Bid Coach: How to Efficiently Follow Up with Subcontractors on Invitations to Bid

Challenge:

So, you have sent out your invitations to bid to your subcontractors on a project, now what? Usually general contractors will have to go through the dreaded process of following up with these subcontractors (multiple phone calls and emails) on whether they are going to send a bid proposal, using a ton of your staff’s time. How can you efficiently manage subcontractor responses, organize preconstruction data and prequalify subs for projects? Let’s explore below.

Analysis:

What does your current invitation to bid follow up process look like? Are you using an invitation to bid management software to track subcontractor bid responses and reach out? Or maybe you’re using spreadsheets to log and manage communications. Whatever tools or processes you’re using, determine the precon information or data you think would be valuable to use when following up with your subcontractors.

Solution:

Here are some tips for monitoring subcontractor responses to ensure you receive the most qualified bid proposals in time for Bid Day.

• Use an invitation to bid management software to monitor when subcontractors receive and open bid communications and know when they download project documents. Once you track this type of data, you can prioritize these subs first on your follow up call list, since you already know they’re interested in the project bid.
• Implement an internal rating system on your subs to always showcase and send invitations to bid to the top subs.
• Initially call or follow up with the subs that have been reliable in the past on projects and then proceed with the others you’re less familiar with, so you can ensure more quality proposals.
• Track subcontractor history in either a general contractor software or even a spreadsheet to tag the best subs so you can follow up with them first on future invites.