# What's your bid to work ratio



## Brush Hog (Jun 13, 2007)

Mine in the landscape world is 2 in 10 on a good week. Alot of knuckleheads working for free and they don't know it. Also do you think people know that tree work is expensive ? I get alot of "wow, it cost that much". They want a beautiful looking yard but not willing to pay for it. What's up with that!! Do you tree dudes have the same problem ?


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## DGG (Jun 13, 2007)

I'll bet you hear the same thing in every profession. Take your chain saw into the local dealer for repair and I'll bet you will be thinking the same thing. 

Like you said, many don't even know what stuff costs them and end up working or free.


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## nytreeman (Jun 13, 2007)

I'm always amazed by the fact that some people even though removing a hazardous tree,over their house and everything they may own,and will probably be by far the most dangerous thing that happens on their property they don't want to pay a fair price from someone insured and experienced and will get their landscaper or brother in-law to do it :monkey:


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## STLfirewood (Jun 13, 2007)

I do a small amount of tree work. I have a different full time job so it's just a side thing for me. I usually get 8 out of 10 bids. I'm most likely the cheapest that bids I guess. I have a nice 12inch 120hp turbo diesel chipper that has been bought and paid for for a long time. I guess by not having any overhead I can keep the price cheap for people. yesterday My father and i took some trees out on a coupe different job. We put in a 12 hour day with drive time and each cleared $650. The people were very happy with the job and the price. I have a hard time knowing what to bid. Is there a magic formula that says what you should try and get per hour for a job. I'm new to this site and this is one of the reasons I joined the site.


Scott


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## ropensaddle (Jun 13, 2007)

nytreeman said:


> I'm always amazed by the fact that some people even though removing a hazardous tree,over their house and everything they may own,and will probably be by far the most dangerous thing that happens on their property they don't want to pay a fair price from someone insured and experienced and will get their landscaper or brother in-law to do it :monkey:


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++99


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## ropensaddle (Jun 13, 2007)

STLfirewood said:


> I do a small amount of tree work. I have a different full time job so it's just a side thing for me. I usually get 8 out of 10 bids. I'm most likely the cheapest that bids I guess. I have a nice 12inch 120hp turbo diesel chipper that has been bought and paid for for a long time. I guess by not having any overhead I can keep the price cheap for people. yesterday My father and i took some trees out on a coupe different job. We put in a 12 hour day with drive time and each cleared $650. The people were very happy with the job and the price. I have a hard time knowing what to bid. Is there a magic formula that says what you should try and get per hour for a job. I'm new to this site and this is one of the reasons I joined the site.
> 
> 
> Scott


Are you insured licensed? 100.00 per hour is not bad


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## jomoco (Jun 13, 2007)

*Bidding Formulas*

Most commercial tree companies bid their work by the man hour. 

Man hour rates can vary anywhere between $30 and $80 a man hour.

So a 4 man crew at $50 a man hour for 8 hours equates to a $ 1,600.00 cost.

This gives Joe Blows with a pickup and chainsaw, no insurance and dirt cheap day labor a huge advantage with miserly short sighted home owners. That is until something goes wrong and the lawyers get involved.

That's why commercial firms with a proven reputation and quality work practices over many years, tend to stay busy with little advertising, it's word of mouth and repeat business based on customer satisfaction and loyaty.

jomoco


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## Rftreeman (Jun 13, 2007)

Brush Hog said:


> Do you tree dudes have the same problem ?



I get it from both sides, I'm trying to do tree and Lawn, I got 3 yearly accounts for lawn work but I knew the people, they are not big but they are steady work, as for the Tree side, my ratio is probably 2 to 4 out of 10, I've had people tell me that I don't have the right equipment to do the job they want (bucket truck and giant chipper) but I ask them "how do you think they did it before bucket trucks and big giant chippers" go figure...........people who have never had a beautiful lawn or tree work done have no clue how much it cost, the don't understand that you can sink way over $100 in fertilizer for an average size lawn, it takes good money and hard work to get a nice lawn and the same for good tree work.

if I get the 2 commercial accounts I'm trying to get then I'll be set for awhile.



nytreeman said:


> I'm always amazed by the fact that some people even though removing a hazardous tree,over their house and everything they may own,and will probably be by far the most dangerous thing that happens on their property they don't want to pay a fair price from someone insured and experienced and will get their landscaper or brother in-law to do it :monkey:


that's why I'm trying to get it from both sides..........


