This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel, Jose are joined by Kathy Case from Quantify to cover the ins and outs of estimating. Kathy offers third-party estimating services and is well-versed in softwares to help your company. Spoiler alert . . . we all LOVE MEASURE SQUARE!

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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.

https://www.preferredflooringmi.com

https://www.stuartandassociates.com

welcome to the Huddle uh join me this week uh we got a special episode but

joining you as always is Daniel with preferred flooring and I would say

always Jose but it's he's a little bit like me it's not always but he is the

best so uh and then we have Kathy case uh joining us today to discuss uh

estimating so maybe um you've got a small company or a big

company it really doesn't matter we use a lot of these core principles in our

business to make sure that we're checking the boxes you know kind of dot

in the eyes and crossing the t's a lot of you may or may not know that

estimating can be a service that you can um you know hire out to a third party

and I happen to know Kathy uh in this regard and I thought it'd be cool if she

came on and kind of uh gave us a few tips

um maybe it's software tips on which software she um thinks is the best uh for a beginner

um and then which one's kind of intermediate and so on uh and then also I'll just go over with uh me and Daniel

discussing you know some of the tricks of the trade so to speak

um and what you really want to do and what you do not so Kathy welcome

to the huddle appreciate it thanks for having me here would you mind telling us just a little

bit about yourself um where you when did you get into flooring that's

always a great question to ask somebody um I think we were still using stones

and chisels with tablets [Music] I started in 1979 uh legitimately I'm

Third Generation in the industry so I was on my first project at the age of six watching Terrazzo go in

um I grew up on the ceramic tile side of the business my grandfather having started the business in 1923 and

um in 1985 I went from running my first project in May to running 50 Union

installers by September when my dad passed away unexpectedly

and it it gave me a lot of Education I was fortunate to have a lot of people

step up and and help Mentor me and so for me at this point I tried to do the

same for others I've worked in the Ceramics tile industry as a beginning point but I've

also worked for flooring contractors as well having done everything from installing estimating project management

sales and executive Management in 2009 I

switched my focus to estimating after having been a member of the construction specifications Institute

during that time I found talking directly with spec writers that

it really wasn't their fault that the specs were so bad they weren't given the time to be able to do the research and

so I recognized the importance of the estimating role for a company and that's

why I switched to estimating after working for several prominent

flooring contractors in 2019 I opened up the service with the intention of being

an emergency resource so that when a company was overwhelmed with work or

they were short staffed that they'd have a resource so that they didn't miss the opportunity to serve their client

after three months into the business we started having people ask us for full-time estimators so we do offer

service either way that's a awesome story six years old watching

Terrazzo go in and then you fast forward to uh you know your your dad passing away

and you happen to take over the Helm of 50 Union installers that's that does speak volumes to the team you

had and um and then so when you decided to get into the estimating or kind of

you know Branch off into estimating as a service

you said that you were looking to just pick up some some uh downtime for

companies right time of need where what do you think is the biggest

change that had to happen for companies to feel comfortable using a third party

well I have to tell you the first thing is people feeling comfortable having estimating not done in the office and I

think covid was a huge turning point for that people were used to having everybody

right there they wanted their sales people and their support team their project managers to be able to walk

right up to an estimator and get their answers on the spot I will tell you when

I ran teams of estimators I did not allow that to happen it's one of the

greatest risks in making mistakes for an estimator to stop them in the middle of what they're doing and not have a really

cleanly defined stopping point to go back to once they've changed their focus

besides the fact that their mind is in that project and trying to switch into your project can take some time for that

mental focus to get back into what you're asking so that can be a challenge

in and of itself there's your first nugget guys don't interrupt the estimators when they're estimating

um that's a I happen to agree with you I know that some some offices are a little

louder our estimate are actually put on the noise canceling headphones because we're in an open Office setting and be

in the zone yeah he's got to get in the zone uh hey Daniel do you guys up there who

does your the main part of your estimating uh it depends on the contractor so

we all handle our our own contractors so if if I'm if we're getting bids

through the contractor that that I handle I'll do a majority of the estimating um as far as like the takeoffs and stuff

like that it's a team effort whoever doesn't have anything going at a particular time and

we've actually talked to Kathy about onboarding with her as well it's just we need to we need to

pull the trigger because she said one thing at uh at ties this last time that

I'll never forget because I you know I went up introduced and we're talking I was like man I hope that you know I hope

one day that we'd be able to afford you and she looked me in the eyes and she said you can't afford not to hire me I

