So last month we were contacted by two different businesses for grounds mainenance contracts- a doctors and an office.
We visited the sites...met the people involved...spent time listening to their requirements and then wrote up a detailed tender of what we would do and when and how much it would cost.
We were competitative in our prices.
We waited three weeks....and hear nothing. We emailed politely...only to be told finance departments were looking into budgets etc. Now we have left it.
1 month later we drive past both places, only to see that on one site nothing has changed and looks even worse and on the other site just the grass has been cut and all the hedges look overgrown and there are loads of weeds.
So how come they don't come back to us and say- yes we would like to take you up on the offer, or no thankyou we can't afford that or even still at least email to acknowledge the quote?
Very frustrating.
My husband thinks we possibly put too much detail in and all they want is a basic grass cut!
Views: 52
Replies
You could be right that providing all that detail may be putting them off. It's sometimes best to simply make them realise you will take care of everything (within reason/refer to specification).
HOWEVER
In my experience a lot of these types of contracts can be difficult to sign as they realise it's actually going to cost more than they thought for a proper job. It's not worth you trying to do it cheap just to get the job. Have faith in your pricing, stick to it, and move on to the next client.
I have seen sites I have either left or not been awarded turn to ruin which reflects the money these people are willing to pay.
One more thing to remember is that they are often run by very busy small busiensspeople like you and I and they sometimes simply forget to get back to you in a timely manner. This is where you state your quote validity period so if they come back to you and the grass is 4ft long you can change the quote to reflect this.
All's not lost. It is not unusual to wait months on a commercial response. They often go to the market to gain prices to allow a budget to be set and agreed. The contract can then be awarded a lot later.
If a contractor is already place, You can find they price test to either see if they were getting. 'value for money' from existing contractor or were trying to leverage a new quote to beat a renewal price down.
You are right tho, often too much detail can be provided and can effectively swamp them. You need to balance brevity with detail - which comes with experience.
Ask permission to keep in contact , but don't bug them daily/ weekly. Then a brief call to ask if there are any questions or issues we can clarify etc
Thank you for your reply. You are right, it's not worth doing it cheap just to get the job and also I think that they are really busy and forget to email/call with a response.
This is all new to us. It has only been the last year as our business has grown that we have started to get commercial grounds maintenance quotes- got a lot to learn. Thanks for the help.
Dan Frazer Gardening said:
Yeh it could be, also I wondered if they are just checking their current companies prices and seeing if they can get cheaper quotes for next year.
Paul @ PPCH Services said:
lol yep lots to learn - but glad that all you lot on here are so helpful.
Think you are right balancing brevity with detail on the quote is important.
One company showed us a quote from nice n stripy and it was so brief. Probably too brief, so we need to hit somewhere in the middle.
We will learn with experience, like you said, to how best to word the quotes for commercial maintenance.
Thank you :)
Gary RK said:
We get it each year with nursing homes in the area especially the chains, we do as you do but to date we have never picked any of them up. i went to one site and there was about 10 tipper loads of rubbish dumped in the corner which they wanted removed but each time we are too expensive I guess!
Although I'm not a maintenance person quoting and securing work is exactly the same for us garden designers. I always spend at least an hour and a half for an initial meeting (for which I don't charge) and people are always enthusiastic about my portfolio/ideas. When I don't hear back I always follow up - sometimes clients are honest and say they didn't realise how much it would cost (even though I always give them an idea of my charges and the costs of building the garden when they phone up). Others, just say they haven't made up their minds. Often you'll never know the reason you did not get a job. I also toyed (at the start of the recession) with lowering my prices, but have stood firm and am always busy. The problem is that you can't tell whether it's price or something else that was a deciding factor.
It is frustrating not knowing why you didn't get a job - especially the ones where you came away with a great feeling from the clients. My suspicion is that people don't realise how much it's going to cost. They have no idea of the time these things take and that you have to cover your overheads as well as making a living. This is also true for garden design. When you add up the time for travelling to site, taking a survey, creating the design concepts (thinking time), physical drafting time, preparing 3D visuals, presenting drawings to a client, etc it can (and should) take several days even for a small garden.
I agree with the others. You should not lower your prices. People need to realise that the service offered by garden industry professionals has value and if it's something clients cannot or do not have time to do they should be prepared to pay someone else a reasonable living wage to do it.
Linsey Evans
www.linseysgardens.com
www.gardendesignuk.blogspot.com
garden design in surrey, berkshire, london, buckinghamshire, the thames valley.
my local gp surgery wanted someone to do maintenance work around the surgery for £5.00 an hour
I often quote on sites and sometimes hear months and months later. In one case i quoted on one site and won the contract over a year later!
As paul said the commercial market is very fickle and you very rarely build a relationship with the clients.
Phone up the site that still looks scruffy and ask them if they'd like you to do a one-off just to see what a difference it would mak.
REmind them that one-off prices are slightly more than contract prices because of the intitial effort needed to get things under control
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next