5 Ways to Improve Your Contracting Business Proposals

When your contracting business bids on a project, you might be competing with several or even dozens of other contracting businesses. If you want to win the contract, you need to have the right plan from the beginning. With these tips, you will have a better idea of how you can make your proposals stand out.

Fix Past Mistakes
As a business owner, one of the best things that you can do is learn from your mistakes. In the early years of your contracting business, you are more likely to experience failure. Where you go from there depends on what you do with that information. When you lose out on a bid, it’s a wise idea to learn why you didn’t win. Try to avoid letting your ego make excuses for you, and think about the problem constructively. Compare your failures to your successes, and see if you can distinguish obvious differences between the two. Get input when possible. These ideas will help you to correct problems and prevent them from happening in the future.

Write Appealing Content
Although each bid is going to follow a specific format, you still need to write as if you care about landing the project. Property owners might have to sort through dozens or even hundreds of bids on a project. The last thing that you want is for your bid to get lost in the shuffle, just one more generic document in a stack of 100 others. Instead, think about what you can do to grab the attention of the reader, in a way that makes your bid come to life. Make sure that your approach emphasizes the positive aspects of choosing your bid. If you decide to use humor as a way of keeping attention, be very careful, as humor is difficult to translate into writing.

Set Clear Expectations
When people are sorting through a bunch of bids on a project, they want to be able to separate them quickly and cleanly. One way that you can set yourself apart is to outline your expectations and your goals in a quantifiable way. It’s tempting to craft a bid that allows you a lot of wiggle room in terms of completing the project. The property owners and general contractors may see through that quickly, and opt for a bid with more concrete details. Be specific as much as you can, giving yourself a cushion on budgets and timelines when possible.

Avoid Making Unreasonable Promises
Practically everybody has an experience with a professional who promised far more than they were able to deliver. Since you don’t want your contracting business to be known as one that over-promises or under-delivers, it’s best to only offer work that you know you can deliver. It’s always possible that you can have problems throughout the project that make it difficult for you to complete them according to specifications. But that issue is far different from using your bid as a way to undercut the competition in a way that isn’t sustainable. After all, it’s not a business if you can’t make enough money from the projects to keep going.

Show Your Uniqueness
When you start to craft your bid, do some research into your likely competition. Most property owners will have to decide among a set of bids, and it may not be too difficult to get a sense for the other businesses out there. What are they good at? What gives you an edge? It’s a good idea to know your competition in general, but this also gives you an added opportunity for the bid itself. If you have more information about your competition, then you can use the bid to explain how your company is unique from the rest. You can set yourself apart in a way that helps the deciding party feel comfortable choosing you over someone else.

Making successful bids is one of the best ways to secure more projects as a business owner. To take the next step on your construction career path, contact CSLS today!

This entry was posted in Contractor Business on by .

About CSLS

Contractors State License Service (CSLS) is the largest school in California devoted to the Construction professional. For over 23 years, CSLS has helped its students pass the exam to become licensed contractors in the State of California, licensing more students than any other school. From our main offices in Southern California, CSLS operates over 25 locations with full-service support and classrooms. We have grown to this extent by providing quality, professional services. In comparison, this provides 7 times the number of convenient locations than the second largest contractor school. Contractors State License Services is one of the only contractor schools in the state that is run by educators, not lawyers or people mostly interested in the bonding and insurance business. Contractors State License Services formerly operated under the oversight of the State of California's Bureau for Private Post Secondary and Vocational Education. As of January 1 2010, the new Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) came into existence replacing the BPPVE. CSLS now operates under the provisions of the California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009 (CPPEA), Article 4 Section 94874(f). Our Mission is simple; We can help you pass your California Contractors License Exam. Celebrating our 25th year, CSLS has helped over 120,000 students pass the California contractor licensing exam to become licensed contractors in the State of California. Additionally, we offer complete home study and online contractor’s license programs to help you pass your California contractors license exam. CSLS offers licensing classes for all types of contractor licenses, including General Engineering Contractor, General Building Contractor, Specialty Contractor, Insulation and Acoustical Contractor, Framing and Rough Carpentry Contractor, Cabinet, Millwork and Finish Carpentry Contractor, Concrete Contractor, Drywall Contractor, Electrical Contractor, Elevator Contractor, Landscaping Contractor, Warm-Air Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning Contractor, and many others. For a complete list of contractor licenses, visit www.MakeMeAContractor.com and tuned for more informative posts.