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Great reply Jeff.

I have lost a lot of apartment bids and when I called back to see about them I ask who got it and for how much but in a nice way and they tell me that it is confidential. Not wanting to irritate them, I leave it at that.

I have asked nice and said that I wanted to make sure that I am competitive but again they tell me that it is confidential.

I will keep trying but I am thinking that my bids are probably too high.





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Christopher said:
Great reply Jeff.

I have lost a lot of apartment bids and when I called back to see about them I ask who got it and for how much but in a nice way and they tell me that it is confidential. Not wanting to irritate them, I leave it at that.

I have asked nice and said that I wanted to make sure that I am competitive but again they tell me that it is confidential.

I will keep trying but I am thinking that my bids are probably too high.





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Superior Power Washing<O:p</O:p
Chris Chappell<O:p</O:p
Exterior House Cleaning in Corpus Christi Texas<O:p</O:p
Cleaning Concrete Driveways Sidewalks and Walkways in Corpus Christi Texas
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I don't get all of them to tell me but many will. I really push the I want to be more competitive angle. Some states maybe they can't tell you, it might be an ethics rule or something. I also have some PM's that I trust that will say hey the Prop has this price can you come close. Unless it is some low baller hack price I usually can meet , beat or come close in pricing. I have a couple PM's if I can come within 10-15% of the bid, they will push the property to use us because of our proven track record of being a hassle free and good contractor. A good PM will and should guide HOA's to get the best value for their money and that does not mean always going for the lowest bid, no value in a hack that doesnt know what he is doing or even taking the chance on an unknown vendor when they know they have the right contractor in their list of contractors
 
Great info Jeff. I do alot of follow ups like you said and try not to be a pushy pain in the arz. In fact I've got a few that I call and they actually answer, "hey Larry". These are also the same ones that I haven't gotten answers on yet so I'm hoping thats a good sign. I do believe you are right about the pricing thing. I have no problem asking what it was that was the determining factor on who they went with and it ALWAYS boils down to the price. Only so much in their budget,,blah, blah, blah. I've even gotten friendly enough with a few and asked where do I nee to be $$ wise to secure this bid and someone always seems to come in even MUCH lower.

I like the idea of following up with faxes and more info. That I don't do. :eek:
I will beat a horse(deal) until it is dead with follow up calls. Maybe I need to start feeding the horse instead.
I'm looking foward to more info from you Jeff. You really seem to have this down to a science and do well with it. Thanx Jeff. :)
 
Jeff, after getting the price of the competitor, have you offered to match or beat it by a certain %? Or is it already in contract with the competitor and its too late? Or, is this not good practice at all?
 
Larry Millette said:
Great info Jeff. I do alot of follow ups like you said and try not to be a pushy pain in the arz. In fact I've got a few that I call and they actually answer, "hey Larry". These are also the same ones that I haven't gotten answers on yet so I'm hoping thats a good sign. I do believe you are right about the pricing thing. I have no problem asking what it was that was the determining factor on who they went with and it ALWAYS boils down to the price. Only so much in their budget,,blah, blah, blah. I've even gotten friendly enough with a few and asked where do I nee to be $$ wise to secure this bid and someone always seems to come in even MUCH lower.

I like the idea of following up with faxes and more info. That I don't do. :eek:
I will beat a horse(deal) until it is dead with follow up calls. Maybe I need to start feeding the horse instead.
I'm looking foward to more info from you Jeff. You really seem to have this down to a science and do well with it. Thanx Jeff. :)
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Larry I'm still learning too. But being persistant does pay off. And being with in the price range. I know Florida is reallllllllll competitive and I am sure there are companies or so called companies that you will never or should never beat their price, its just to low and hopefully they wont be in business to long

Maybe next time you have something a complex to bid on send me some pictures. Have your price worked out in your head and then call me and we can match numbers.

