# Need help on Residential Bidding



## Big_Red_Truck (Sep 4, 2008)

I am new to plowing and was wondering how I should go about bidding residential jobs. Most jobs consider driveways and a private drive. I was also wondering if seasonal contracts are a good idea?


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## grandview (Oct 9, 2005)

Always worked for me. Find the ave. time of plowable events then multiply by the per push amount for a seasonal price. But you need to find out what other companies are charging.


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## Neige (Jan 29, 2008)

It really works for me too. Just sent out my renewal letters on Monday. I'm hoping to have 80% respond ok by Oct. 10, 2008. I setting my sights high.


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## JohnnyRoyale (Jun 18, 2006)

Neige;582194 said:


> It really works for me too. Just sent out my renewal letters on Monday. I'm hoping to have 80% respond ok by Oct. 10, 2008. I setting my sights high.


Just curious-How many thousands of driveways do you plow anyways with all that gear?


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## Banger (Sep 12, 2008)

JohnnyRoyale;582195 said:


> Just curious-How many thousands of driveways do you plow anyways with all that gear?


LOL.........


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## grandview (Oct 9, 2005)

JohnnyRoyale;582195 said:


> Just curious-How many thousands of driveways do you plow anyways with all that gear?


I think 3,000.


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## JohnnyRoyale (Jun 18, 2006)

Holy **** Man! Is Paul with you in margaritaville all summer?


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## grandview (Oct 9, 2005)

JohnnyRoyale;583414 said:


> Holy **** Man! Is Paul with you in margaritaville all summer?


He owns it with all the money he makes!


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## Neige (Jan 29, 2008)

Yep we own it all, well the banks doing pretty well by us. Our count last year was 2700 drives.


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## ServiceOnSite (Nov 23, 2006)

wow and im gotta dump outta my residential driveways for more commercial work. 2700?????/ wow good for youwesport


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## curty85 (Jan 27, 2005)

I learned my lesson last year. I charged for the season based on 10 events and did not have a caveat where I could charge for more if it went over 12 or so. Well, we had 20 and most of my accounts are right on my private road and, more or less, neighbors. After some stammering, I broke down and sent a couple of letters out to ask for half of the difference as I had put in a ton of extra time but had not covered myself with the quoted price. Not one customer offered to hook me up. I take my time and do a good job too. This year it will be a contract based on 10 events ($30/$300) with a per event after the 11th (a one event incentive to go seasonal) and a 8" point to define an event. And it will be COD. I would wait half the winter for some cust. to pay me and I let them get away with it because they were my neighbors..... sucker.


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## M&M (Sep 8, 2008)

I only have per push residentials and have thought about giving a seasonal option. We had 17 events last year and our average for the last 5 years has been 10. I would have left a lot of cash on the table if I offered it last year. My prevailing thought on the subject is "If I work I get paid." Skinny some years, made a mint (very small mint) last year. I have never been asked for a seasonal by a customer but if I did it would be based on roughly 13 events. 3 over the 5 year average.


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## blazylscaping (Sep 16, 2008)

im new to this site and i must admit i live in a different world than most of you. i, personally, plow roughly 80 high end residential accounts per event ALL per push. there is no chance in risking it on contracts, we get give or take 35 to 40 pushes in per year and every time we pull up to a driveway we mark the time and they get billed. we shoot to have everyone done no later than 7 worst case. if it continues to snow you keep going and charging. i tell everyone who is new to plowing our purpose is to clear a path to the street and get the customer out or in. never get fancy or they ll get used to that. time is money,always. people dont tend to enjoy gambling, atleast in my area, on contracts and neither do i. you dont need to be roped down by miswording or a misunderstandsing in a contract per push is always easier, dont give yourself away and be reliable. and again i mean no offense i live in n area where we regularly wake up to 4 or 5 inches of snow, i like to start at 2 inches but you never want to leave to early and screw yourself out of sleep when it can or should be a single push night. for us 2 inches is childs play and our customers can handle it i very rarely get compalints. sorry for the rant iv been readin all these post for days and some of the stuff iv been reading would never ever fly in my neck of the woods hahaha


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## BRENTMAN (Oct 13, 2008)

blazylscaping;585421 said:


> im new to this site and i must admit i live in a different world than most of you. i, personally, plow roughly 80 high end residential accounts per event ALL per push. there is no chance in risking it on contracts, we get give or take 35 to 40 pushes in per year and every time we pull up to a driveway we mark the time and they get billed. we shoot to have everyone done no later than 7 worst case. if it continues to snow you keep going and charging. i tell everyone who is new to plowing our purpose is to clear a path to the street and get the customer out or in. never get fancy or they ll get used to that. time is money,always. people dont tend to enjoy gambling, atleast in my area, on contracts and neither do i. you dont need to be roped down by miswording or a misunderstandsing in a contract per push is always easier, dont give yourself away and be reliable. and again i mean no offense i live in n area where we regularly wake up to 4 or 5 inches of snow, i like to start at 2 inches but you never want to leave to early and screw yourself out of sleep when it can or should be a single push night. for us 2 inches is childs play and our customers can handle it i very rarely get compalints. sorry for the rant iv been readin all these post for days and some of the stuff iv been reading would never ever fly in my neck of the woods hahaha


i hear you man im in cleveland as well....westside suburbs....sounds like ur in the east side snow belt? no?


