Has anyone had or been succseful with bidding work for the city you live? I would love to be added o the bid list of our city along with the schools, airport and such. Just dont know where to start? Any suggestions would be welcomed.
Thanks -
Jay
I got the opportunity to be in the bidding process for the University town I service. I got a 25 page document spelling out the bidding locations, billing process, terms and conditions, etc. The one thing that was a no go for me was a clause that said if I couldn’t do the job on their time line they had the right to hire it done and charge my company the difference (if any) between the contract price and the actual price.
I said no thanks as the exact wording was very skewed in their favor and left no room for unforeseen problems that could cost me more than the contract would be worth.
Try the internet. Sometimes they post jobs. And also it might be possible to find the name of the Manager of Facilities so when you mail them something it lands on the right desk.
You could also look up the city in the phone book and find the # for the city manager. That’s who I contacted to be able to see when the biding process would start.
I have bid on jobs for my county and for a university in my area. For the most part the bidding process took way too long and then I didn’t get the job anyway. Its very frustrating to spend 3-4 hrs looking around, drawing up a proposal, writing a contract, and then submitting it to a facilities manager who then has to talk to their boss who has to get it approved by the board, blah blah blah and they just forget about you and don’t return your calls. That hs happened to me more than once. Also these government buildings don’t have the budget to get the glass cleaned very often so their windows are FILTHY. That said, my first big job was the courthouse building and it was $2000 and took us two days. Not a bad job. Not all my experiences with gov buildings have been bad. My advice is meet the people your going to have to deal with and get a sense of how much time your going to have to spend with the red tape and price that into it. Just proceed cautiously and if you don’t get the job try to figure out why and learn from it.
Also, many cities have secitons on their websites for bid oppurtunities. Check there. Look in nearby cities too.
One thing to be aware of is government almost always looks at price alone. You may be the greatest window cleaning company around. But if your bid is 95 cents higher than the worst window cleaning company, they’ll go with the lower bid. And, they typically put it up for bid EVERY year.
I’ve experienced this personally. I won a couple contracts one year as a sub for a janitorial company that had the contract. The janitorial company respected me and liked my work. But, they had the contract with the city because they were the cheapest bidder.
I serviced these buildings under these conditions for 2 years. The 3rd year the city decided to seperate the window cleaning from the rest of the janitorial. My prices were halved by the lowest bidder. And no, I’m not the most expensive guy in town. They went with the cheaper bid even though they said they liked the work I’d done the last 2 years.
The quotes I was up against are ridiculously low ones…ones that if you’re paying a crew, you probably won’t do any better than break even…and then only if you’re paying them minimum wage.
I have not won bids but to be honest the price here for cleaning 58 buildings is insane. Last year it was like 70 + buildings and the price was like 40 grand and change. I lived here a long time so I knew the buildings listed for service and some of them were impossible to clean at the winning bids price. Well that’s not true. After I ran some numbers the company could net like 10 grand if the company watched it pennies and nothing went wrong. I sat back and thought about the headache of managing that and said no way. This year they lowered the building count to 58 so I can only figure they are trying to save money, they realised it was a waste to clean certain buildings (waste disposal locations) or the company did a crummy job. I ran numbers again and decided it was a waste of time. But that’s for me. Others may say differant. There is an other county that I will be putting in a bid as their awarded bids are a lot more profitable numbers. Every state, county does things differantly. I looked over your state and most should have a place for you to put in bids. But I could not really find anything for window cleaning services. Some states have an online database that will allow you to search for the open bids and also send you an email when new ones or the ones you are looking for are open. Your state may not even need window cleaning. They may maintain a staff for it.
These people manage the buildings and should be able to point you in the right direction. The contract may not even be open for bid yet. Most that I have seen are for 2 to 3 years. Where I live, this county does it every year.
I know it looks so tempting, all that glass. I have done the council offices once over 18 months ago and they have not been done since that time. No doubt when there is budget again they will reply to one of my regular calls. I would also agree with them going with the lowest quote regardless of quality. We had a brand new library built in town 2 years ago and the windows are bundled into the cleaning contract. I have seen them cleaning them with a broom a bucket of soapy water and a hose. All the glass is now water stained. I do the court house this Friday and I will see how that goes. Although I do a bit for local govt I would say don’t invest too much of your time into it. Make sure they can find you if they need you but let your competitors waist there time chasing it.
I was invited to bid on several building in my county, lots of libraries, court houses and more, but not they just have a lot of requirements, but it is stated on the RFP documents that THEY WILL GO WITH THE LOWEST BID. I don’t have the time or resources to drive around for a couple of days counting windows and working on a proposal, when I know the bigger companies here will do it for any money just to get their crews something to do. I’ll keep chasing the small accounts
