A friend from out of state faxed
me a bid to review. He was having
his roof redone, and it was the
lowest bid he’d received. The handwritten
estimate was somewhat illegible
and riddled with spelling and
grammatical errors. Plus, it was difficult
to determine what was included
in the work and what was not. The
sobering thing, when I
studied it, was the realization
that this was
what the estimates I
sent out looked like —
15 years ago. In those
days, I was working
long hours at the job
site and didn’t feel I
had time to put much
into the estimates. So I
didn’t, and it showed.
I’ve since learned that
a professional bid presentation
is critical. It
tells the potential