said that's right like best takeaway from from that

right there and I was like I'm gonna I'm actually gonna use that for when people ask me to like oh you're you're

expensive I can't afford to hire you you can't afford not to hire me yeah I think it's the same mindset that we have you

know as installers is is is that really it's I'm the best at what I do you can

go ahead and keep on struggling or you can hire me right yeah

so when you guys um I'm gonna start from the beginning just

I know a lot of uh the audience is likely uh knows this part but obviously

most of it starts with some type of an invitation to bid um there's

even that first step for our systems and processes that you can use to help keep

yourself streamlined there's services like building connected we use just a

bid calendar in Excel for a long time and that works just fine as signing your

jobs and know who's working on what and management of all your bid invitations

uh as you get bigger uh we decided to actually have a

coordinator that does nothing but that that part manage the bid invites and assign estimators to uh to bid the job

or does it go to uh quantify with Kathy and have have a takeout perform there so

management of those is like that's step one when you start getting into uh

the actual set of drawings and specifications this seems uh Elementary

too but I would say that one of the biggest mistakes I've witnessed with

estimators is not starting with the product and the specification and really

knowing what you're going to get ready to take off I've watched many of them just open up a set of drawings go to the

finished schedule and start just going um so what's your thought on that

approach it seems to me um it leaves a lot of room for error

I'd agree with you with our team they're required to go through the full set of

documents and call out all the drawings all the the details the specifications

that are specific to the scope of work so that they're familiar with that information especially in the day of

electronic drawings it's not like the days of old when I started where you could just flip a page real quick I do

remember that time I used to manage it'll take Austin run into the blueprint company to pick up drawings that got

emailed to them from some GC we got it so much better now and it's

it's yeah it takes a long time I still know some people that would rather do it on paper and then it's like

the the amount of time you spend just learning software and the amount of time you save later on or like we say like

just hire someone out like hire cat and then it just save saves all that time

what was uh what was your comment on that Kathy

about just kind of jumping into a set of a finish schedule on a drawing and just going for the takeoff you were yeah I've

seen that happen as well and the tough thing is that you're not really aware of those details as much so it you can miss

something when you're rushing through to that point if you're doing a TI project it's carpetile and base and resilient

flooring it's not that big a deal but when you're talking about a school or a hospital or Assisted Living you really

want to know those details it's time consuming to have to go back and change things after you've already

done it one way and you actually see hopefully you're seeing those details at

some point in the review yeah but not always not all estimators go through the full set of drawings and that's

definitely a problem because too many companies are relying on the estimator to really know the documents

would you say it's really beneficial on a for a flooring project and let's say

it's a um it's a Remy model so you have a demo

set and you have your architectural drawings do you guys kind of follow uh

the the um the school of thought that all the architectural drawings apply or do you

only look at the things that are relevant to the flooring piece the tough thing is demo drawings often

have scope of work for the flooring contractor that you won't find in the architectural drawings something as

simple as the responsibility of the demo itself will be identified more likely in those demo drawings or the scope of work

for what's being demoed in the existing area you can't assume that everything is

being demoed and hopefully it's going to give you an idea of what the material is that's existing Now versus you know what

you're going to be dealing with for the new finishes it's key for understanding the installation process and the

materials that you're going to need to be able to install that finished product it would be awesome if Architects

actually put on there the existing material that's in the space all it usually says for us is match existing

match type of stuff they're doing a partial Renault

um that's where that information is typically they don't muddle up the floor

plan as much it's certainly in there I mean Architects are like you know children they have they all have their

own personality and how they approach things and how they present things

um and it's but in general it's a good idea to make sure you're reviewing your

demo drawings and the um almost the full battery of architectural

drawings at least get familiar with the things outside of your finished floor plan and your elevations uh that's

that's where when I first started estimating that's all I cared about where's the finished floor plan where's the elevation and then you figure out

quickly that finished floor plan has a different material than what's in the specifications and yeah so there's a

go ahead Kathy yeah I just wanted to point out that when it comes to ceramic tile you have to take it a step further

oftentimes you need to go to the structural plans or the plumbing plans structural if there's a recess for a mud

floor to know what the extent is and how deep that recess is and the plumbing

plans to understand what's happening in shower pans or any kind of gutters things like that so when it comes to

ceramic you have to take it the extra step yeah that's a good point there's there's a lot more information that you

