Winning high-value jobs with more competitive quotes

To win more high-value jobs, you need to have quotes that are fair but still competitive. Setting yourself apart from everyone else is key, and the way you achieve this is by offering the best service at the best price. However, it’s important not to get too carried away with the competition, since you should also use this process to improve your business. 

The more knowledgeable you are about where you and your competitors stand in relation to each other and the market, the more accurate estimations you will make. In turn, you will be better prepared to create more precise quotes that will lure potential clients in. If you can predict what a customer wants, provide seamless customer service, and offer attractive prices, you can stand out and win in this competitive environment.

Identifying and understanding the work that needs to be done is only the first step in providing services that customers need, especially those for which they will pay a high price. On the other hand, from time to time we are forced to step back and look at our world in perspective as we analyze and re-analyze the best ways to help you determine accurate prices. 

For those businesses that specialize in field services like construction, plumbing, painting, gardening, and more, time-tracking software is a great way to help with better pricing strategies. The way that this type of software works is that it tracks your employees working hours whenever they’re in the field. As a business, this data is crucial when analyzing past projects and jobs. The insight you get is very useful in creating project plans, offers, quotes, and forecasts. 

So how exactly can you harness the power of time-tracking to create more competitive quotes that differ you from the crowd? Well, we’ve got that covered.

Using time-tracking tools to estimate quotes

The most accurate quotes contain an extensive review of available services, resources, and internal data. Time-tracking software, which often comes in the form of apps, provides valuable insight into how and at what speed you complete jobs for your clients. If you want to win more high-value jobs, consider your resources like wood with which you start a fire. The more wood you have, the bigger and better the fire. Similarly, the more information and tools you have available, the more accurate your pricing strategies are. And just like a large fire, competitive quotes always stand out.

As we’ve already established that time-tracking tools essentially record how fast and efficient your projects are completed, let’s get into the specifics of how analyzing this data helps you create prices that are competitive but still profitable.

Project completion time

If your employees are tracking their working hours from when they begin working on a job all the way until they finish, then you can estimate how long it takes to complete such a job in general. Let’s say a business that specializes in gardening has worked on a few lawns with an approximate size of 5,000 square feet. If you were able to track the time that each team spent on these lawns, you can identify the average time it takes to complete a project like this. In this example, we could say that the teams working on these projects have finished the job in 4-5 days. 

While other factors can influence the project, the data you gather is invaluable when talking about future jobs with other clients. You aren’t coming up with numbers on the top of your head, but you have concrete reports and timesheets to back up your estimation. This is your best ammunition when providing more competitive quotes to your clients.

Number of employees to finish a project

A good time tracking tool, especially one like Atto, will usually enable you to create teams and groups while simultaneously tracking working hours. Especially for field service businesses, knowing how many employees it takes to complete a certain type of job is key to making better estimations on the cost and duration of projects. 

To put this idea into perspective, let’s look at another example of a painting business. If this business regularly paints private homes, they usually have a set number of employees working on them. With the help of a time tracking tool, each team that works on a home is tracked via the software. At the end of each project, the managers generate timesheets and reports that show how long each employee worked on the project and how many employees each team had. 

With this information, this business can estimate how many employees will be needed for painting a house of a specific size. Does it usually take 6-7 employees to completely repaint the walls of a 3-bedroom home for a week? Then that’s your starting point. For each future project, you’ll know how to make accurate prices based on how many employees you will need to assign.

Which employees are best for the job

One last advantage of using a time tracking tool that we’d like to mention is knowing which employees work best for a specific job. As a business, being able to manage your resources is extremely important for the successful completion of projects and the positive experiences of your clients. Your employees are also a major part of this. 

With the help of time tracking software, managers can identify which employees have specific skill sets and can complete jobs faster than others. From the very first moment, they clock in until they end their shift and clock out, tracking the time that they work on-site provides valuable information on the productivity of your employees.

If a construction business assigns 4 employees to a particular project, usually each of them has a specific job to do. One might be best at laying bricks, and you can see that in the generated time reports of that project where they finished the job faster than someone else did in previous projects. Another employee might be incredibly productive as a rebar ironworker, who is able to assemble structures fast and correctly. When your employees can complete certain jobs faster, efficiently, and are more productive than others, you can assemble a highly skilled team and that will get the job done. You won’t waste time or resources in sending out workers whose skills are better used elsewhere.

As we’ve pretty much established until now, data is the most powerful asset you have when coming up with your prices. The more data that you can get, the more accurate and competitive prices you can present to your potential customers. Atto is here to make your job a lot easier. With automated time reports, accurate time tracking, and many other perks, you will be able to create competitive quotes in no time.

Give Atto a try now!