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Hard to hide the fat when you're being told to break things down 😂🤣😂

If they start nit picking the bid, they may want to try and get you to use cheaper materials which could make you look bad down the road

All that being said, I have a fairly good sized renovation project and out of the last 5 GCs to come through to see the site and the project I've only had 1 provide a quote and a detailed one at that over the last 2 months. I appreciate any number, as at least its a number. Its like herding cats down here in So Florida. I guess they all are looking for that easy Granny money...

No breakdown, no job AFAIC. Nobody gets to rip me off, thank you.

How do I start with 0 equipment and lil to no money

I get it, I am not a contractor, but I built my own house , by myself.. I was a mechanic by trade, and no I would never use owner supplied parts( same reason) … On the other side, as an example, I want to know my country is using quality materials, and installed properly. ( example, I want advance subfloor glued and screwed down, not cheapness nailed down( big effing difference)

Every job I have hired a Contractor at a lump sum price, I got a bad deal: High price and poor workmanship. Instead of rehirng them for new work ( there is always new work) I try to select based on work quality first and price second. My best experience has been with me buying all materials and heavy equipment rentals and have the site ready for them to do their quality work. Craftsmen should be working on the trade not chasing down materials and coordinating with suppliers and rental companies for all their time wasting, planning delivery issues. These types of contractors are happy with my rapid payments: Full pay on the day the work is complete and all permits are signed off. When a Contractor visits walks the job and makes the offer, I get uneasy when I see monogrammed shirts, manicured fingernails and no cuts or bruises and smooth talking. IMHO Every job will have some issues that are not easily observable on the initial estimate.

Bro this guy we don’t break it down because not everyone understand that. So pretty much you are a piece of crap 🤣🤣🤣

Do you get a receipt from the store? 🤣🤣🤣

And that’s why you make RUclips videos 🤣🤣🤣 good luck telling the owner sorry I don’t do break downs and see your competition thrive 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I'm curious how do you approach latent conditions with a firm fix price job? For which kind of work would you create a change order?

Appreciate your explanation and can see why a fixed bid works best for you. As someone looking to get a house built, we've had a wide spread of responses from several potential builders. Most are pushing for cost plus on materials, labor and services. The spread of base price are so wide we need to see some breakdowns to understand what actual value to us each price brings. You seem like an honest straightforward guy but considering the cost of a house, I have to see it in writing.

you are free to do that and you are also free to miss out on work. the free market in my neck of the woods is not kind to your style of business.

Understandable that some contractors don't use owner's materials, but If I'm paying for some work that's going to be in my home, I'd like to know what I'm paying for. Just be honest with what your markup is, or increase your labor rate. It's OK. However, if I had to deal with people like you are saying you do, I'd want to to avoid it as well. haha. Well, the best way then is high quality DIY. You only have to barter with yourself, and then you don't have to annoy contractors. So DIY homeowner is happy because they know the cost, and contractor is happy because they didn't have to deal with an annoying home owner. Win Win!

so you use ChatGPT to make useless safety crap that does nothing, and to make vanilla plain boring forgettable social media post. wow how useful.

As a 20 year diesel mechanic… The ONLY reason one does this is to hide things. Let me ask you this… How would you feel if you brought your truck to me with a bad transmission and I said. That’ll be $15,000. You simply ask “why”? And I say. You take your shitty truck and get the fuck out of my shop…?

Any way you slice it, any contractor, in any trade, unwilling to produce transparent bids is being dishonest. You can rationalize it all you want, but the end result is the same. Customers deserve to know the details and how the costs breakdown. If you are too lazy or just deceptive to produce a bid or an estimate that you could be proud of, then you have two choices. Either find customers who are like yourselves, too lazy to do their due diligence or look for some other occupation. Guarantee that the contractor who conducts business in a straight-forward, transparent and honest manner, will have to turn work away.

Sorry, but the breakdown shows the buyer EXACTLY what they are getting, piece by piece. Not all supplies are made the same. Your no-breakdown bid might include all Chinese-made materials or subpar materials. I want to know upfront that what you are using is quality top-shelf materials and not something brought in from a third-world country. It's your right not to offer a bid breakdown, but also realize you're not the only contractor on the planet and I will always vote with my wallet and send you on your way. You have your policies and I have my policies, if our policies conflict then we're not doing business together. That's life!. For example, your "bulk" bid might include nails for the fence and you provide cheap Chinesum nails. Well, I can see that and I can tell you I want stainless steel nails. I can't know that unless I see the breakdown. Now you can "say" you're using stainless steel nails to my face, but I want it in writing. You may use third-grade wood when I want first-grade clear wood, how would I know unless you put it in writing. You may tell me you're going to clean up, but I want a line item in writing, and on and on and on.