have to figure out when it comes to you know mud setting uh showers and where

the plumbing yeah you know I've even found it helpful from uh

identifying the um the uh wall

mounted toilets those things are way harder to cut

around than a hole in a floor and so we started like really looking for those

because they can be a real pain you got to get the best way to do it is get a template from the plumber so that you

can mark it out but it's it's a it's kind of a pain compared to just cutting around a hole in a floor and so it's

even that kind of stuff you see on the plumbing drawings that you don't see uh the pattern of that uh wall mounted

toilet on it even a set of elevation sometimes so so we're always looking for the trench

plan people don't think that's a lot of prep

goes on them but takes a lot of prep yeah ceramic tile now is combining the actual

drains into the tile work as well and you also have those pre-form shower fans

that depending on where the the drain is located or what the type of the grain is the shower pan has a huge cost

difference yeah so that's another when you need to be looking at those Plumbing plans

yeah and so uh nugget number two is like really review the drawings try to know

what you're looking for um understand what products you're looking at uh just a few pitfalls I

remember when I sat at uh you know a drawing table all the time

with stuff like them calling out bullnose um on a series that doesn't make

bullnose and then uh I actually one time had to go pay to have it made

uh because I didn't bring it up and they didn't care that the that tile did not

come with a bullnose they asked for it and they knew that they can be made after market and that's what they made

me do so it's stuff like that where you can just cost yourself

um so being real detailed and getting to know there's a lot today's a lot better I mean we just kind of got I'd say 80

percent through an integration with measure square spec Intel and structure

which is our kind of software stack at Stewart Associates and so there's a lot

more tools today like spec and tell um that can really give you the information about that that flooring the

tile whatever it is so we got getting through the drawings

um you know and and really reviewing those what is um what's our next step and I know that

we could go for two hours on this but just so we stepped through the process of best practices here what's what would

our next step be in your one of your guys's Minds actually decide if the project is for

you um that's one of the biggest things like uh

you get so many that come across you know and it's like look at the print read the manual is

this project for me and you have to decide that and say no like um that I think that's one of the

big things is realize that when you do get you know a request for proposal that

there's an option there to say no and these companies are counting on you to either accept it or not so that way they

know if they need to find someone else yeah good nugget there is tell them though if they've sent you directly a

invitation to bed and you didn't find it all one of the bid boards online bid Boards out of respect and letting them

know that you're you do not plan on bidding the project uh that that's a good point too I didn't even think about

that I got to give you some props bro like you decide whether or not you want to bid it so let's assume we made that

decision we want to bid the project um what's the next what's your guys's next

kind of major step I think one of the things you need to do

if you've already gone through the drawings and looked at all the details is really understand those details and

see where the conflicts are I'm not saying if there's conflicts I'm saying where they are because they're gonna

exist no matter at what level and that's the time you want to try to get your questions going because there's usually

RFI deadlines and even if there aren't you want to give your customer the GC or

the end user the time to be able to do their research when you're seeing the conflicts I would suggest that as you're

proposing them you give enough information drawing details

um where you know if you're seeing a conflict between two different pieces of information you're listing both of those

pieces of information and provide a potential solution if you just go to

them with a problem in their mind they have to start at square one but if you've given them a potential solution

then they're starting to think about whether that solution is something that they agree with and it's easier for them

to process what they really want to do whether it's your choice or it's some

version or something totally different it just tends to will with an architect too

you do you definitely do but I it just speeds the process Along by proposing a

solution I I skipped over a piece how long before

bit date do you think your standard uh let's just call it your your

let's use something that I think a lot of people can relate to like a four-story Courtyard by Marriott don't

uh consider all the uh economies at scale that you get because

you probably bid a hundred of them but let's just say it's your first Courtyard it's a project I think people can image

in their head how long do you think now that we have this timeline for the

rfis you know because just to build on what Kathy said these rfis typically

it's seven days before bids when they're due some of it'll go to three and some

don't state but that means you got to be planning which is what I'm building on here is planning out your estimating

um but how long would you say Kathy I'd love your input to Daniel on a on say a

four story standard Courtyard by Marriott when should you start your uh

estimating process the sooner the better because it does

give you the time to ask the questions I mean ultimately when you're looking at

materials hopefully one of the other steps that you're doing in this process is reaching out to the manufacturer that

should be in the part that Daniel was talking about when you're making the decision whether or not to go ahead with

the project but you want to have an idea of how long it will take for you to get

the pricing back from the manufacturers they just about all the time now want quantities before they're going to give

you pricing so if it's going to be something that they can turn around in a few hours a few days you need to know that to be

