Does anyone have any tips and/or advice on what to include in a letter to general contractors when soliciting work?

I'm thinking just a small intro about the company, what we are about, what type of work we do, then just ask to be considered or put on a bidding list for any current or future projects they may have.

Anything other ideas on what to include?

If I had one piece of advice it would be to always return calls promptly and keep your appointments. "Not showing up" and "not returning calls" were the main complaints my wife had as her main reason for firing trades and never using them again.

I'm talking about just a letter. This is for the few bidding type websites I use that list projects that you need to contact the general contractors.

In alot of cases when calling the contractor they want you for fax over info reguarding your company and if they like what they see they will keep it and put you on a notification list to contact you to bid on projects.

Why not simply direct them to your website?

Sending out letters to companies you have no background on, is usually not very productive, you can end up attracting dead beat contractors at best, it you want to attract quality pre screened contractors, use a company like Blue Book, with years of proven sucess, at delivering subs work, you will have to pay the fees, but trying to run a business on the cheap you may end up with a lot of nothing, invest a little on quality marketing.

A lamb asking directions to the lions' den ....

You can tell a lot about someone from their posts. Trick 440 ... I don't think you're ready to go solo. I think you lack both the technical and business experience needed. I strongly recommend that you get some formal training in the trade, work for a real contractor, and see how things are done. Being an electrician, and running a business, are two separate trades.

A lot has been posted, in the past, about GC's. The short version: The GC is NOT your friend. Most of us do our best to never deal with one.

Finally, you really want to have the local inspectors at least neutral in their attitudes toward you. If they have the idea that you're a disaster waiting to happen, you'll have them counting screw threads. If nothing else, consider every objection a cheap lesson.

hackelect, I appreciate you ability to know me through my posts online.

Oct., 2007 the company I worked for went under, and started my company Nov. 2007. With me and a van. I now have 2 commercial guys, me, 1 apprentice and a carpenter, 3 trucks, one is for the building division. I'm a master electrican, electrical contractor and a licensed builder. I have all my insurances. I'm making about 4x what I was making when I worked for someone doing residential at $24 and hour with a van I took home.

I'm also setting up with a young master plumber who wants to work under Rhinos name, Rhino Plumbing. So I will have everything covered but HVAC.

I have done all this in 6 months? Bring on the Lions.

I put my posts out there, I'm not ashamed to ask anything. I do too much to know everything.

How do you now deal with a GC? If you do your best to never deal with them? They hire thier enemies?

That inspector in my other post is a joke. One of my reasons for posting it was with the chance he may see it. I'm not scared, he knows, and I know exactly whats going on. Thats the lamb standing up to a lion.

I can do without your opinion. If you don't have something to say about the post, then don't say it.

I also use blue book, and 2 others. And 3 free sites... I do alot of good things for being so bad at it.

Trick I think that is impressive, the quick company growth. I also kind of find it funny the responses given to questions on this site. Sometimes condescending... Any how I think you can have a huge leg up in commercial work, if you get in with property magagement groups. A for instance is the company I work for. The "construction division" did the base build up of a particular mall. 15 years ago, the owners of the property now, use us for service of other malls, and we are on a very short list of E.C's the company will let do tenant fit-ups in their facility. My point is skip the G.C's and impress the people who hire them, and then you can get your company on that list... Best of luck

Thanks WireNuts,
Great advice... Property managers. That should of been obvious. Thats an angle I didn't even think of yet. Probably because they seem to be a more elusive beast, compared to general contractors who are a dime a dozen.

Again awesome advice. This whole thread is worth what I have just learned.

Thats why I come here. I visit a few marketing & advertising forums and there is a slim to none chance I would get advice specific like that.

I do admit I sometimes come off half cocked and may ask a question in a post that I could find myself if I took the time. I kind of look at it like this, why waste my time figuring out what it has taken people years to learn, they took the time and learned it, great, now I just have to utilize thier info... Just saved myself all that work, now I can take that information and carry on to the next step, beyond even what the person I have learned from has gone.

Ok no more posts for me for awhile. Please share any advice you guys may have, thanks.

Slow down, there is a big difference in property magagement groups, and property managers, the management groups usually have control of the entire budget process and work directly for the owners, where the porperty manager is usually a salary, or wage employee working for a managment group. This is why I recommended Blue Book they have the best results, in finding contacts with managment groups.