And I only do jobs turn key. Everything goes thru company. Or I don’t do the job.

I do lump sums on smaller projects. But on a new home I break it down. Mainly for my draw schedule. And if there is financing involved the bank usually ask for it. So I do from permitting to commission.

Really bad advice you just gave. I've been a General Contractor for thirty years. I actually warn my customer's to avoid contractors that have a shady practice of lump sum bids on complicated projects. Because, without fail, the contractor uses change orders to augment his profit and have word duals over what they heard you say and what was agreed to be done. I make it very clear If it's written down specifically, it's included. If not written down, it's not part of the process. I use allowances for items that may fluctuate in price like cabinets and fixtures so there's no arguments on quality. When I do lump sums, without fail, I'll get a customer who thought a item that's not even related to the project should be included. Sometimes they are just trying to get one over on me, but have no argument if it's not written down. I also tell my customer's to avoid Contractors that want half up front. Seen to many jobs where the contractor took the money and ran, or kept putting off the job indefinitely. I ask for 10% at signing. 1/3 at start. 1/3 at halfway point, and change orders paid at time of signing of order. Final 1/3 is usually the lowest check to be written so it's allot easier to get it out of the customer along with the sign off of job.

Why make money from materials 😅😅 fuel ok, not the materials ffsk

Depends on the customer. I have a couple of clients that send me a lot of work. I would do a break down for them if asked, but not for others…

What is being said is partially true. Unfortunately there are a lot of contractors that are unethical, sloppy or bad at estimating bids. Sometimes I am getting bids for a job I already know how to do and want to make sure I’m not getting ripped off or contractor is completely forgetting something.

When I do jobs I sometimes have materials leftover that I intend to return for a refund. Customers see that extra material and think it belongs to them, but we agreed on a set price for the whole job and I gave them the product for that price so anything I have left over that I don't need would have been money in my pocket had I not purchased it. That returned material for a refund is part of my profit. A friend of mine who poured a slab for one of my jobs ordered an extra yard of mud that he knew he probably wouldn't need but he'd have it if he needed it. He told me I could have it if he didn't so I went home and quickly formed up a little slab in case I would get the free mud. The customer assumed he would get it to use elsewhere on his ranch thinking it was his but my concrete guy was free to do with it what he wanted. It was his material. They got what they wanted for the agreed upon price and anything left over was profit.

Lol, I would never hire anyone that can’t break down a cost to some degree. If fact, every book I’ve ever read on the construction process says in the first few pages, never trust a sub that can’t produce broken down bid. Having an itemized list of labor and materials is part of building, maybe the most important part. Maybe during covid contractors got away with such things but when the economy levels out, if you can’t build a cost estimate, you’ll be left behind.

As a buyer for a large company. I always pass on vendors that can’t give me a cost breakdown for those large capital projects. Unless you are that one person that can do that one specific thing that no one else can (probably not), I will 100% pass.

I will personally only work 100% commission based on "Job Profit" and that is for Sales & Project Management. The businesses I've worked with are essentially branded marketing partners as far as I'm concerned. They hand me a quality lead and I bring back a completed project, a five-star review on every platform they want, and a check with 40% - 60% margins. My cut usually ranges from 35% - 50% of "Job Profits" and for this I do everything; I schedule the job, order all the materials, hire the crews, make sure everything runs smoothly, and take care of collections. With this in mind, I also share in the risk. If there is a loss for some reason (has never happened) I will eat the same cut of the loss as I take from the profits, up to and including paying the crews out of pocket for issues related to nonpayment from the client once the project is completed... this is just how I work as a Salesman and it works well for the people I work with because I have a high closing ratio, I recycle leads back into the business that I can't close, and they usually make more after paying me than they would if I ran the lead myself!

So I walked into this video in total disagreement and you've changed my mind! I don't see it as an honesty thing; honestly, I am expensive AF - I've always had a higher closing ratio with higher prices and I get better customers because of it. For me, it's just something I've done and it has worked for me for almost 20 years. In reality, I don't think my way is a problem, but this could get them to the signature quicker!

Yeah i used to put estimated man hours on my bids. Then of course when i bring it in in half the man hours they didn't want to pay the agreed upon contracted amount. Trying to explain to these people that's how every contractor makes money was maddening. I just put scope of work, Preparation and finish. Now write me a damn check!