planning your time appropriately from the pricing perspective

yeah I would agree that this the sooner the better right because uh

typically with the the bids that we've been getting your your timeline is not

very much so we get you know one or two weeks to do it and you gotta

figure that at least two of those days you're going to be waiting on reps right depends on what rep some of them answer

you right away some of them you have to bug them like two or three times two or three days in a row

and that that's the big thing what Kathy said is they want quantities so

sometimes you know when it's a a super fast track project like sometimes they'll email and say hey we didn't get

anyone to give us numbers for this will you just help us out real quick the bid is due tomorrow so I'll get right into

the emails with the Reps and saying this is the material this is the architect I don't have quantities yet as soon as I

get them I'll let you know I just need the price yeah I found with reps that if you can

get close so I do I'll use bluebeam

um and maybe Ashland can uh send post links

on our social for the for quantify and some of the um other uh softwares and services that

we use so but um I use bluebeam as a PDF reader and

measurer to get what I call Common Sense takeoff I'll take off an entire floor and then take off a

couple of the the bathrooms and then just do the the the the math just

obviously not as a full takeoff but just to give them close numbers if you're within a couple

hundred yards it's not going to make a big difference on your project but um I guess

without a a for sure time frame we've always tried to use eight days on like

a 45 50 60 000 foot project

um day one get in get your of at least alert your reps that you're

going to be needing pricing and some of them will send it to you actually without quantities and and but shoot a

quick email you know we getting ready I think pretty late in the in the game

here seven eight days before the bid is due um gives a couple of days to get pricing

and your rfis can be running at the same time but then you still need to build out your spreadsheet or whatever method

you're using to assemble the numbers which we'll get to next um and then type up professional

proposal and then make sure you have all of the bidding General Contractors or

are you bidding this direct to an owner uh are you bidding it to see them at risk uh what kind of project is it and

that's another value of knowing the the specs early on and getting in there uh

we've had one of our estimators send a bid out to a bunch of GC these that were

actually bidding portions of the job to a much larger GC on a huge project

and thought that all the GCS these three GCS were bidding it when in fact they

were doing like the interior package of the entire building and then this GC was doing all the flat work and still

erection and so it can help you uh get your head wrapped around who you're sending your bid to and make sure you

are um so I I say eight days but that's probably because that's just how we do

it that's a good time frame again thinking of all the parts and pieces that go into

the process because you do have a couple some period of time to analyze the

documents to determine if it is a good opportunity to make your connections then you're going to need a day or two

at least on the estimating side then going ahead and getting your pricing

putting it together if there's any kind of breakouts required God forbid there's

an addendum or some information that's provided or 14 alternates

yes exactly so that that is definitely time consuming as a general rule you

should be allowing yourself at least two to three days to review the estimate put the proposal together and get it out the

door and that's without it being a public job where it's a public bid opening yeah you never want those to be

the last minute because you run the risk I've seen too many times when somebody walked in a minute past closing time and

they missed the opportunity to bid the job even when they're due online like we uh submitted ones who the uh

one of the colleges over here and it says everything has to be submitted online and I went on

there you know two hours early and I keep on trying to submit and it's like just not not doing anything and then by

the time it finally loaded through it was like 10 minutes past and it I was I

was like now what did it go through

um I was able to get a hold of the guy and let him know kind of what was going on while it was happening so he still

let us go through gotcha yeah well that's why I wasn't on the bid uh or on

the Huddle last week or I was on for a short time I should say the week before uh yeah last week

you were on a plane last week I was in the air flying uh from Memphis so uh but

the week before we had let a job slip through the deal uh and this is why

this this is why it's so important and we really drove this home with our

estimator to read your specs and your drawings ahead of time is a

if it's a if it's a public opening the location and the directions on how you

are to submit that bid is all in the specifications number one number two

that's also where you find all your alternates and you know if you have four

or five alternates on a job it's going to be in the specs in section zero one hundred typically

and if you have four or five different ways that they want this bathroom as an

alternate but without the tile in the shower they want a fabricate a chair but then they want another alternate for

just the shower and then you know when you start partnering and piecing this thing together it helps you to do your

take off the way that you're going to have to bid the job so I think all that's important

and we get the job downloaded loaded up

eight days go by Ish we we got our bid back whether we uh Outsource the takeoff

or not we put our bid together um what are some important items that every

bit form should have Daniel I'll let you start because you're

still in the flooring uh bid you know business Kathy does mainly the

estimating at this point but I do want your take on that exclusions you need to let them know

like right up front like inclusions and exclusions because this is what it's included if it's not listed

it's not included this is what's excluded and

we have been into that where we do this and all

they do is look at the number and say yes or no and then once they say yes then you're you're starting to go

through stuff and they're like well when are you going to be here to do this and be like we're not going to do that that's excluded like