Boils down to price, YES....when they don't know you, some HOA's nothing matters but the lowest price but once you have done some work for PM's and you are proven to do a good job, timely and yes FAIR in your pricing they will go with a higher bid (mine) often, not all the time but often
 
Johnson said:
Jeff, after getting the price of the competitor, have you offered to match or beat it by a certain %? Or is it already in contract with the competitor and its too late? Or, is this not good practice at all?
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NO NO & Yes. If a PM calls me and say Jeff we have a price of $10,000 and your price is $10,500 can you match it. I say sure, but if its way off I can't lower my price to much. I have good profit worked in but I wont cut my throat to get the job. I have lowered my price some but still higher than the low bid and got the work. Some HOA's its a mind game and I will play the game SOMETIMES. The game I play is with PM's I know and trust

NO NO once they tell me the bid was won by someone else I don't say OH I will beat that, its kind of tacky , just not real professional and yes its probably to late, the HOA & PM have met and made the decisionI have had a couple companies try that on me. he told the PM he would drop the Price $1000, it would have put him almost $750 less than me. I had another tell the PM he would go 10% lower than my price PM didnt go for it. Both these PM's told me this, they dont think its professional. I am sure other have tried it and yes I tried it a couple times when I was 1st getting into complexes. I leearn quick it doesnt work or make you look good

It doesnt help some of you guys now, because you dont do a lot of PM work, but as you do more and more and get in with PM's you start to figure which ones want you to do their work and you can ask more questions of how you can get more or all of their work, you'll figure out the games that can be played. PM's most of them are Professionals that want good value, not all but a majority want the best for the dollar, not just low price hack work

Also not all low bid is hacks doing the work. Some bids I have lost just for a few $$$. $50, $100, $400 thats not a lowballer its just someone who beat your price. It kills you when you find out when you lose a bid by just a little bit. But thats biz. I lost a job $11,950 was my bid, the winning bid was $11,750 Argggggg. You can't win them all
 
jlpressure said:
Thanks all

I just want to say that multi unit property work and residential property management has been good to me. If any one has a questions, needs help or want to share on these subjects I will share what I know.
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Congrats Brother Jeff !!!!;)
 
Thanks for the response. Thats nice that they will sometimes call and ask if you can match a price.
Forgive me, I didnt mean for you to offer to beat a price right off the bat when talking with the p.m. and they tell you they had a lower estimate. I meant.... for example you asked what the winning bidder was price wise, and they say it was about 5% lower then yours, then you counter-act and then offer to match the price or add something in etc., etc.

Thanks again.
 
jlpressure said:
NO NO & Yes. If a PM calls me and say Jeff we have a price of $10,000 and your price is $10,500 can you match it.
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But Jeff thats an easy one because if they call you and tell you what the bid is and ask you if you can match it they don't want to do business with that company and looking for a reason not too and or either you've got them in your pocket,,,LOL. Which is probably the case,,,glad I'm not competing with you...LOL :cool: Which is the purpose of having "established relationships" with your local PM's. aka chocolate stuffed coffee cups...LOL,,:eek:
 
MudDuck said:
But Jeff thats an easy one because if they call you and tell you what the bid is and ask you if you can match it they don't want to do business with that company and looking for a reason not too and or either you've got them in your pocket,,,LOL. Which is probably the case,,,glad I'm not competing with you...LOL :cool: Which is the purpose of having "established relationships" with your local PM's. aka chocolate stuffed coffee cups...LOL,,:eek:
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That's a good point. But how far do you push it? Do you roll the dice and tell them "no, I can't match "x" but I can do "y" for you? Or do you just match it and leave money on the table? Interesting predicament.
 
tonyshelton said:
That's a good point. But how far do you push it? Do you roll the dice and tell them "no, I can't match "x" but I can do "y" for you? Or do you just match it and leave money on the table? Interesting predicament.
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Its a game but with many of my PM's I have very good relationship and they will tell me whats up. I have many times not have to drop my price and they showed me the other bid. Sometimes they tell me the HOA will only go with the lowest. I have been working with many of these PM's 5-6 years

Could one get over on me? I can drop $500 on a 10K job and still make good money. Hell a 10K job what I pay out 3-5K in labor materials insurance fuel and we can knock it out in 3-4 days along with other work possibly. Many jobs arre a pretty high mark up, definitly not all of them. LIKE this PITA job we finish tomorrow. Thats another story
 
jlpressure said:
Its a game but with many of my PM's I have very good relationship and they will tell me whats up. I have many times not have to drop my price and they showed me the other bid. Sometimes they tell me the HOA will only go with the lowest. I have been working with many of these PM's 5-6 years

Could one get over on me? I can drop $500 on a 10K job and still make good money. Hell a 10K job what I pay out 3-5K in labor materials insurance fuel and we can knock it out in 3-4 days along with other work possibly. Many jobs arre a pretty high mark up, definitly not all of them. LIKE this PITA job we finish tomorrow. Thats another story
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pita job is that the one i saw you on monday we finished ours on weds
 
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