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	Subject - Submitting bids to a committee John A. Peters Submitting bids to a committee I seem to be operating my business in some sort of a middle ground. Two of my men do not do any service calls and we do not work for any general contractors or do any tract houses.. We work for homeowners. I usually go out there can take a bunch of notes thoroughly covering what they know they need to have done. Then I venture into the list of tasks on their wish lists. I usually can get them to tell me everything they have in mind, after I show them a sample of my estimate, were each task has a separate price. This allows them to pick and choose add-ons or tasks. You know it is a lot easier to decide if you want to particular task to be done or not, when you can see the price. Sometimes I joke with them that we need something on the wish lists that can be crossed off so you'll feel like you're saving money. Ha ha. Then I return to my office and use the contract generator (tm) generate the list of tasks which I e-mail to the client(s). I don't know about you that I love having the ability to send the same estimate to several different e-mail addresses simply quickly and easily. I'm not trying to close the job in the first visit. This may leave me open to competitive bidding but since we don't win our jobs by price, is not very much of a problem. I had my CSR do a steady and we seem to be winning more than one out of every three jobs. My old boss told me that if you are winning more than one out of three jobs then your prices may be too low. Question - I wonder how you service call guys handle the jobs that are fairly extensive? For example a condo conversion of a three flat building with three different owners who are tenants in common? Usually there is a list of boilerplate items that the building inspection department has already written up. Sometimes only one of the owners is there to show you through. This means that the other two owners have nothing to go on other than what you present in written form or by e-mail. These condo conversion jobs really don't present themselves well for looking in a book for flat rate pricing, and overcoming price objections on site while you are there or do they? Certainly they don't let the lend themselves for closing the job on the first visit, because it's almost like talking to a committee where not everyone is at the meeting. They usually will get together later, without me and talk over the various options. Hopefully this is where my web page helps out a little bit. I'm wondering how others handle this types of code correction jobs, with multiple owners and a deferred schedule? Is this message too long? Hit them keys for me. Ryan Time and materials it's the only way to go with a service call John A. Peters Yes but the above refers to a condo conversion, not a service call. Typically there is a list of items that need to be brought up to code, that was prepared by the City inspector. It might range from missing GFIs and or missing utility circuits, to a required third meter and panel for the common area lighting. Now - what do the others here think?