How to bid?

Yes Guy we know, because you have stated it so many times. Every tree can be saved!! Blah Blah Blah
 
Glad I walked from this. Come to find out why they do not have a tree service working for them anymore. They tried this pricing format with another tree service. Somehow they sucked him in thinking it would be a great opportunity for his business. Needless to say he got rooked. Doing all the nasty tree jobs there for only a $1000 per tree. All the easy jobs they had there borough guys do. He lost his a$$. After his contract was up he walked. Now they are scrambling to find someone. Like I said some of the trees to be removed would have costs higher then this. I dont work and risk my life for free. F that! If I'm not making profit then I would rather stay home.
 
ROYCE said:
What about charging per inch? Would they agree to this? Then, if they want to know what the tree care will cost for the year, all they need to do is measure the diameter of the trees to be removed, or pruned.
Something along the lines of 28.23 per inch of diameter for removals and 18.23 for pruning. Sure, some small removals will be cheap, but they will be quick. Maybe you can even fell most of them. A large removal may be 24" diameter and that would cost $677.52. Sure some will be easy removals and some will be harder, but over the course of a year, I bet it would average out.

That is the way it is run in a town over from me. They pick the price, you either go along, or you don't get the bid. Emergency work is billed per hour
Click to expand...

Royce, you are willing to remove a 36" dbh tree and stump for $1016.38? that sounds way to cheap
 
personally i would find the worst tree to remove and grind and then find the worst tree to prune, then put a profitable wholesale rate on the work and set that as my price to do any removal or prune
 
and i wouldn't care if they sent me to do a notch and drop bradford that $3000 per tree or whatever would be the price. after a year they would change their tune and change the bid specs
 
twig, smart move holding off. Sounds like the town should be open to another kind of arrangement. One way to narrow their potential list is to find a way to get them to raise the bar on qualifications to bid. One obvious place is safety; maybe send the town's risk manager a copy of accident reports, OSHA and ANSI Z and A300 standards, etc. That's one paraphrasing of Jeff's message, "if they are stupid then you have to be advantageous"--is that close, Jeff?

From personal experience, towns and other potential clients respond favorably long-term to contractors who seek to grow assets. Another approach is to see trees as liabilities, and be the problem-solver. If the problem is portrayed factually with no snake oil and no scare tactics then no problem.
 
I mean if someone wants to bid every tree the same no matter what then find the worst one figure out want its going to take to make a fair wholesale profit then hand them that bid per tree. call all your competitors and tell them to do the same. Those bid specs will change fast and in a hurry. If someone is stupid, then you have to be advantageous, as we are all in business to do the best quality work for the best price and bring the bacon home to mama.
 
This is a great topic - It has shed a lot of light on the process. I've started taking over the bidding process for my dad who has been in the business 40+ years and is very, very old school with everything. He's taught me a lot, but things have changed so much. He just looks at a tree and has a number - good for him but that doesn't compute for me. I need inch rate, hourly rate, etc to give an accurate quote. Sometimes I over bid and sometimes I under bid. I've worked out what it costs per day for crew, business, and profit - now it's just better understanding time and all the other myriad variables. That'll come with experience. Luckily he has 40 years of customers and the contractor's license, insurance, etc. In the meantime, I'm getting all our other certifications up to snuff.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
On another note, we've seen municipalities take on the lowest bidder and the city ends up with destroyed trees, the business is no longer in business after a year or two, and/or a raft of law suits because of property damage, etc. Also, it takes a long time to get paid. Same with the large property companies up here.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
My dad does the same if they aren't flexible on doing price per tree - prices it highest possible rate for each tree. He says there is a reason they need to find a new contractor every year


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I have to agree with using the most expensive trees to set your price. Include a disclaimer for traffic control being an additional fee to lower your price per tree. I would find out when is the pay schedule and see if they have a city Credit Card that can pay you weekly or upon completion etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom