How to do better painting quotes, Part 2

Think before you do painting quotes, says Nick Dunse of Think Painting (thinkpainting.net) in Taunton, Mass. “Always remember setup, moving and replacing household items, clean up, travel, and other factors,” he says. Measure your substrates and use production rates. Don’t underbid the prep work. Don’t guess.”

“It’s important to have an organized procedure of estimating: top to bottom, left to right, and making sure you don’t overlook any variables,” says Dunse. ”If you aren’t sure about something, there are plenty of people to help.” If there aren’t people available, he suggests trying out some of the latest estimating programs or books.

Dunse likes to follow up a walk-through with an email estimate. “Estimating on the spot is a good way to overlook or rush and forget something,” he says.

“Learn from your mistakes,” he says, and don’t be afraid to ask for help from your peers.”

An estimate is not a “guesstimate”

With more than 25 years experience, Marge Parkhurst of Painting by Marge (paintingbymarge.com) in Colebrook, Conn., developed PEP Estimating Solutions, an electronic estimating program to help painters estimate quickly and accurately.

According to Parkhurst, while a good estimate will make you money, and if you’re making money you’re more apt to do a great job, wrong-headed painting quotes can irritate your customers and make your house payment late. Who wants to take all that extra time to do it just right if you’re losing money by the minute? “The most costly mistake is not having a clear understanding of the job spec and leaving out costly items that need to be painted,” she says.

Other common mistakes are:

• Not performing an adhesion test which leaves you unaware of the soundness of the surfaces to be worked on.
• Not accounting for setup time or breakdown time.
• Not accounting for extra time required when using ladders or staging to work on higher elevations.
• Guessing the amount of surface to be worked on leaving you unaware of the true amount of labor or materials required.
• Guessing production rates instead of tracking your own and not using industry standard rates.
• Estimating a job without allowing for profit and overhead.

“It’s critical to find that balance between making a profit and staying competitive,” says Parkhurst. “Underestimating a job leaves a painter covering the cost to complete the job out of his own pocket. Estimating to break even leaves a painter unable to purchase or replace worn out equipment.”

Don’t overestimate either. “Grossly overestimating can lead a painter to lose opportunities by making his bids far less competitive.”

“Our program has allowed me to cut down my own estimating time by 80 percent,” says Parkhurst. “PEP Cloud allows me to customize it so I can bid a whole room with just three measurements or the exterior of a house with just four. It includes labor, materials, and it’s incredibly detailed. I can also instantly adjust my pricing to maintain that balance between making a profit and staying competitive.

If your bid is higher than the competition, you can use the program to show customers why you’re worth it. “Many painters worry about whether or not their bids are too high,” she says. “Programs like PEP Cloud allow painters to produce professional looking proposals that inspire clients to choose the quality painter instead of the lowest bid.”

Estimating the “normal” way

Estimating is where the real risk comes into play in our businesses, says Rick Vandegraft, RW Vandegraft Painting & Decorating (rwvandegraftpainting.com), Normal, Ill. Sure, we can go to the owner or general contractor if the scope of our work changes and ask for additional money, but if, in the judgment of those folks, it is not warranted, then you are stuck with your original price.

“When we bid work and send out painting quotes we need to weigh many factors before we type in our base bid,” says Vandegraft. “How busy are we? When will this new work fall into our schedule? Who is our competition in the bidding process? How timely does the owner or general contractor pay? Does the work need to be performed after normal working hours and cause you to incur overtime or shift differential costs?”

Another must is to read the specifications for any related work. “One division in the specifications that you should consider is wood doors,” he says. “Are they factory finished or do they need to be field finished? Windows and trim fall into the same category. Not too many years ago the painting contractor finished all doors, door frames, windows, and running trim in the field. Now the trend is towards factory finished wood products because of the cost savings.”

Many times individual items to be painted or finished by the painting contractor may show up on drawings in places other than where we are used to seeing them, says Vandegraft. “Look at the civil, structural, mechanical and architectural pages. Architects may include a note on any of these pages that may call out for painting. Examples may include HVAC ducts, structural steel or even a garbage enclosure on an unusual page on the drawings.”

Continue reading “How to do better painting quotes, Part 1” here

By Jerry Rabushka, editor & associate publisher, The Paint Contractor magazine. (Special thanks to Chris Haught of Blogging Painters, bloggingpainters.com)