How to Win More Construction Bids

Like every other contractor, you’d like to win more bids so you can grow your construction business. For this to happen, you need to become efficient in your bidding and proposal creation process. In addition, you must utilize more effective strategies that can help you solve many of the challenges contractors experience in the process of estimating and bidding.

Here are some ideas on various ways you can improve your bidding and proposal creation so you can win more construction bids.

Market your business to potential clients

Marketing your services to business owners and potential clients is an essential first step. Reach out to them and let them know the types of services you can offer and the nature of contracts you would like to bid on. Building good relationships and getting prequalified with these potential clients will also help in receiving more invitations to bid.

In addition, you should reach out to your own contact network so you can be informed about upcoming opportunities.

Select your projects carefully

Please understand that you don’t have to bid for every opportunity you come across because not all contracts will make you a reasonable profit even if you are to win all the bids. It is essential to make sure that the project is the right fit for your firm. Crunch the numbers and make sure that you can make a decent profit before putting in the bid. This entails getting your labor and materials estimates right. You should include all your job costs and overheads, then factor in a reasonable profit margin for yourself.

Get to know your bid-hit win ratio

It is helpful if you know what your bid-hit win ratio is. If you have been in business for some time, you will have an idea of how many projects you need to bid in order to get a job. This is your bid-hit win ratio.

In arriving at this figure, you would have sorted the projects you have already bid for into categories so you can determine the number of projects you successfully bid for and completed successfully previously. If your bid-hit win ratio is 5:2, it implies that you won 2 contracts for every 5 jobs you bid on.

How an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tool can help

There is an easier and smarter way of overcoming many of these challenges and winning more construction bids. Deploying a cloud-based construction management tool in your bidding and proposal creation process is a great way of ensuring that your estimates and measurements are accurate and more likely to get you the contract. Construction ERP software solutions are designed to meet the specific needs of contractors and construction companies.

Benefits of using a cloud-based ERP tool to improve your bid-hit win ratio

• Helps evaluate profitability
As mentioned above, not all contracts will make you a decent profit even if you win all the bids. An ERP application will give you immediate access to project data, including the cost of tools, materials and labor. This makes it easy for you to evaluate the profitability of every project before you bid so you can decide if you will be able to complete a project profitably.

• Makes for effective planning
The ERP application provides the necessary tools to make the planning process faster and less stressful. It will help you with scheduling, timeline creation, development of cost estimates, and revenue projections.

• Helps develop precise estimates
In order to win more bids, you must come up with estimates with greater precision. You should not submit estimates you cannot defend to your client. The ERP application will help you extract from databases, ongoing prices of materials, labor, and equipment rental in the location the project will be executed. This will ensure your estimated costs are realistic and not too far from the cost estimates your client has in mind. Your chances of winning the contract increase significantly by submitting more accurate estimates.

• Provides easy access to project information
A construction ERP is optimized for easy access across various devices. Prompt access to complete project data makes it easy to monitor and track the status of projects, allowing you to make adjustments to ensure profit margin erosion can be addressed during the project as well- before it is too late to make adjustments.