# Finally got a job



## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

Well, after months and months of submitting bids, I just signed papers tonight for a housing development. This will be the first development in 5 yrs for us. It is a small one, 12 lots and a nice little job. We had to drop our price $12,000 to get it, but I had room to work with, so I am happy.


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## guyute65045 (Nov 23, 2006)

Way to go Rino,
I know how it feels, it gets a bit frustrating submitting bid after bid and getting nothing. Well back to the 3 sets of plans I was looking at.:laughing:


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## Upchuck (Apr 7, 2009)

Congrats. Now get to work.

Doing subdivisions are my favorite. How much dirt work & utilities are involved?


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## Electricmanscot (Feb 6, 2005)

How can you just take _twelve thousand_ out of a job and still produce the same job?


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## Sar-Con (Jun 23, 2010)

My guess is at $20,000 a lot, knock 1G off for a 5% discount to the builder and Rino's back in business! Good work. I'm in a drought right know that I can't seem to shake. Getting small jobs but can't snag the big ones. Losing them to different contractors who seem to be nibbling away at our bread and butter. Any advice Rino? Is it technique or just a numbers thing?


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## Vinny (Jul 21, 2007)

rino1494 said:


> Well, after months and months of submitting bids, I just signed papers tonight for a housing development. This will be the first development in 5 yrs for us. It is a small one, 12 lots and a nice little job. We had to drop our price $12,000 to get it, but I had room to work with, so I am happy.


Good for you Jason. BTW, thanks.


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

Glad to see you've landed a project.

I was beginning to expect another birth announcement soon, with all your time off. :thumbsup:


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

Electricmanscot said:


> How can you just take _twelve thousand_ out of a job and still produce the same job?


It is a $300,000 job. It is a 4% cut. I didn't go in with my best price because I knew it would be a negotiation. Never go into a negotiation when you are on the bottom end. Besides, every piece of equipment we own is paid off.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

tgeb said:


> I was beginning to expect another birth announcement soon, with all your time off. :thumbsup:


Actually, my son was born last tuesday. He was 8lbs 7oz and 19.25". Everything is good except that he fractured his clavicle during birth. I researced it and it not uncommon. Babies are excellent at healing and when he is older, it will be almost impossible to tell through x-ray that he fractured it.


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## Upchuck (Apr 7, 2009)

Congrats on the new addition.


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## Sar-Con (Jun 23, 2010)

Congrats on the big job and the new addition to the family!


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## Tom Struble (Mar 2, 2007)

good news on all counts:thumbup:


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## designer-fixit (Jul 13, 2010)

Hey my name is Tawnie, i just wanted to say congratulations on the job. it sucks when we have to lower the profit to get a job but its definitely worth it to have the chance to prove yourself on a job like that. good luck. its always better to work for a little less than you first anticipate than to have no work coming in at all.


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## CJ21 (Aug 11, 2007)

Congrats on getting a job. I am still looking for one. Also congrats on your new son.


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

rino1494 said:


> Actually, my son was born last tuesday. He was 8lbs 7oz and 19.25". Everything is good except that *he fractured his clavicle during birth.* I researced it and it not uncommon. Babies are excellent at healing and when he is older, it will be almost impossible to tell through x-ray that he fractured it.


Well Congratulations!!

How did he manage to fracture his clavicle?? Trying to get out......or trying to get back in? :jester: 

Glad to hear you landed a nice project too. You're going to need that money....


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

congrats on the baby and the job jason :clap::clap:


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

rino1494 said:


> ....Besides, every piece of equipment we own is paid off.


:blink::blink:

So the iron costs less now???! That's the attitude that keeps us dirt guys looking like dirt guys and not like doctors. Do you think doc's don't charge for the MRI, CT or LASIK equipment once it's paid for. You think the lawyers charge less once their student loans areoaid off? Any other profession starts charging more once they've been at it a while - not less.

We all owe it to our families to charge a price commensurate with both the risks we take and what the businesses suck out of us. Ignoring the cost of what dirt does to moving parts short changes everyone.

Congratulations on your latest arrival:thumbsup::thumbsup: 
At 8# 7oz he's a litltle Hoss:thumbup:


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

*So the iron costs less now???! *

If you do not have a $1,000/month payment, than operating costs should be lower. 

