picked up 3 out of 4 house neighboring a clients by having the owners stroll over for a chat, ask what you can do for their tree, etc. I just ran my 1st Yellow Pages (Names & Numbers) ad, so the juries still out on how effective that is. One of my clients, a ritzy local hotel, got my number off my truck. The hotel greens peron was looking for a new tree person & there I was.
 
I am getting less and less. Last year I was probably getting about 25% of the bids, year before probably more like 40-50%. This year I have been bidding higher and higher and only been getting about 15-20%. I don't want to be known as the lowest co. around , if you're getting 80% of your bids it's time to raise your prices! Unless that is from all referalls, that's pretty good then.
There are some very large co's here that consistently underbid me , I don't know how they can do it.
There is an unreal amount of competition here so we do Lawn+ Landscape work too, if i was trying to survive only on tree work I would have been bankrupt already. We actually make more money doing landscaping, doesn't make any sense but I'm glad I learned landscaping! The lawn work doesn't really make any money but it ties into the reg. landscape maint. and works out good.
 
Man dont even start losing sleep worieing how the big boys do it so cheap. Its not worth it. Go ahead & mix in some landscaping. We did alot of tree work for lrg. landscape companys. It was just pride. Me tree man, you mow grass! What a knocklehead I was. Just look at the home of the landscape man.& his car & toys.No high workers comp., Lrg. trucks, & all the high priced Equip. it takes to do a tree.The price a comercial landscaper gets to fix a broken sprinkler head, is much better than most tree trim prices.
 
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