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## kootoomootoo (May 11, 2000)

blazylscaping;585421 said:


> im new to this site and i must admit i live in a different world than most of you. i, personally, plow roughly 80 high end residential accounts per event ALL per push. there is no chance in risking it on contracts, we get give or take 35 to 40 pushes in per year and every time we pull up to a driveway we mark the time and they get billed. we shoot to have everyone done no later than 7 worst case. if it continues to snow you keep going and charging. i tell everyone who is new to plowing our purpose is to clear a path to the street and get the customer out or in. never get fancy or they ll get used to that. time is money,always. people dont tend to enjoy gambling, atleast in my area, on contracts and neither do i. you dont need to be roped down by miswording or a misunderstandsing in a contract per push is always easier, dont give yourself away and be reliable. and again i mean no offense i live in n area where we regularly wake up to 4 or 5 inches of snow, i like to start at 2 inches but you never want to leave to early and screw yourself out of sleep when it can or should be a single push night. for us 2 inches is childs play and our customers can handle it i very rarely get compalints. sorry for the rant iv been readin all these post for days and some of the stuff iv been reading would never ever fly in my neck of the woods hahaha


The thing about Northeast OHIO is that the residents of every city demands either a per push or a seasonal contract depending on where you work. Ironically one of the highest per capita cities.... Hudson has the lowest seasonal rate of anywhere...... $160 a season and you will find mail boxes stuffed with flyers with the same.


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## BRENTMAN (Oct 13, 2008)

kootoomootoo;654575 said:


> The thing about Northeast OHIO is that the residents of every city demands either a per push or a seasonal contract depending on where you work. Ironically one of the highest per capita cities.... Hudson has the lowest seasonal rate of anywhere...... $160 a season and you will find mail boxes stuffed with flyers with the same.


Where are you at in ohio? What do you think cuyahoga seasonals are? westside cleveland that is. I'm about to be in the game and i'd just hate to lowball all you fine fellow plowmen, or over charge my people, but papa needs a new pair 'a shoes. payup


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## MeeksCo (Oct 31, 2008)

Here is a sample of my contract. This is my first year on my own. Though, after reading some of the posts made by other, I am considering changing over to a per-push type of deal for the rest of the season and next year. Who knows?


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## theplowmeister (Nov 14, 2006)

Sooo curty85

If you get like 8 storm do you refund 2 storms worth? If not WHY would a person sign with you? They have only a liability. they pay up front and get screwed if its a light year and have to pay extra if its a bad year (Good year payup). Seams to me the liability is ALL one side.

If your truck started to run ruff and you took it to a shop to get fixed. what would you say about the shop if they said "we have a flat rate of $600 to fix trucks, unless it needs more work then we charge extra. O ya if it only need plugs we KEEP the $600?

JMO


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## BRENTMAN (Oct 13, 2008)

cwpm410;655421 said:


> Here is a sample of my contract. This is my first year on my own. Though, after reading some of the posts made by other, I am considering changing over to a per-push type of deal for the rest of the season and next year. Who knows?


i like your contract, for the most part. What part of cleveland you in?


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## MeeksCo (Oct 31, 2008)

I am in Brookpark. I have a few contracts in the snow belt though. East side is where its at though its hard to drive that way not knowing what all they have since they get so much more then the westside.


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## BRENTMAN (Oct 13, 2008)

cwpm410;656014 said:


> I am in Brookpark. I have a few contracts in the snow belt though. East side is where its at though its hard to drive that way not knowing what all they have since they get so much more then the westside.


rocky river here. Yeah i know, i'm going to stay away from the east side with my little jeep. Maybe one day when i get a big truck and plow i will venture off that way. I plan on dominating the west side for now.


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## BMWSTUD25 (Aug 21, 2008)

somewhere on here I've seen like the exact same contract wording........but I cant knock it because when I made changes to mine this year I put in some of it too!!!


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## MeeksCo (Oct 31, 2008)

BMWSTUD25;656269 said:


> somewhere on here I've seen like the exact same contract wording........but I cant knock it because when I made changes to mine this year I put in some of it too!!!


Yea I took a lot off of another contract I found on here. He did pretty good on the terms of use to save your ass in a seasonal contract. It's almost like having a lawyer write it out. I took a lot out of his and really adjusted my own way of coming off to the customer. His kept on saying like 'act of god'...i dont think my contract needs to be mentioning acts of god. haha. More like you live in Cleveland and you can never expect what the weather is going to be like.


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## BRENTMAN (Oct 13, 2008)

cwpm410;656628 said:


> Yea I took a lot off of another contract I found on here. He did pretty good on the terms of use to save your ass in a seasonal contract. It's almost like having a lawyer write it out. I took a lot out of his and really adjusted my own way of coming off to the customer. His kept on saying like 'act of god'...i dont think my contract needs to be mentioning acts of god. haha. More like you live in Cleveland and you can never expect what the weather is going to be like.


you should let me have a peek at it


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## LockwoodLawn (Oct 28, 2008)

Wow, that contract looks alot like one that was posted here on this site!!! Actually it is identical in verbage nd layout.


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## BRENTMAN (Oct 13, 2008)

is it a good one? where do i see it?


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## MeeksCo (Oct 31, 2008)

Lockwood...thanks for the observation as it IS almost identical to the one that I myself downloaded when I needed help creating a snow/ice management contract...if you can recall...or even find it again on the site like I did, it's probabley dug deep into the threads...you'll see my front page is setup nothing like his. That was my design. 
The terms and disclaimer are very similar. Though I deleted a lot of his wording...and added a lot of my own. 
I obviously run my company different from another company...so I had to add my own terms. 
Doesn't that make sense? I also re-organized it and made it easier to read then his. His kept on mentioning things about GOD and stuff..ha ha...my customers don't need a reference towards god in their contracts. 

The only reason I posted it back on here is so that the guy that created this thread can have a template of what to work with when creating his own contract. 

BRENTMAN...go to the first page and go down about 3/4 of the page...in my post there are two Microsoft word documents you can view/save. You can't miss it. 


Where is the accumulation guys? Maybe Thursday, huh?


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