*That's the attitude that keeps us dirt guys looking like dirt guys and not like doctors. Do you think doc's don't charge for the MRI, CT or LASIK equipment once it's paid for. You think the lawyers charge less once their student loans areoaid off? Any other profession starts charging more once they've been at it a while - not less.*

Unfortunately, doctors and lawyers do not have to "bid" for their work. Customers will always come to them no matter the price. I have never called a doctor and asked them if they could give me a price on an appt. because I have a cough. I am sure that if doctors and lawyers had to start bidding their jobs out, they sure wouldn't be driving around in a Mercedes.


*We all owe it to our families to charge a price commensurate with both the risks we take and what the businesses suck out of us. Ignoring the cost of what dirt does to moving parts short changes everyone.*

We also owe it to our families to provide for them. IDK about you, but my unemployment check for the last 5 wks isn't cutting it. Sometimes you need to lick your wounds and push forward. Like I said in my previous post. I figured out the job with my normal rates and padded it pretty good. I came out high, then I had to chop myself back down. If I had given my bottom line price, then there was no way I could budge. Let's just say, my first price was a pretty nice profit. I was bidding against only 1 other company and they employ over 100 ppl. I would gurantee, they were at their bottom dollar where I was in a better position.


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## Sar-Con (Jun 23, 2010)

How did you sell him on the job after being the high price?


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## WC&T (Feb 22, 2010)

*So the iron costs less now???! *

_If you do not have a $1,000/month payment, than operating costs should be lower._

You might not have equipment payments but you still have replacement cost for every piece of iron you own. Just because you own a piece of iron doesn't mean your operating cost are less. That equipment should be billing towards replacement. The money you use to purchase equipment should not come out of the profit margins on your jobs. It is better to have good liquidity and moderate equipment payments than it is to have to have low liquidity and zero equipment payments. Just ask your performance/payment bonding agent.

*That's the attitude that keeps us dirt guys looking like dirt guys and not like doctors. Do you think doc's don't charge for the MRI, CT or LASIK equipment once it's paid for. You think the lawyers charge less once their student loans areoaid off? Any other profession starts charging more once they've been at it a while - not less.*

_Unfortunately, doctors and lawyers do not have to "bid" for their work. Customers will always come to them no matter the price. I have never called a doctor and asked them if they could give me a price on an appt. because I have a cough. I am sure that if doctors and lawyers had to start bidding their jobs out, they sure wouldn't be driving around in a Mercedes._

It is true that doctors and lawyers don't bid work but a lot of contractors drive pickups that cost as much as a Mercedes and make as much if not sometimes more than a doctor does in a year. We just can go broke a lot faster.

*We all owe it to our families to charge a price commensurate with both the risks we take and what the businesses suck out of us. Ignoring the cost of what dirt does to moving parts short changes everyone.*

_We also owe it to our families to provide for them. IDK about you, but my unemployment check for the last 5 wks isn't cutting it. Sometimes you need to lick your wounds and push forward. Like I said in my previous post. I figured out the job with my normal rates and padded it pretty good. I came out high, then I had to chop myself back down. If I had given my bottom line price, then there was no way I could budge. Let's just say, my first price was a pretty nice profit. I was bidding against only 1 other company and they employ over 100 ppl. I would gurantee, they were at their bottom dollar where I was in a better position._ 

Well first off most owners don't get unemployment checks since we don't pay into unemployment. That being said I agree with the rest of your statement. In the end you have to feed your family and if that means working for slim margins than thats what you have to do. We all ***** about ppl "buying jobs" but when we start running out of work we all start cutting margins until we land something. You just hope that every once in awhile you get that job that makes you a little extra money and makes everything worth while.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

Sar-Con said:


> How did you sell him on the job after being the high price?


He told me how much higher we were. I said that I will go back and look at the bid to see if I can cut some fat. He said that he would rather work with us since we have done some small stuff for him in the past and we were also local guys. He said let me know by Monday. I faxed the revised proposal at 7:00 AM and he called me back at 7:05 and said, let's meet tonight to sign papers. Politicing wins more jobs than anything else.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

*You might not have equipment payments but you still have replacement cost for every piece of iron you own. Just because you own a piece of iron doesn't mean your operating cost are less. That equipment should be billing towards replacement. The money you use to purchase equipment should not come out of the profit margins on your jobs. It is better to have good liquidity and moderate equipment payments than it is to have to have low liquidity and zero equipment payments. Just ask your performance/payment bonding agent.*

Relacement costs, what are those ?? My old man doesn't replace anything, he just keeps fixing the old stuff. Most ppl base replacement costs on 10,000 hrs. Almost half of our equipment has more than that.....so then maybe we can work just for fuel and labor costs.......oh wait, I forgot about inflation costs on replacement costs and yada yada yada.....


