Subcontractor Bid Notices

RPortinga

We've bid projects for retail centers and such where we have 125-150 or more bid invites that go out.

Even on a "simple" Tenant Improvement, the bid list can push 50-75 subs...

I'm at the point where about 65% of my invites go out via email, and the rest either fax, or via an email to fax service...

Problem is... many ISPs, mine included, are putting restrictions on sending "mass emails", including limits as to how many emails I can send an hour and in a day.

I think I have a solution... the problem is going to be getting subs to get on board...

with our webhost, I can set up an "announce list", it's an opt-in mailing list that participants subscribe to. I can manually add them, but they still need to click a confirmation link in an email to be activated... just like the forums here basically.

I'm trying to set it up where subs subscribe to this list, and when I have a new bid invite or an addendum gets issued, or whatever... I send just one email through the admin panel and it goes to everyone on the list.

Now of course, this is all going to hinge on the subs actually subscribing... and my address database makes it easy for me to mark those that have and not include them when generating my usual email lists...

Yea.. ultimately, this is a time-saver for our office... And I realize it means that subs that sign up may get notices nothing to do with their line of work... but I'm hoping the appeal of very easily keeping informed of the latest opportunities (and we're getting 2-3 a week right now) would out-weigh that. We had a project bid this week that two days before the due date, two addendums got issued... and it was a scramble to try and alert everyone.

I've got more written up about it on our website if anyone wants to know more... http://bauercompanies.com/bidnotices.php

Anyways, I'm just looking for some feedback from subs... would you find it worth the "hassle" to subscribe to a list like this for a general contractor?

Thanks in advance...

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Rob Portinga - Bauer Bros. Construction, Inc.
Design/Build - General Contractor - Construction Management

Ed the Roofer

No, that is a great idea, but it also indicates to me that you are price shopping out every job for every trade, regardless of past historical working relationships.

I used to do a great volume of roofing work, primarily on newly constructed restaurant roofs. Due to my near contact associations with the group of GC's I desired to work for in my niche, I reciprocated new franchisee information to them with the understanding that one hand washes the other.

I completely cleaned my slate of one GC, due to a restaurant that I personally hand fed to to them to acquire and then they price shopped out my roofing bid for that same job. My price on that one was no higher than the other similar units built with travel conditions, but some local unknown roofing contractor was substantially cheaper, without ever having done all 3 phases of the project that I was used to, such as the Single Ply Membrane Flat Roof, The Concrete Roof Tile and the Architectural Sheet Metal work.

I understand the necessity of getting contractors when you are a mobile GC and take on jobs throughout the Midwest, but a sense of loyalty needs to be clearly established with the deserving subs too.

Was that a Rant about my own past experience? Yeah, I guess it was. All of my franchise leads went to other GC's after that instance though.

Ed

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RPortinga

I know where you're coming from Ed. We have our "go to" guys, I had a walk on a project today that we've been working with a building owner for a couple months through various revisions, mostly doing just our own take offs... got to the point where they actually developed some prints and we only brought in one sub per trade.

But we also do a lot of ... not open bidding, pretty close. We bid a 12000SF retail building shell a couple weeks ago, there were 9 generals bidding. My bid list was about 160subs. According to the developer, the top 5 bids they got were within 1% of each other. (we were one of them)

There were a couple guys that I've done a lot of work with that came in on the high side... if I hadn't put it out for competitive bid, I wouldn't have been in that top 5, and probably wouldn't get a chance to bid on future stuff with this developer.

Generally, even if I wanted to, I don't have time to "shop bids". On most projects, we ask subs to have their bids in about 6 hours prior to when we have to have it it... if I have to turn my bid in at 3pm, we tell subs to get numbers in by 9am. Yea, I'll call around and qualify bids... making sure the low bids aren't missing stuff, and sometimes checking with anyone that's way to high to figure out if they are putting in stuff they shouldn't be.

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Rob Portinga - Bauer Bros. Construction, Inc.
Design/Build - General Contractor - Construction Management

essrmo

that really sucks whatthey diid.