I never take clients that ask for a breakdown. Those are the customers that think they can micromanage my work. Avoid these people.and I never start without a 50% deposit. And I never give the client drawings before deposit

If you are Liar & a cheat Just watch what happens in the end. Someone will just hit your car & you will lose a kid.

When you go in for brain surgery or heart & kidney surgery watch what happens. You know Nothing about energy yet. You’re hard headed. I just don’t call contractors any longer we’re all doing it ourselves. Woman our training all their sons to do all this now. How many people die have died under the surgical knife. Millions. The first thing they need to teach you in life is karma. You were born tiny & you will die weak. You’re not going to stay this way that’s a FACT. One of the worst people you will meet in life is a contractor people. Start flagging Craigslist & FB. Start calling all over the city. Go to the better business bureau & online reviews.

I hope you guys can help with a suggestion for a new company. Would you guys recommend ConstructConnect or planhub for a new electrical company? My dad recently started an electrical company and it is only him and I working. It has been going okay, but definitely not as many jobs as we expected. We are currently not using any lead generators as some people said they are useless and a waste of money.. but we are starting to think we should buy a plan from someone, such as PH or CC.

Would you guys recommend ConstructConnect or planhub for a new electrical company? My dad recently started an electrical company and it is only him and I working. It has been going okay, but definitely not as many jobs as we expected. We are currently not using any lead generators as some people said they are useless and a waste of money.. but we are starting to think we should buy a plan from someone, such as PH or CC.

Its not a total yes or no. You can describe a range of things as "breaking it down". I wouldn't expect a customer to be okay if I refused to give any details but Im also not going to itemize every last nail either. There's a goldilocks zone where the customer is getting a full understanding of what, where, and how but I'm not getting audited over the price or quantity of every item or tick of the clock. That same zone is where contracts need to be, leave nothing to dispute on the cost or exactly what theyre getting for it and how. Not for them or you.

Make sure you read what's in the bid documents, lots of larger scale projects 1mill + require full breakout pricing; if you don't provide breakout pricing you could lose the job. If it's for $1000-$5000 job a lump sum isn't generally an issue unless there are multiple scope(s) in your bid.

As a customer, I hate no breakdown. In the event the price is too high for me to proceed, I can clearly see why. Maybe it's the form setup labour, so maybe I do that, and then my driveway project can go ahead. Lump sum price means I can't do it.

i use to be in tree service business and i gave my customers a estimate and that was it and landed 90 % of my jobs, that simple i dont have time to play games with my customers period, same thling with painting houses its yes or no .

Wait till the economy turns down...

Cost breakdown: $5000 to do the job. $0 not to.

A lot of this absolutely has to do with deception. 2 years ago I had a roof replaced, in the bid I payed for 11 sheets of plywood, the contractor showed up with 11 sheets of plywood that I payed for….the contractor didn’t use any plywood. Him being a completely honest contractor gave me the option of knocking the price of the plywood off or leaving it for me.

the reason we want a break down is because contractors give a bid written on a scrap of paper for $50,000…. It will take us a whole year to get a check for $50,000 And we want to know how you do it in 4.days. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. There is no amount of contracting you can do that equals the amount of work one of us mom/teacher/coach/volunteer/sidegig/weekendrenovator… that’s just the tip of the iceberg. And then my insurance company calls to say they are going to cancel my homeowners if I don’t buy a new roof this year… You have no concept of how painful it is to get a hand scrawled bid for 50k after working your butt off all year😂 And this guy is heartless… he would probably just tell me “you’re in the wrong profession lady” But he would never be where he is today without a mom… teacher… coach…. Sacrificing his or her life so he could be the successful young man he is today. And If he is going to look his third grade teacher in the eye and hand her a not broke down bid for 50k on a new roof. Bless his heart. 😂

If you extra material who keeps it?

Great video! Thanks for being raw and real. I feel your pain, my bucket has been overflowing at times as well.

CBRE screws contractors by strict contracting and bad deal making in order to cut corners on cost to drive up margin. They need to be sued.

exactly

I will absolutely never understand why a customer would expect a contractor to work t&m and I will positively never ever understand why a contractor would ever consider working t&m…with time and material you benefit from inexperience and get penalized for experience.

If you want the Rock Bottom price, do it yourself and that's the bottom line. Every company will charge what the market will bare, Shop around. The lowest price is probably NOT the best deal. Middle of the road and up is hoit Best deal. Good luck, a friendly shopper ✌🏼

Auto techs have to supply their tools, and train, and keep up to date with new technology and recalls and esp if they work at a dealer, they aren't seeing that money you're getting charged. they should be. but the dealer and service advisor get it.