*It is true that doctors and lawyers don't bid work but a lot of contractors drive pickups that cost as much as a Mercedes and make as much if not sometimes more than a doctor does in a year. We just can go broke a lot faster.*

They are the same contractors that have to have all the brand new equipment and have the high monthly payments and have to charge more to cover their payments. Landscapers are the most nortorious for this.


*Well first off most owners don't get unemployment checks since we don't pay into unemployment.* 

True, but I am not the owner, so I do get that little check. I do all the bidding and shmoozing to prepare to take over one of these days. These past couple years I have been contemplating or not if I should put my college degree to work. I am giving this a shot and pushing forward.

I guess it was a mistake by saying the frowned upon words "cut my price". Maybe I should have re-worded it and said that I cut my "high profit margin". I think I did pretty good being within 4% since we are a 3 man show and they are a 150 man show with estimators, foremans, superintendents, mechanics, secretaries and accountants on the payroll. 


Can someone please lock this thread.


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

Don't sweat it Rino.....we have all done the same thing at one time or another.

I used to do work for a builder that no matter what my number was he would always come back and ask if I could cut 5 or 10% of my bid numbers.
After a few episodes of this....I would pad those jobs a little so I had room to drop the price.

You have a builder that wants to work with you, and assisted you in getting the project, (You'll probably catch hell for that too).

But if you came here and stated that you won this project by $30K everyone would call you a dumbass lowballer cutthroat. Some days ya just can't win.

Bottom line is you have 12 lots to develop and most of us are trying to figure out where to find the next crumb of work.


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## WC&T (Feb 22, 2010)

rino1494 said:


> *You might not have equipment payments but you still have replacement cost for every piece of iron you own. Just because you own a piece of iron doesn't mean your operating cost are less. That equipment should be billing towards replacement. The money you use to purchase equipment should not come out of the profit margins on your jobs. It is better to have good liquidity and moderate equipment payments than it is to have to have low liquidity and zero equipment payments. Just ask your performance/payment bonding agent.*
> 
> Relacement costs, what are those ?? My old man doesn't replace anything, he just keeps fixing the old stuff. Most ppl base replacement costs on 10,000 hrs. Almost half of our equipment has more than that.....so then maybe we can work just for fuel and labor costs.......oh wait, I forgot about inflation costs on replacement costs and yada yada yada.....
> 
> ...


I wasn't trying to bust your balls, I was just stating facts that some of us deal with. Maybe I should have started with a congrats on getting work. Nobody wants to hear negetive comments about work you where just awarded.

I am an owner of a realitively small shop but we do larger projects. We have low overhead and have always been smart with our money so we have little debt with decent bonding capabilities. There has been projects that I have been awarded by leaving 10% on the table and still made damn good money. $300k-$1M public works projects are where i beat the **** out of the big guys. I have noticed that over the last 3 years two kinds of site work contractors have failed. Large companies doing private plat work that switched to PW w/ to much overhead (mostly new equipment) and small time contractors that don't have the knowledge to bid PW and make money. Your company along with my company are in the niche that has been plugging along, working for less than most can and still making a decent profit.

In short congrats on getting the project, keeping guys working and the doors open is the most important thing now and thats what you are doing.


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## Upchuck (Apr 7, 2009)

Rino

Sounds like we have some things in common. We're down to 3 guys (including me) & have been forced to cut profit margins more than we would like. I have a young family & I'm in the transition stage of taking over from my old man. He tells me all the time how much easier it was to run a business before all the current BS. There are times when I question if I should take over the business or go in different direction. I just keep on plugging because better days are ahead. 


BTW, what do you have a degree in?

Chuck


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## Upchuck (Apr 7, 2009)

Jason

Got your PM. Not sure if you'll get mine since I'm not always that good with the intrawebs.

Chuck


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## ElIngeniero (Feb 7, 2008)

Congrats rino. It's good to hear some positive news out of our industry. Every day I hear about my competitors going bankrupt, etc. Meanwhile, companies that I would never consider my competitors due to sloppy work, unprofessional attitude, or thieves seem to be winning a lot of the bids in my area. Best of luck to you.


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## denick (Feb 13, 2006)

Gee it only took 10 days for me to reply to this thread.

Good work Rhino. In these times you do what you have to. I hope a couple other things fall in place to keep you busy till this time next year.

This is what we are reduced to building.


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## tgeb (Feb 9, 2006)

You got *paid* to do that? 

I'm movin' North!










What is that anyway?


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