Bid Shopping, uuuuuugh! 

Yes, the dreaded practice of bid shopping! Everyone complains about it: General Contractors, Engineers, Architects, Subcontractors, and Vendors. It is running rampant. Everyone is subjected to it. Well, not everyone.

I help many of my clients beat this game, but we're far from 100 percent successful. Selling is about percentages and tipping the scales through developing rapport with the clients. I have little patience for those that give simple lip service to their sales responsibilities. If all you're doing is pricing and estimating while hoping to come up with the best number, you deserve your five percent close rate. Selling is work and there is no magic wand to beat bid shopping. Sorry, I'm good but not that good!

Let's face facts: bid shopping is going nowhere. There always will be unethical people doing unethical practices. Eventually they will pay the price. The minute someone reduces their price, their focus is removed from the customer and is placed on how to cut costs. This promotes poor workmanship or use of inferior materials. But what do you do? How do you fight it? Great questions that have answers. I deal with this issue more than I care to. This really isn't rocket science. Here are some concrete pointers:

1. Negative Sell: I know, this is evil! But truth be told, it's your responsibility. You need to educate your client on what can happen if they go with a low ball bid that will prompt cost cutting. Inform your client on what happens if they select the inferior, and I do mean "inferior", bid package. Tell them without using the competitors name how bad it could be. You owe it to the client to save them huge headaches. The old saying is true, you get what you pay for.

 2. Get in Early: Damn the torpedoes! Get your bid in early so all others are measured against it. This will give you the opportunity to get in discussion with the client throughout the bid process. Trying to wait till the last second to avoid bid shopping is useless. How do you know they won't shop you after bid due date? Are they going to gain some level of ethics after the numbers are in? Get in first and work it. Being last in simply makes you a bottom line number.

3. Develop Relationships: Clients that know and like you will help with key information to potentially win the project. This doesn't mean someone else's price, but information in relation to scope or schedule. Someone will get this opportunity, why not you? This takes time and effort. It is true sales work at its finest.

4. Don't Over Detail: Too much information makes it way too easy to shop a bid. Estimators tend to be focused on the numbers and some price every detail of the project. Why are you making it so easy? Don't list or price every aspect of the job. They wouldn't let you bid if they didn't think you knew what you were doing.

5. Sell Year Round: If you only show interest when in the bid process you gain no favor. Staying in contact with clients when there isn't a project on the table will elevate your position when one does come around. Situational selling is fairly ineffective.

These are only a few of the tactics that you can incorporate into your selling plan. The big issue is to stop whining about bid shopping and start an active sales effort. However, another is to not shop your own suppliers! Some people can easily figure out what a bid shopper is thinking by looking at their own behavior in buying situations. Integrity is a rare commodity.

Bid shopping violates every business ethic. It gives short term satisfaction, but can damage the shopper's reputation in the market. Eventually, they will not get the best numbers and end up working with inferior suppliers. Practicing good sales work and establishing strong relationship make it very difficult for someone to act unethically with you. Will all clients follow this pattern? No, but more will than not.

Get out with your clients. Find out what drives them. Discover their buying hot buttons and hit them. If this is all new to you, you'd better get started. Get the help needed to set a sales strategy. Choose your targets well and interview your current clients. Find out what they do and do not like about you. Adjust accordingly. There is more business out there than you may think, even in this economy. Or are you going to give up to the evil bid shoppers?

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