I'm not and and that's yeah if you snuck it in your contract that's a problem though

right and that that's where once we you do get to the contract part

read the read everything so that way like um we're doing a job that

it's almost going to the next phase right now but when uh when we we want it and then he started

asking questions and I'm like uh he's like who told you to spec a new

carpet I said you guys did it's it's right there on the bid form even like

it's in the spec it's in the bid form and it and it read like the alternate was to spec a new carpet

for the installation on the entire building instead of just the renovation phase

and he was like I don't understand where you've got just like a new carpet from I said read it again and then you decide

where I got to to spec a new carpet so I guess that that's one of the big

things is if you do read something like that there's no dumb questions right and I

I will drive that like you can you can think of one thing but until you ask them what they meant by it it's all up

to interpretation yeah I think that's a good point be willing to ask the questions

so I I agree that the exclusions and exclusions uh inclusions exclusions are

like the mo one of the most important things I think a properly laid out bid

telling them what you're bidding uh are you bidding per plans and specifications

and then you don't list all your materials you just that when a job has heavy specified

products so it's not on a maybe it's on a finished schedule still but it's it's in the spec book and they've taken the

time to really about every product in the spec book then I'll bid per plans

and specifications and then my exclusions matter right because then they can know when this spec section

oh nine three thousand and that's full volatile

and I exclude you know waterproofing on the first floor or uh you know something

whatever it is and the the real important part is that they have a spec to go see why where

it's excluded from uh when you're just listing your materials and say you've

got Daltile this Daltile that whatever the products are and you're actually listing out products uh and that's a way

to do it as well but you got to be a little more careful with your exclusions I think and that is we added a box on

our bid form that says job specific exclusions and then our standardized these are our exclusions on every job so

and then of course the price who are you addressing it to are you addressing it to all bidding general

contractors are you addressing to the estimating Department I would encourage you as long as you don't have eight or

ten different GCS if you got two or three personalizing hey it's this guy

you know it's Daniel Gonzalez that Brady done and so a little personalization is

is uh uh can go a long way as well but the

main thing is obviously the price and scope and then the uh inclusions exclusions what about you Kathy do you

have any other like add-ons to that that we need to be careful for well first and foremost I want to

comment on your personalizing because I think that is important even if you have eight or ten bidders if two or three of

them are people that you work with regularly make it personal make it addressed directly to them

because they want to feel important quite honestly so I would personalize it

um when it comes to the exclusions and inclusions you want to be real careful to include how you've handled any

conflicts in the drawings if it's not been addressed in an addendum that

becomes part of your contract drawings you can't assume just because you had a conversation with your client that he's

going to remember at the time of award that that's how you had agreed to handle that situation

not only do you want it in there and clearly identified why you have that

um how you've come to that conflict resolution but when you're before you sign the contract you want to be sitting

down with them and making sure that you've reviewed those conflicts and that everybody's in agreement with the way

that you've addressed it so that you're getting that resolved before you're on the job site before it becomes you know

potentially an ugly situation about the cost and who's going to bear that

that's a good point because you don't always get your rfis answered I mean frankly

um particularly if it's coming close to the uh you know end of the bid uh date

but I I know some Architects that just don't answer Subs rfis they make us send

it through uh one of the general contractors and then that general contractor flooring we're the last thing on maybe

not the last name but we're one of the latter things on their mind when they're building a facility and so we send in an

RFI that has to go through the GC because an architect's somewhat of a pompous then you know you may not get

the answer so you have to learn to make intelligent assumptions and then detail

out what that assumption is would you agree that that's kind of what what the

best method is when you when you don't get an answer to your question absolutely and again even if you get an

answer from your client but it's a verbal answer or even an email you want to make sure that you're including it

the only time that I feel it may not be necessary is at least if it's documented

in an addendum or an RFI response yeah you want to protect yourself and you need it for your own reminder as well

because you're going through how many projects not only bidding but like Construction

side as well so you need that kind of Tickler to remind yourself when you're getting back into that project that

those items need to be resolved yeah I even put on ours you know that it includes this addendum dated this day so

that way they don't have to come back and ask me hey Does it include this hey Does it include that yes it does include