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## Brush Hog (Jun 13, 2007)

Rftreeman, I'm with you on the tree/landscape. I'm starting to learn the climbing/rigging and hopefully start to study for arborist license. Once people do use my services they are more than pleased. Hopefully word of mouth will kick in soon


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## daveyclimber (Jun 14, 2007)

We get probably 4-6 out of ten, many times we were not the cheapest just more friendly or seemed more knowledgable ect. Work is finally starting to pick up here, about a month and a half later than last year. The longer I do this the more I hate people  Lots of weirdos and asshats out there. We try to get $175 per hour average, two owners and one groundman


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## STLfirewood (Jun 14, 2007)

ropensaddle said:


> Are you insured licensed? 100.00 per hour is not bad




I was insured a couple years ago when i started doing this. Then My son was born and I quit doing side work for a while. He is a little older now so I have started doing it again. I am getting bids on insurance now. I don;t do dangerous trees. I know they all have a certain amount of danger. I don;t do trees hanging over houses, power lines, pools, ect. I don't climb. I have a person that comes in and does that for me. He is very good and very safe. Or I rent a tow behind boom form the local rental company.


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## ASD (Jun 14, 2007)

"What's your bid to work ratio " 

well we get contracts on about 9 out of 10 estimates we wright ! That might seam high to some of you but we try to do a real good job screening the phone calls and ask more ?? then most about the job / time frame they want the work done in (if they need it done next week and you are booked out 6 weeks you are wasting your time)/ how they heard about us and so on.

We also do not do blind estimates !!! if they do not have time to meet our estimator it's because they have called all the co's in the book and said "just drive by and call me and leave the price on my voice mail"


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## M.D. Vaden (Jun 14, 2007)

Here in southern Oregon, I'm getting about 19 in 20 jobs I bid. I'm not high priced, but bid generously for myself.

In Portland area, about 7 in 10.

When I was in Savannah, about 9 in 10.


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## jonseredbred (Jun 14, 2007)

ASD said:


> We also do not do blind estimates !!! if they do not have time to meet our estimator it's because they have called all the co's in the book and said "just drive by and call me and leave the price on my voice mail"



Right on, we don't waste our time either. Right now we are getting about 70% of our quotes. The phones are so slow we need to be tight and get that 70% success rate.


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## Blinky (Jun 14, 2007)

When I'm working alone I get a little better than 50% of the jobs I bid. Some folks think I bid too high but I sure had my ass handed to me this week on a mixed job of pruning and removals, took me a day and a half to take down and firewood a big white oak... that I bid at $350! 

I thought I could lower one lateral and fall the rest but I ended up spending 5 hours in the tree lowering 6 big laterals that threatened a house. I'm glad i did it that way though cuz even after I removed all that weight it still wanted to set back against the fall (you gotta love a 5:1). I just didn't realize how much weight was going toward the structure until I got up into the crown.


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## SRT-Tech (Jun 16, 2007)

every bid i put out i get. Tons of referalls from happy clients, simply a matter of picking up the phone and calling them, bang, got the job. extremely low overhead, about $30 in chainsaw gas a month. I get work 2 to 4 days a month and then spend the rest of my time relaxing.


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## a_lopa (Jun 16, 2007)

Around 40% of what im bidding.