If you are a small shop, willing to take small jobs, getting hooked up with a condo/HOA type property manager can keep you working.
If you play golf there may also be some "barter" opportunities. That might interest you if golf is over $100 when you can get on.

Greg,

in this area the condo HOA managers will call every EC they can find to get the lowest price, and call a different contractor every time they have a problem, we have one or two EC that worked with these managers because the worked for below what it cost them to operate, they hung in there until 2007 came and the economy but them under, In my opinion there is nothing like quality accounts that profitable work year long. taking on the condo HOA accounts will bring in plenty of work but may not bring in the money needed to operate.

I am not sure that is always true if you can establish yourself as reliable and competent. People usually shop price when they get the idea everyone is the same. That gets back to my original point about returning calls and keeping appointments. If you are talking about an owner managed HOA they are more likely to shop around but if you have a management company they really prefer to keep their life as simple as possible. If they have a vendor who is competitively priced and always takes care of their problems with one call they will use them. As soon as you have them calling you back to find out were you are, you become just like everyone else.

Trade associations, business to business groups, Score, SBA, local heating and air conditioning contractors, church groups, little league, the list of potential clients is vast. Network is key. I am glad the original poster is doing well. It is a black eye for the naysayers.

Doing well, he said making 4 times the money, so if he was making $24 an hour now he is making $96 an hour, that is not doing well it is great, if after all his overhead and operating expenses, he can have $96 he is doing better then great, and should be telling us what to do.

Considering he started in Nov 2007 he is new to the business, and with most start up's in the EC area only 1 in 8 will make it thru the first year, so i would not be pulling out the party supplies yet.

I don't think some of the posts are nay sayers, I think they are just voicing some of their experience with business deals. The bad approach would be to lead him into thinking there are easy ways to attract new profitable business.

Hey Trick, how about keeping us posted on how its going for the next few years so we can bandy this subject around a bit more. Lets say 6 month intervals. I am betting you make your first year no problem. And the second. And the third.........

I agree with LK. There's a big diference in billing out at $96 an hour and making $96 an hour.

Count me as one of the "naysayers".

In another thread, Trick 440 said he did a kitchen remodel for $900.
The permit was $350 alone.
That leaves $650 for all materials and overhead.
A minimum of 2 trips was necessary (actually 3, after the Code corrections).
Where is there room for a $96 an hour profit?

The math just doesn't add up.
BTW, I hope you make it, but you've got to realize that's not just clear profit.

[quote=electure]Count me as one of the "naysayers".

In another thread, Trick 440 said he did a kitchen remodel for $900.
The permit was $350 alone.
That leaves $650 for all materials and overhead.


The math just doesn't add up.


No it doesn't...900-350=550

Even less!

That shows how much I know, doesn't it?

The point is that it doesn't leave much room for profit.

That's craigslist pricing if ever I saw it.

You guys are so anal, I did the math I make 3.038020833 times more. After expensise and I included medical insurance what I don't even have so i guess thats profit.

One $900 kitchen, one kitchen could of been a favor I did, which, in reality I charged $1300 (in the end) plus the extras I now am going back for. I left these little details out just for effect in the title post. Lets analize and scrutinize over every little word like its the code book. You guys are unreal...

Guess what!!! I'm not spell checking my spelling in this post either!

That $900 kitchen has lead to a 150 unit apartment project.

Are you guys married?

now you got me opening Quickbooks and getting out permit cost papers...

ok, 900 job
160 permit
130 material
4 hour rough
2 hour finish
= $101.666666666 an hour.

Doh!... 1 hr permit pick up.. $87.1428 I picked up 2 other permits when I was down there.. should I divide that hour by 3?

Ok now lets make 8 other posts about how I didn't include gas and drive time, nor any overhead expenses... guess what I didn't include the 10 minutes it took for me to write up the invoice or the ink and paper either. <~~ I can't say this, now the topic will be , "you have to include the none billed hours yada, yada, yada..." hey guys i do a few jobs cheap every once in awhile. Lots of time i do this with first time customers... till they get to know me and see the type of work and customer service they get.

