Growth vs Worth Catch 22

[andyslawncare]

You win some and loose some. I bid all properties equally based on a time formula that i came up with, and a lot of measuring and by analyzing the shrubbery to come up for total hours per year. Usually I'll use my residential average price per hour and add 10% PIA fee for a HOA or commercial. Its a pain to get money sometimes, its a pain to acquire contact info to advertise to them, its a pain to reach them sometimes after holding the job, and etc...just a Pain in the A. This is why I charge a PIA fee. Bid the properties properly and very throughly, and you can sell higher than your competition within reason. For example, I manage some town homes that I sold for $150 more per month because I stated how often each type of shrub was going to be pruned, and upon the sale interview I pointed out major flaws to the board. I was the only one that took the time to do this, and I won the job for 2 years in a row now at my price. Detailed proposals are where it is at....just sold a 1 acre residential account for more than $300/month today because of this. Price isn't always the issue, so you have to let them know what you will do different to justify your price.

[Golfpro21]

the idea of bidding low to get in will bite you in the arse.............you will not be exactly happy having to spend the X amount of hours there every week whille you could be making more money somewhere else (you could just keep telling yourself "your in" to make you feel better) and once your in at that price it will be hard to increase the price after your in to where you think the price should be

Like others have said, bid it at the price it should be for you to be profitable and happy, I would even bid a little higher than your gut says, because your likely being conservative.

These complexes always turn out to be more work than you thought....keep this in mind.

Good luck and hope it works out in your favour

[cgaengineer]

If you can bid low to cover expenses and payroll and it allows you to pay another employee or crew each week, then just by picking up this one account has boosted your productivity so that you may pick up many more smaller properties since you will already have payroll covered for employee/crew.

Some company's bid these large properties just so that they can keep a crew working 40 hours per week and justify having a second crew.
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