When sending out a proposal to a district manager, regarding a chain of stores, how do you list your pricing?
Each store could be quite different, so do you provide them with a per pane price? Do you go visit a handful of the stores and determine an average? I am new to this, but I am eager to pursue the corporate accounts and building a good reliable route.
Providing a per pane price is too much information for them ( unless they ask ) which, in my experience, would be highly unlikely. As far as each store - I would look at each one if possible if they are seriously wanting these bid and done. I have had many false leads over the years and these days if I sense a window shopper, I pass. I have used Google Street View on rare occasions when bidding a chain and there are locations that are outside a close service area. Including recently for SMI for Dental Offices.
Depends how serious they are and how many units. Do they want sampling to determine if they should start service or drop the other guy for cheaper…or do they want to go all in. either way try to get all if they need or a select sample since they may have a new prototype store. List all the price and the address in a table. I have submitted 5 page estimates before.
If they have several spread out in different areas you could ask what their budget is; may help you weed out tire kickers if they are simply looking for the cheapest they can find.
Thank you all for the input. You bring up some great points about weeding out the tire kickers or those people just looking to save a few cents by switching companies. I’m trying to grow business relationships here, not just be known as “the cheapest guy”
For the initial outreach on these corporate accounts, I think I’ll just send in a nice looking cover letter, followed by a brief description of our services, and a copy of our insurance certificate.
Then I’ll simply ask them if they are interested in receiving a bid for these services and yadda yadda yadda. Will hold off on mentioning anything to do with pricing until getting a much better idea of their specific needs. Maybe they’ve have 5 stores, maybe they have 50…