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## CoreyTMorine (Jun 16, 2007)

Blinky said:


> When I'm working alone I get a little better than 50% of the jobs I bid. Some folks think I bid too high but I sure had my ass handed to me this week on a mixed job of pruning and removals, took me a day and a half to take down and firewood a big white oak... that I bid at $350!
> 
> I thought I could lower one lateral and fall the rest but I ended up spending 5 hours in the tree lowering 6 big laterals that threatened a house. I'm glad i did it that way though cuz even after I removed all that weight it still wanted to set back against the fall (you gotta love a 5:1). I just didn't realize how much weight was going toward the structure until I got up into the crown.



I hate it when that happens. I just finished up one sort of like that, it turned out to be not so bad though as I knew I was not going to make my hourly rate ($100-$120 for me and a helper $150- $200 for and additional guy or 2) And I knew the job was going to take at least the following morning beyond what I bid, Sooo Rather than try to squeeze everything in and be all PO’ed about it, I rescheduled the following days work and took 2 full days to do this job. I used all the extra time to try out some new techniques, do some training, and generally have a good time. It was nice and very much worth the lost income; although I would certainly like to keep that sort of thing to a minimum.

Perhaps anytime a job is a little on the dark side it would be a good idea to price the job for whatever you think its worth, but to schedule twice the time you think it will take. That way you don’t have the pressure of trying to get ready for the next job in spite of time overruns on the current project. 

As for my bids I get about 70%.

Brush Hog , I think your on to something with tree work + landscaping, people seem to love getting package prices, one contractor who will do everything. I started doing lawn patching and repair to fix stump holes and skid trails, but I think I might start doing full installs; much of the work I get is yard expansions anyway. 

Customers are more difficult to deal with from the landscape side of things, maybe because there are more guys doing it? 

Keep posting, it’s always good to here how things are going for someone else in 6 months or a year. Any way, Good luck.

BTW Blinky, who is Hildreth and why do you want to chip him?


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## Blinky (Jun 17, 2007)

CoreyTMorine said:


> [...]
> 
> BTW Blinky, who is Hildreth and why do you want to chip him?



    
I'm gonna remember that one!

Actually, Hildreth is my older brother... I grew up being 'Hildreth's little brother'... he was sort of infamous in his youth... and I've wanted to chip him a time or two.


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## treesquirrel (Jun 17, 2007)

CoreyTMorine said:


> Customers are more difficult to deal with from the landscape side of things, maybe because there are more guys doing it?



We are competeing with the illegal immigrants on this who have a third world standard of living.

I do both and realize about a 50/50 bid to work ratio.

Usually when I take the time to discuss all aspects of the job with the client and explain why doing it right is better than doing it cheap they will understand.

In landscape work. Do all the required steps to insure the best chance for a sucessful lawn. Remove weeds, till, remove rocks, blend in organic materials and fertilizer as needed, till it all in and rake smooth and then lay sod. When I explain this procedure to my upper end clients they completely understand why cheap is wrong and right is right when sinking money into a lawn. It is also a good idea to include soil tests to determine where the PH level is. Different turf grass varieties require differing PH levels to thrive. 

I see too much expensive sod being tossed onto hard packed or improperly prepped clay. With a lot of work you can sometimes make it survive but it will never be the golf course the customer expects.

I price my work very reasonably when considering the effort that goes into doing it right.


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## booboo (Jun 17, 2007)

*80%*

We're getting probably 80% of bids at this point. Most of the other 20% would probably be best not to get anyway. We're able to keep our prices down because all the equipment is paid for. We make what we need to make, nobody gets scammed, and 99% of the customers are happy when we leave (99% because you're not going to make everyone happy all the time). There's a lot of competition in the local market, we don't advertise at all and we're pretty much booked through summer. We take pride in doing good work at a fair price. There's a bunch of outfits around here running big equipment that isn't paid for and thier prices are all over the map, depending on how much work they have. We occasionally get underbid by them, and we assume it's because they've got hefty bills to pay and need to keep the machines working. Better them than me. Other times we'll look at jobs more suited to big equipment and decline to bid, which is good by me too because I'd rather not do jobs we're really not set up for.

Cheers


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