Q&A: What Jobs to Bid

A. I don’t bid jobs that are not referred by a previous client or someone who knows us. And I don’t bid on jobs that have more than three other contractors looking at it. I always do a long phone interview first."

— Sue Cosentini

"When we’re asked to bid, we indicate that we may be interested in meeting the potential client at the construction site to discuss the project. If there’s mutual interest, we will prepare a quotation. But we don’t bid — it’s not in the best interests of the homeowner."

— Bill Gaver

"We are trying to break the habit of detailed bidding. As a design-build firm, we will give preliminary pricing, but if we are not selected to develop the project, we bow out."

— Mike Weiss

"We bid for architects, but only if there are three or fewer bidders, and only if we have the opportunity to meet the owner in person."

— Randy Polombo

"We avoid open bids because, although people often say they are not going to select on price, they do. In their mind, they believe they will get the same project in the end, so they take the lower bid. Most of our work comes from architects and referrals. If they’re getting bids from a company whose work is not comparable to ours, I won’t bid. It takes time and money to bid a job. If you know in advance you won’t be the low bid, and if you don’t have the chance to explain the difference in quality, there’s no sense in bidding."

— Glenn Farrell