this and it's already listed in there yeah last year addendums list your uh if

you've got a lot of alternates and only five of them apply to you I would encourage you to say you got 10 and 5

apply to you I've list all 10 and no change on the ones that don't affect you and then that saved us before because we

thought we didn't have anything on this uh alternate but in fact we did and

um you know it was helpful that the GC scene that we didn't have a number in on

that it just kind of laid it out if you got a couple alternates just obviously making sure that we we log our

alternates and and the pricing for that and then like Daniel just said make sure they you recognize the addendums

and then even in the project manual sometimes you'll run into you know the job specific bid forms and you have to

use that bid form they don't want anything else and that's where uh you know that they're going to be a huge

stick around price I've been finding out because they want that bit form they want the number

any alternates that's it they don't care about anything else they just want to see that number

yeah well those are dangerous and I just I always send our qualification sheet

with it even if it's their bid form and I'm like I've written it on the bottom of the bit form that our our uh

um uh our explanation sheet must be considered with this number or else to

just throw our away I mean there's too many there's too many things too

many ways to get caught on that bill and if you're some of this is like as you build a

relationship with your GCS uh and you have a good solid relationship with someone they're going to call you and

discuss things I had a call last week on a bid for one of my estimators you know they'll call you and let you know you're

kind of something's wacky or you know did you look at it this way did you look

at that um so that's part of you know the final thing is

personalizing that bid form is for what to build a relationship because like Kathy said they want to feel important

we all do and a lot of estimators are just sitting behind a computer screen for eight ten hours a day guys so like

Donald love and so personalize it but that's to build a relationship that's one of the

things that does it's you're recognizing that other human and that can come really in handy from a perspective from

the perspective of if you did mess something up they'll call you you know I I had a job that we're not sure until we

get through whether I was right or they're the uh the competitor was right but we had

all our opposite bids from a price perspective and there was only two bidders it's kind of the worst scenario

for me I was low by like 20 something percent low and they were high and I'm like okay which

one of us made the mistake here they called me I looked at mine and went over

with the estimators uh I feel really confident that it's fine and that we had

everything covered but at the end of the day those relationships that you built by acknowledging other people can come

in handy and really save your rear end yeah I've had those calls too where

they they call and they they like working with you because you do build that you know that that bond with these

people and they call you and they're like hey I just want to let you know that

right now you know you're not you're not the lowest you're you're you know little

you're kind of right in the middle and I'm not telling you that you need to lower your price on anything I just want

to let you take a look at everything to see if there was something that you added that shouldn't be there

yeah so relationships 100 matter yeah you'll get those calls um you know

I would you know say be very careful I want to be clear

what bid rigging is and what that is actually and a contractor Colleen or just talking

to on a on a normal project talking to a sub about the job if they're not sharing

you know specific numbers or something the key that's not bit rigging by

calling your client or your uh your flooring vendor for example and saying

hey can you re-look at this the fact is is that they know you're going to do the job right and when GCS do that it's

typically because they want to deliver the best value for their client they don't want all the headaches and the

being sure or the you know the things that happen when you when they have to deal with another uh provider so at the

end of the day that that's not been rigging uh I would say it's very much frowned upon in the industry but it's

not an illegal activity now if Daniel and I got together and we're bidding the same GC and him and I

said Hey listen 60 profit baby

and we went in and we were we knew we were the only two bidders and we both

did it way up there like that's bittering that is illegal and will land

your ass in jail and we know I know of a of a very large company in Chicago that this it's pretty

well known uh but this happened to and I believe it was their VP that went he did

some time yeah and like I said he didn't tell me any dollar amounts you know he's just

like is there anything that you could have had in there that shouldn't be in there like you you added something twice or

something just and he just you know they that the big

thing was I love working with you guys I would love to see you on this project but ultimately it's not my decision but

if you could see people added anything in there second look

yeah well you get those opportunities to to uh you know work with your contractor but I just wanted to be clear because

