Anyone who knows me knows that I am a stickler about professionalism, and there’s a few simple things you can do during your estimate that can add to your professional image. First I suggest that when you are out looking at a client’s space that you make sure to talk only about yourself and your company, and not try and mention other companies, especially if you’re wanting to talk about them in a bad light, that just doesn’t look good for either party. Another thing that I like to do to help my bid stand out is that I will hand deliver them the bid packet the same day that I talk to them; it’s just these little subtle touches of being personable and professional that will make you stick out. 

So what does a standout professional bid packet consist of? Well what I like to hand over is a clean folder with my logo on the outside and my business card displayed on the inside. The content of your packet is going to consist of two separate documents, the estimate document (one page in length) and the bid document (20 pages in length). Now while I say that the estimate document should only be one page, there are situations where you have to itemize so many little things that it can reach two pages so that’s not something you should worry about. As for the bid document I realize that 20 pages sounds incredibly daunting and hard to come up with on scratch, but something I want to mention is that my bid packet wasn’t just that size overnight.

My packet started out as only 4-5 pages but as I ran into more jobs and more situations that required me to add or amend things in my bid packet until it slowly grew into the professional looking 20 page behemoth I have today. How I grew and amended mine was just trying to imagine every single question that a customer might have when I am not there and try to address those in the bid packet so they have convenient and organized answers from my estimate. Just remember that like most things, creating a bid packet is a process and might take a while to flesh out the best version of one for your business, but Rome wasn’t painted in a day, just keep improving it with time and use every job as an opportunity to learn more about what your clients want from a painter. 

Of course painting is an incredibly competitive market and you can’t always be the lowest bidder and run a business that way, but in my experience even if you are 10-20% higher on your bid than the next guy, clients will look at your packet and say “yeah he had a higher bid, but it looks like we are going to pay for a higher quality of work” just based on the bid packet alone. It’s not just about who is the best painter for the job or who’s the cheapest painter for the job, every client will be different and looking for different things, but nearly everyone will gain peace of mind from a professional packet detailing exactly what they can expect. If you are looking to grow your business or become more competitive in the bidding process of jobs it’s my high recommendation that you need a bid packet to help separate you from the rest of the competition and it doesn’t take much effort to make at all. In fact I sell my bid packet now as a word document that you can copy and paste your logos and information into on my store.