12. ___Upper management may elect to discount sub numbers. 13. ___Cut deals on bid day. 14. ___Partner with subs going in. 15. ___Have subs with hot number give us price protection. 16. ___Discount sub numbers and wait for a more favorable time of year if possible to buy that portion of the project. 17. ___Discount sub numbers with the intention of packaging with other projects. 18. ___Maximize sub coverage. 19. ___Develop/cultivate new subs. 20. ___Interview new hires from other companies and ask them about what subs their past employer used, their approach to pricing general conditions, general requirements, fee structure, relationships with clients etc. 21. ___Include with our pricing voluntary alternates for value engineering to help differentiate ourselves from our competitors. 22. ___Have PM/PX involvement for input into VE, logistics, scheduling, etc. 23. ___Don’t be number takers; analyze the bids against your scope as well as other sub bids to insure the best lowest price. 24. ___On larger estimates have more people working on the bid. Break down by division. 25. ___Tell subcontractors we invite that we want their number first. 26. ___Once we know who our competitors are, go to Human Resources and find out which employees are from there. Ask them who their former company used as subs, what were their bid strategies and what was their pricing structure. 27. ___Tell subs we want their best and final number on bid day. 28. ___ Tell the subcontractors we want a sharpened pencil number from them since we are bidding this project very aggressively and we want them to be as aggressive as well. 29. ___Use product substitutions as well as other manufacturers etc. in our price and give the owner alternate adds to use products specified (include all value engineering items in base bid and give the owner alternate adds for plan and spec.) 30. ___Work missing from the documents (grey areas), do not include it in our base bid, list it as an alternate add to the owner. They can use this information to scope our competitors. 31. ___Analyze the schedule to build the project as fast as possible to save money on general conditions and general requirements. Use the actual staff rate costs or a variation thereof to have the most aggressive number possible. (consult with the Market VP/PX before using a rate for staff, carpentry or laborer that is different than our standard billing rates). 32. ___If the project is a public job, go on the internet to find out what subs have been used in the past by the various general contractors. In addition, look at their fees, GC’s/GR’s, insurance costs, bond costs etc. 33. ___If the project is a public job, go on the internet to find out what general contractors have been bidding and analyze the bid results to see who typically wins the work, and what is the spread in numbers as a percentage.
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