I've heard people say that like well that's bid reading it's not uh and it's

not illegal that activity like I said it's pretty frowned upon or it can be frowned upon but the dirty secret is

every flooring company I've ever talked to it happens I was at a conference with

a hundred and I don't know what are we up to 160 contractors at that place there was a certain discussion where it

was all talked about well yeah the contractor calls me and wants me lowering my price and you know get

closer to the low guy um so what I would say though is building

the relationship can come in handy the the example I was giving was

like I because there was only two bidders right with this guy Bennett High or if I miss

something you know and they don't have a third or a four to be like okay these are grouped together and this guy's way

low so he's probably the outlier it was just two of us and we both had pretty good reputations I see pretty good on

their side our reputation's awesome but uh the

so they called to give me a chance to look at it before they you know put me in as the low bid and that you

know can save your bacon sometimes um and that that's one thing too is you know once you do

find out that you don't win something definitely ask them well how much was I

off by and sometimes they'll give you a percent sometimes they'll give you a dollar amount and you're like man you can take

that percentage and be like man I was only you know three percent off and I lost this bid and yeah you can find some

ways to tweak it yeah that gives you a chance to re-look at that project and be like what could I have done differently

and still been profitable but got this job and that's really the the biggest

thing that we've been dealing with lately is learning from the projects that we've been that we didn't get

to go forward and still maintain you know the profit that we need in order to

run but getting it getting the projects that we want and maybe the Holy Grail of estimating

is don't do free like do not do work that you think you're going to lose

money on or that it's so tight if you have a project that has

seven alternates and there's 12 gc's bidding and it's some big you know

project that is like a Mainstay in your area like a new library or you know a new college dorm or something that would

get accolades and there's all these walk away sometimes it's just best to walk

away when you got all these alternates which tells you the owner wants to see

it 15 different ways right uh owner or architect and then your G you got eight

or ten gc's that's telling you right there they want the Autumn dollar price you unless you

most likely mess something up to be low you're not going to get the job anyway so I think that plays into it as well

early on get in and out of the projects if you can't do them when it comes to public bids you know

look you get a one shot at the price and I'll tell you when I was on the

Contracting side one of my favorite projects I knew one of my competitors wanted that job it was in his hometown

he didn't want somebody else on that job it was for my favorite client they considered me their favorite tile

contractor and so when it came time we we put a price on it as a convenience to

them because they want to show their customer that they have plenty of

participation in the bid and so I put the right price on the job I did not try

to be tight on my number and what ended up happening was we were third low bidder

the first bidder which was the person I knew was going to be aggressive missed the entire lower level of the school

which was locker rooms swimming pool decks and so he got cost the second low

bidder missed seven thousand feet of epoxy grout so he got tossed what

started out as a 290 000 bid ended up being almost seven hundred thousand

dollars and I was third low the point being is that being the low

number does not necessarily gain you the bid in a public situation because a good

contractor is going to qualify the scope of work that you have you want to make sure that you've covered the job

properly and priced it properly and then go in with the right number yeah lowest

qualified right and they'll tell you because we've talked about her too because on the

public jobs you're putting in a bid Bond and then if it's over a certain dollar amount you got to do the performance

bond and stuff like that and it's the and we've talked to them they're like

we typically don't use the bid Bond because we'll just toss them out and be like yeah you're done with this one he

said but in certain cases when we need to we'll definitely use that money yeah

I've never had one uh used but um because I don't pull out of bids I'm

you know frankly I've I've we've made mistakes and I've done a loser job before uh just to maintain the the

relationship um while we're we're closing in on an

hour already guys I got a question um with you know what we've we've talked about

the importance of building the relationship at the end of the project what is your best comeback when they say

oh we can't tell you that when you ask for uh where you landed

that's kind of a silly question but I'm just curious because I got my go-to

do you have good I don't know they usually just tell me you don't have gc's to say oh I can't tell you that no

so we we will they'll be like well we can't share that with you and I'm like okay so you're saying

you cannot share with me where my competitor landed are you in a you were in an opening with

all your competitors and you've got to hear all of theirs uh

we are only trying to get better that's where I lead to it's like we're only trying to get better I'm not I've lost

this job if I've lost this job that's got nothing to do with it we are just trying to increase our performance from

a getting jobs or bids in on time and providing you with accurate numbers

that's all so any real guidance that can help us become a better uh you know bid

resource for you because see just like you alluded to Kathy the G sees a lot of their

reputation when if they're bidding to a owner is how many Subs can can they get

those three Subs to come and give them three numbers on each scope and you know

the owners they recognize that stuff if a if a GC Can't Get Enough Subs to even get two or three bids they know that you

know there's possibly uh some skeletons in the closet with that GC

um so yeah I guess at the at the end of the day that's what I tell them

I've asked them in the past if they give that roadblock is to at least give me an

idea and my two percent five percent ten percent twenty percent and oftentimes they'll at least give you a ballpark

they may not give you the exact number but similar to what you said you know I

explained to them that I'm trying to serve them and if my number is not working for them then

you know I need to know what I have to do to be effective for them I always make it about them when you make it

