Masonry Magazine December 2001 Page. 32
■YOURSELF
SELLING
10 Tricks for Building
Relationships with GC's
by Steve Saucerman
For many construction professionals, sub-contracted work (work obtained under a general or prime contractor) can make up a large part of the yearly revenue. That's fine by itself, but sometimes selling your services to general contractors (GC's) can prove elusive... even a little frustrating. After all, you punctually respond to their request for bid; you're relatively sure that your pricing is competitive for your market; and you feel confident you have plenty of experienced manpower and equipment to tackle their jobs, yet for some reason, you just don't seem to get the work come award time.
Of course, not getting the work is bad enough, but when you factor in all of the resources and office time eaten up during the estimating process, the return on investment pales even further... and you can't afford to spin your wheels. Running a contracting firm is tough enough without wasting precious hours preparing quotes that don't deliver the necessary work. Yet if you don't deliver estimates, you're guaranteed not to get the work. So what do you do?
Searching for Solutions: The List
Well, often the key to obtaining work is not so much in the technical aspects of bidding and contracting as it is in more non-technical areas of professionalism.