10 Step Final Pre-bid Checklist

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Hello and welcome to season 2 episode 6 of the six-figure tradesman podcast. Today I am going to go over 10 simple yet extremely effective tips to ensure that every bid you submit requires less anxiety and zero mistakes.

How many of us have submitted a bid in the past only to realize tier is a mistake on the proposal? I know in the early years I sure di! And when I was managing a national mechanical outsourcing firm I was tasked with developing systems and procedures to eliminate this issue for a team of more than 30 estimators. Sometimes they would forget to include or exclude items, maybe they forgot a quoted item because they hadn’t received a price from the suppliers, or maybe in the worst-case scenario you noticed a typo in your bid total. Regardless of what mistakes you may have made in the past, I can give you some sound advice on how to prevent it from ever happing again. As I  always say it’s about developing a system that you can integrate into your estimating department so you can operate efficiently and virtually mistake-proof. The final 2 hours before the bid deadline is absolutely the most stressful time for any project estimator so developing systems that are implemented on every single bid no matter how small or how large will reduce those stress levels tremendously.  

Without further ado, let’s jump right into these 10 steps so you can begin implementing these today. 

10 step final pre-bid checklist - Every one of these items must be completed ON BID DAY even if completed already in advance. 

1. last minute check for an addendum - be sure you include # addenda on the proposal
2. Final prices from all suppliers
3. Be sure the scope letter says “proposal”
4. Final check of all the includes and excludes 
5. Final check for bidding GC’s to submit to and tips to make them want your bid
6. Final check of your spreadsheet labor units
7. Final check of your spreadsheet sub-contractors
8. Final check of spreadsheet quoted materials
9. Final adjustment of OH&P
10. Make sure the proposal includes the dollar amount in numbers and in written format

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