And I really hate talking about this... can't tell from these posts but I perfer to keep myself low key, but I guess if some people want to compare penis sizes.., I'll whip it out.. I'm not saying I'm some big shot I am far far from it... I'm a younger guy, whos doing better in his life then ever. I worked my butt off for it, guess what its happening. I grew up around business. damn 6 month... 6 months? I'm not no where near where I'm going to be in the future, this is 1 step in my plan, and this first step isn;t a big step, the following 3 steps are the same size. keep hating, I will continue to leave people alone on the internet and work on bettering myself.

I have been on this site sense 2005, I will be here in the future. We'll see what happens I'm not going anywhere, not now not in the future.. Wait till this economy pops... its working for me right now. if it stays down like this while I get all my pieces in place, I'm set. Where people see problems I see opportunities.

What is taken for Nay sayers, is advice on caution, most of the guys on the threads that have been long established in business, have gone through both up, and down cycles, and many have learned the hard way, things like checking the credit and ability for your customers to pay, before extending credit.

One of the sad things you may see over the years, is an EC that worked hard, and in the end had nothing, because he built the business as a job and not an asset with continued profits over the years.

We all cheer on anyone who wants to go in business for themself, it is a great move provided you do proper planning and run it like a business.

Your going to be fine, and you know it you don't need me to tell you that. I can spot a mile away the difference between somebody who knows what he wants and figures out how to get there and somebody who is clueless. What some of my well respected by me peers tend to forget about is drive. They are very much expert at navigation thru the ups and downs of things, no question about it, but as a whole without pointing out any single persons here or elsewhere, I have long noticed the tendency to forget about the drive factor. I have long observed that the most sucessful operations always and I mean always have something extra that the other guys next to them don't and that is drive. Pure and simple.

Run with it. That will set you apart from your competitors.

+1 Trick440

Quite frankly I'm afraid to ask a question here for fear of someone insisting that I should never have been issued a license without knowing everything there is to know about every aspect of the trade.

Many of the replies to questions here seem to go a step beyond condescending. I have noticed posters with older registration dates and high post counts seem to get a bit more tolerance when admitting they may not know everything.

I do however rest assured that nobody knows everything and even if they did they would be back to not knowing everything again with every code cycle or every emerging new technology. Also, nobody has any right to judge somebody's qualifications or lack thereof based on an online dialog alone.

Fortunately it isn't all like that and many darn good questions have been asked and answered by many very helpful people that have helped me to fill in holes in my knowledge without have to admit to those holes myself.
That's why I keep this site bookmarked and check it regularly.

Thanks Macmikeman,Chicoc10,sixer, for getting this thread back to positive Ideas for the OP We All have times where things dont go as planned.

Macmikeman I have picked up on your "drive" Observations on this and other forums.

Trick 440 I wish you all the best of luck , your previous posts should be looked at by others as a learning experience for all of us.

Thanks for asking your questions here .

Now that many of us have searched out your posts lets learn about some of the frustrations they provided.

I was one person that didnt do a cost analysis for 2 years after i joined this forum.

I was told too,but I kept putting it off.Then I provided some information from this forum to my loving girl friend aka my book keeper .
It was a very complex explanation to me as how to figure out my indirect costs.
She spent a couple weeks with that information and and with her skills at excel provided me with my costs per hour.
some months they were 140/ hr ... in the slow times it was well over 200/hr.

So thanks to all who have guided me over the years here to make me understand that I could not work for 65/hr for doing service work.

When this post started, the OP was asking for a letter to send out to GC's , The Bid market is a tough one, all you need to take a big hit, is employees that produce below your estimated production, all the drive an owner may have not make up for lost production from employees. Before sending out letters of introduction to GC's, it may be better to cover a broader market, and try to capture a mix of work, to help build more working capital.

Trick 440, all I can say is that your company seems to be doing very well. I wish I could be where you are now. I think you may know something about how to run a business that can be of benefit to those of us who don't know everything about the electrical trade. As for the condescencion, I remember being an apprentice and asking journeymen questions about electrical theory, and why things are done the way they were. Those who genuinely knew answered, those who didn't, and were honest stated so, but those who didn't know, and did not want to reveal their ignorance always had a condescending response. The common one being "you should know that by now, or you shouldn't be doing this". So, please don't think everyone here is down on you, because some of us are open to learn, and I for one learn from the questions others ask, and from some of the responses.