about that you don't make it about yourself you have a better shot at getting the answers

yeah good insight well uh so we went from

start of getting a bit invitation and I know we didn't do any screen shares on

actual takeoffs uh but I would like to discuss for the last couple of minutes here

the best software stacks for estimating takeoff PDF readers that kind of thing

what are your favorites Kathy because you do this with multiple different companies so wait a second if you cannot

answer this do not worry about it I will answer my I just realized the position I

just put you in I'm sorry I into it all the time because I've been asked when I was doing speeches at conferences so you

know I will tell you who it is and why it is there's great software out there

and everybody's going to have their own ideas as to what is important to them

but for me measure square has become my absolute favorite go-to as well as all

of my estimators because we've experienced no glitches in their system

and more importantly they're there to serve the industry if you can see a

potential Improvement in their software they're going to hear you out and they're going to consider it and more

than likely either they're either they'll adopt it or adapt it one of the two that's really important the industry

is forever changing software's are changing products are changing and so if

you've got a software company that's going to work with you to try and make their product better to serve you better

that's that's key that's huge yeah that's awesome I would say the same thing with measure

square we've we've used some others in the past but measure squares our favorite us too that's what we switched over I

think two or three years ago from a different program and not only is it more user friendly

but like Kathy said it's if you have an idea they will absolutely hear you out I

mean my brother's been on webinars with them constantly like this is my idea

this will make my life easier how can we get it into your system and it's

they're they're all about it they're like you said they're they're here to serve us right and they really show it

yeah brother breeders

um or anything like that Kathy I don't I didn't know if I mean not just for reading documents but we use bluebeam

it's kind of a you can do some takeoffs with it I I do it to check estimator

sometimes or whatever but you can Mark I like it because I can mark up the drawings and put notes and Cloud stuff

out and I can cut stuff away and I can make the drawing what I need to make it

because I'm always thinking about okay what is the installer gonna think when he sees this that's just how I build

things so you can actually cloud and make notes all over measure square as well so there

isn't that limitation we don't typically use bluebeam um not at least for flooring we've

started doing drywall painting and ceilings and in those we may apply it

more because we're not typically using measure square at this time a measure square is now developing in a way to be

able to be used for those other trades but we haven't the teams are not quite up to par on measure square yet for

those trades gotcha what about you Daniel yeah typically we're doing measure

square as well like that's where you make all your markups and stuff yep so

they have a notes option and then we'll like draw arrows to the we'll draw an arrow and put a note out so that way

people know exactly what we're talking about yeah so uh our estimators will do that

kind of thing but when I as a if I'm project managing in it managing the job

I don't just I don't have I don't even have a measure square login myself so I

get the documents from the estimating uh the estimators and you know they're in

PDF form uh or a measure square file well if I don't have measure square I'm not going to be able to look at it there

so right in the PDF form and then I use bluebeam because it can do all those

markups and stuff uh it's a lot better than like an adobe or something like that although you can probably get a

really high end of adobe to work for you but is uh is that software does that

software have a cost to it moving yeah it's like I had to remember

it's like 300 bucks a year or something it's not like not too bad but yeah so going from PDFs

like that when we're out on the field we do have um the

measure square mobile as well so we can pull it up on there but if we

don't have if we don't want to do that and just doing a screenshot and marking it up with our phones is what we do

gotcha well it was a pleasure we're gonna have to wind this thing down to stand or an

hour it was a pleasure of chatting with both of you about this and getting into the weeds a bit about how estimating uh

you know there is a way to do it it's not the only way but there are some best practices so I hope that we shared

enough with you guys so that you know what those best practices are as always if you have any questions for me you can

reach out at Paula go Carrera uh Daniel yours is shoot your email again because

Daniel will do just the easy one Daniel at pfmi dot team

awesome and Kathy if somebody wanted to reach out to you for a service or maybe have you bid a few jobs for them and

they're you know they're really busy or something what's the best way for them to reach out to you my phone number which is

203-627-0067 or my email which is K case at quantifyna.com

and uh Kathy with the k athy with a K that's great so

um all right well if you guys like the the content that

you got I would encourage you please help us out give us a like you know a thumbs up whatever you're watching this

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every Tuesday at three o'clock Central Kathy thank you again for joining us it

was a real pleasure to talk through that with you Daniel tell your brother to get better my friend yeah

yeah I'm I'm gonna go to bed all right everyone

all right see you next week and Kathy again thank you for joining us I'll see you in a week awesome see ya

bye