Most general contractors run a business where they want to make more profit and free up their time so they can work on what they love doing.
The truth is, contractors didn’t sign up to become admin people… they are generally good at construction and love building things that make their customers happy. So it’s no surprise most contractors struggle with the business side of things as they grow their company.
Probably the greatest pain point for any contractor running a construction company has to do with estimates and re-estimates. You can’t close a deal without providing an estimate. But, most people don’t realize that providing an accurate construction estimate often takes the contractor hours. Let’s say that the contractor wants to win one project a month and they have a closing ratio of 20%.
That means they need to give out 5 estimates each month. If they truly care about making sure the customer gets an accurate price and they want to know their profit then each estimate on average will take 2 hrs to put together. That means the contractor has to find an extra 10 hrs a month just to put estimates together to win new projects. But, remember, the contractor is full-time with managing all their other projects. And that’s not to mention having to do re-estimates where the customer changes their mind on the scope of the proposed project.
Estimates and re-estimates can kill a business. That’s why so many contractors are looking for a solution that automates construction estimates while still providing accuracy and customization. The problem is that construction is very complex so building a solution that automates this is very tough.
Some contractors have tried to somewhat automate the estimating process by having excel spreadsheet templates but the problem is that they still need to go through each line item and update it for each project. There really hasn’t been a good answer until recently as one construction technology start-up has reinvented the way construction quotes are built and sent.
CostCertified has figured out a way through their patent-pending software to let contractors send quick, accurate estimates saving them hours of time each month and increasing their profit at the same time. It is a huge breakthrough for any contractor wanting to grow their business since automating their estimates is an important factor for scalability. The innovative start-up is convinced that they’ve figured out a solution that is a game-changer for any contractor in construction. Their quoting engine even works for very complex projects.
The way it works is the contractor is able to group any items that are based on the same unit cost (i.e. sq feet or meters) into an assembly. There’s no limit to how many assemblies you can have within other assemblies and each assembly has its own set of dimensions. Once the contractor sets up their own items and assemblies all they need to do is enter in the required dimensions of the project to get an accurate estimate. So an estimate that would normally take 2 hrs can be done in less than 10 min!
In conclusion, If you’re actively building a construction company then you’ll need to figure out how to streamline and automate a huge part of your estimates and re-estimates. Using innovative technology can help you do this.
