gengiscon

How's it going everybody? I started my own low voltage wiring company about 2 months ago. I'm in the hampton roads, VA area. I've gotten a few residential jobs here in there and even landed a contract with a pretty big contractor in the area. I am still way under my projected sales goals. My problem is the gatekeepers (secretaries) or anyone that says "we'll put you on our list of contractors and call you if we need you". I want a meeting with a decisionmaker!! I know if I do that, I've got a great shot at getting a contract. Does anyone have any tricks of the trade? How should I approach builders and contractors? If anybody has experience landing the big contracts, PLEASE HELP.

arios

Hi Gengiscon im with Compulink out of Ft. Lauderdale. what usually works for me is I call the GC or EC who is doing the sub-contracting I say to the secretary " My name is ____ I have a packet regarding the ____ construction but im not sure who's in charge of this project." they will usually tell me oh is so and so. from there you can send a brochure if you have one and call and you already have a contact. you can also try to get the secretary to give you the persons e-mail if you get it just shoot them a detailed message. usually if you know what you want to bid on is much better than sending a random letter telling them what you do.

bobbyj

At our office, that tactic will get you put on the "I won't call you even if I do need you!" list. Our secretaries are trained on who not to take calls from. If we took every sales call that came to our office, it's all we would do. My advice is put your money in advertisement. If we need you we'll find you! In the meantime let us do our jobs, and our secretaries do theirs. On top of that, most electrical contractors in our area are doing the type of work your trying to pitch, that may be why no one is answering the phone.

Grumpy

This might be a better topic for the sales section of the forum. We all have to deal with similiar scenarios.


In addition this thread is particularly scented of spam. One guy with no posts asks for advice another guy with no posts offers advice. What's next a link to a miraculous quick fix?

I'll take the bait. Many of the BIG contractors do have bidders lists and I've gotten on them simply by asking: "What do I need to do to be placed on your bidder's list?" Remember this question is the first part of a sales process. Make a spreadsheet with all the information, including this secretaries name. A few weeks later call thsi very same person and ask this person "Hey last week we spoke about placing me on your bidder's list. I was wondering if you guys have any projects coming up." Treat this person like the decision maker, they might be, but if not making them remember you will lead them to eventually tell the decision maker about you.

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-Grumpy
Chicago Gutters Chicago Roofing

erich7502

I firmly believe that a sparky should stay with the area that they are very good at. High Voltage. Long since the days went by that the phones and cable are the only needs of a home or business. The LV trade is a specialty trade. You don't daisy chain things anymore. I routinly am called by electrical contractors that need help. I go into their project that they first bid at 400 to 1000 to add the LV systems on top of what they are already there for and find that the homeowner or investor really needs or wants more than what sparky has put into their estimate. It is very routine that I walk away with a much more extensive system design and a total project price of around 4500. Like I said sparky should stick to high voltage and let us half watts handle and design the LV stuff.

In short, to answer the how do I start question, go to your electrical contractors in your area. Start with the little firms until you have a base. I offer to do what they don't want to deal with. I started my company doing a phone jack here and a cable jack there until they started to call me. Most of the time now the electrical contractors are calling me when they are bidding a project, have me bid the LV side of things and submit my estimate with theres or have also offered them a "Contractor Discount" of a varied interval based on the amount of work that they give me. They then add a small percentage to my estimate for themselves and we come in after their done with the high voltage and button up the low voltage. The other big key is to get to the homeowners, architects and project developers. They are the ones utimatly writing the checks and if they request your services on their project, more likely than not, the GC will request the approiate insurance, bond, licensing and your in.

jmic

Bring the Secretary over a Vase of flowers. Win them over and you got the work.

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___"Remember You Never Get A Second Chance To Make A First Impression"______________________
Joe

Speedy Petey

Sorry, I FIRMLY disagree with you here.

I don't get the comment "Stick to what we are good at.."
What if I am good at running and terminating Cat5&6, RG6, etc, as well as romex, MC and conduit?

I personally will agree with you on security systems, but this is a personal prefrence. I know many electrical contractors who are also licensed security installers.

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mdshunk

I support your right to feel that way. I feel the same way about handymen who try to do electrical work. Consider that I went to a lot of effort and expense to work up to my BICSI RCDD credential, and I'm just a sparky. I think I do pretty nice work in that area, if I do say so myself. Not nearly as much as I hoped for, but some here and there. Most large electrical contractors have a low voltage division, where they tend to park their low voltage specialized men.

BuildingHomes

Not to get into the debate of who pulls cat5 better.. But as one of the above posters stated, start doing little things here and there for existing home owners.

Especially look for new home subdivisions, all of them need something done. Put some signs up on lamp posts.

Once you start getting a reputation, start expanding your services to include other things that new home owners might need along those lines. An easy one these days in home theatre setup. I do a couple of these a week at time + materials.

Then you have lots of experience, lots of tools, and lots of customers.

You may find this a bit better than working for a builder who may not give you enough warning to come in and do your job, who might pay you in 30 days providing you got your invoice in by the 25th of the month, who may not have kept you up to date with the list of customer changes, who will markup your upgrade prices to the point of where they are almost impossible to sell, etc..

BuildingHomes

You would be a rarity around here. A few of us have gone in after an EC has pulled LV cable and did not like what we saw.. snug parallel runs with electrical, torn sheathing, electrical staples to hold cat5, short trim lengths, and no foresight for the customers requirements.

erich7502

I completly agree with both of you and am not trying to start fires here. I don't dispute that either of you can "pull" and "terminate" Cat5, Cat5e or Cat6. I can wire a house with romex or a building using mc and conduit myself. Maybe my comments where taken out of context here. Even though I can 'do' the job of a sparky and run as fast they can that it is not my specialty and would never consider doing it, if you stick to one thing and do it well, you will be pretty successful (depending on many other factors of course).

mdshunk

Agreed! I'm just the sort that is never content, and I want to know a little (and sometimes a lot) about many things. Truth is, I'd rather not perform your trade. I'm fine with the communications, but security and fire, not so much. The security and fire that I've done have been so highly engineered, it left no room for guess work... straight install per print and manufacturer's instructions.

BuildingHomes

Not to mention the failure-to-perform insurance is cost prohibitive if you don't do a lot of it.

I'll just pull the wire for it, and I point the customer at a systems installer to do the electronics.

Speedy Petey

This is my point. Who is to say what "one thing" is?

How about the conduit guys saying resi guys should stick to only wiring houses and NM? How about the resi guys saying the commercial guys should stay out of houses? (I know this does happne though)

How about me who does ALL of that? I think small scale low voltage work is WELL within my sticking to "one thing". Wiring. And I do it well.

I do this so I can offer my customers more. Not everyone around here does all this, but many do. If I did not offer lo-vo in my scope of work that would be one less thing I can offer my customers and one more thing to make them look elsewhere.
On the other side of the coin, if I stuck to one level of wiring, such as lo-vo and alarms, around here I'd go broke. That or I'd have to travel all over the place. Something I am not willing to do right now. I am overwhelmed with work within a 30 mile radius of my home.

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mdshunk

That's a perfect position to be in. I did 4 calls on Friday myself, all within a 2 mile radius of each other. That's the big benefit of being an electrical generalist. Even in industrial MRO settings, the trend is moving away from trade specialists, and more toward generalists, with subs called in for the tougher jobs.

Speedy Petey

I have to admit, 80-90% of that work is actually within 15 miles of me.

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