Mastering Job Estimating: Skills and Strategies for Success Part 1

Unlock the secrets to mastering the art and science of job estimating, a vital skill for fresh business owners and up-and-coming estimators eager to make their mark. Imagine transforming the daunting task of pricing jobs into a creative puzzle, where every project is a unique challenge waiting to be solved. This episode promises to guide you through the intricate tapestry of variables shaping project costs, from discerning blueprints and navigating competitive bids to understanding the nuances of government contracts with prevailing wages. Embrace the delicate balance of anxiety that keeps estimators sharp and mistakes at bay, as we reveal the hidden artistry behind crafting estimates that truly meet customer needs.

Venturing into the telecommunications industry? We spotlight the indispensable skills that can set you apart as an estimator. Embrace the meticulous attention to detail required to decode technical symbols and create comprehensive project kits. Strengthen your communication skills to convey complex ideas with clarity, and hone your mathematical prowess for precise calculations. Discover how proficiency with spreadsheets, staying abreast of codes and standards, and managing time under pressure can empower you to excel both independently and in collaboration with teams. As you assess your readiness for this demanding role, we encourage ongoing learning and skill enhancement, ensuring you’re always prepared for the challenges ahead.

Chapters

• 0:00 Estimating Jobs
• 11:52 Essential Skills for Estimating Jobs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

How do I price a job for a customer? Are you starting your own company and now you have to provide pricing? Or were you recently promoted to a new role where estimating will be one of the functions required for that position? That is the subject of today's show. Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, project managers, estimators, ict personnel and even customers.

Speaker 1: 0:43

On this show, we connect at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the podcast platforms, like iTunes or Stitcher, would you mind consider leaving us a rating, hopefully a five-star rating. A rating, hopefully a five-star rating. Those couple little steps helps us take on the algorithm that takes on that nasty algorithm so we can get this message out to more people, so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of more people in our industry.

Speaker 1: 1:18

Thursday nights, 6 pm, eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? There's an After Hours Live show where you get to ask your favorite RCDD any question that you want Estimating, certification, design, career path so make sure that you send us. We're on YouTube, we're on LinkedIn, we're on TikTok, 6pm Thursday nights Eastern Standard Time. Submit your questions to questions at let's Talk Cabling, because questions submitted early always get preference. Finally, while we provide this content free of charge and always will, if you would like to support this channel and have access to additional information, check out their QR code and buy me a cup of coffee. You can even schedule a 15-minute one-on-one Zoom call with me after hours. You can also become a Patreon member, enjoy additional benefits or visit our Amazon link off our webpage and buy some of the products that we recommend. You won't pay extra for those products, but we will get a small stipend, and that helps offset the costs of the show.

Speaker 1: 2:21

As I mentioned, I get questions all the time about how do I price a job? My answer typically is and well, it depends. There are way too many variables that comes with estimating a job. Do you have prints? Do you not have prints? Can you walk the site? Is it a competitive bid scenario? Is it government work? Is it going to require a prevailing wage, and on and on and on. There's a lot of variables when it comes to estimating a project. There's so much to cover that this will be a two-part series. In this first episode, I'm going to discuss what it takes to be a good estimator, and this will apply for you if you are pricing your own projects or if you're applying for the position of estimator. Part two of this episode, we will discuss the mechanics of actually estimating, so make sure you watch the second episode.

Speaker 1: 3:14

I've held many positions in this industry and one of my favorites was that of an estimator. You get to design cable plants and, if you're lucky enough, you get to see your design being installed. It's kind of pretty cool. First off, let's start with the benefits of being an estimator. My favorite part is you get to be creative. There are so many different ways that you can install, support or build out a project. If you like doing jigsaw puzzles, then this is the job for you. You will have to come up with a design that will meet the customer's needs, even when the customer can't even define those needs. More on that later, the first couple times you estimate that you will probably suffer from anxiety.

Speaker 1: 3:56

I would argue that even if you're good at estimating that, if you lose that fear of oh no, what did I miss? Well, then you've become complacent and you're prone to making mistakes. While I'm talking about mistakes and estimating on top of that, let me set the record straight Every estimate that goes out the door has a mistake in it. That's why it's called an estimate. If you are estimating a bill of materials and the consumables, the labor, the other direct costs, the overhead and everything else, the key is to keep those mistakes to a minimum. I once knew of an estimator who forgot to price the backbone portion of a multi-story project. That mistake was valued at that time to be $20,000 to $30,000. If you are a small company, a mistake like that can wipe you out of business.

Speaker 1: 4:47

If you are a dedicated estimator and by that I mean someone who that's all you do you don't manage projects, you don't train. You'll be working on several bids all at once and each of those bids will all be at different phases of the estimating process. For example, one bid might have just come in the door and you still need to read the RFP and figure everything else out in that bid. Another bid you might pass that reading stage and have already created the bill of materials and have already sent it out for pricing and you're just waiting for distribution to price it and send it back to you. Another bid. You might be writing the proposal and you're always working on something different, even within the same day. You must be able to shift gears quickly when you come to a stopping point on one bid and easily pick up another bid. You better be good at writing notes.

Speaker 1: 5:40

A great benefit of being an estimator is that you can literally work on a bid anywhere. This was even before COVID, so now I'd have to imagine that this option has opened up even more. I used to bring home my prints at nights so I could do my rake-offs and count all those drops. I would borrow my kids' highlighters from their backpacks and they would even help me, of course. Now I would have to always double-check their work, because it was my proverbial tuchus that was on the line, not theirs. It was my proverbial tuchus that was on the line, not theirs.

Speaker 1: 6:17

If you're an installer or you're a lead technician, maybe a foreman, maybe even a project manager to some extent, most of your time is going to be spent either on the site or back at the office. Being an estimator gives you a lot of flexibility. As with anything, there are also negatives associated with being an estimator as well, and being an estimator is not excluded from those with bad things. The biggest thing that I can think of and that I hated the most was if anything anything goes wrong with the job, you're the first person thrown under the bus, even when it's not your fault. Now, keep in mind I just told you that every estimate that is sent to a customer has a mistake in it somewhere. But that's not what I'm talking about here. I'll give you a quick example.

Speaker 1: 7:00

I was once a division estimator for a large communications company that had six offices across the eastern seaboard. Our North Carolina estimator was overwhelmed with a bunch of bids, so they asked me if I could help estimate a couple to take the load off that estimator. Of course I said yes, I'm not going to pass up that opportunity. So I took a couple bids off his plate One of those projects that I estimated we won and when the crew went out and installed the cable, they ran out of cable before they ran out of drops. Now, of course they went to the area manager and they told her well, you know the estimator, he didn't give us enough cable. Well, when they brought it into me to discuss, I have to admit my first initial response was oh my God, I made a mistake, because every bid has a mistake in it, especially since it was our North Carolina staff. Those guys were top-notch, so I scheduled a call with them to discuss the project and when we had our meeting I asked them if any of the major cable pathways was different than the ones that I marked on the bid drawings for them for operations. And the lead tech confirmed that, yes, they did use different hallways, but because they identified that the hallways that I'd identified were being used for electrical cables and they were afraid of EMI, and rightfully so. But when I bid the project, I bid the project against electrical drawings which showed the electrical cables being used down another hallway. So the ones that I chose should have been clear. Now, when the crew ran those cables down the other hallways, they used more cable, hence they ran out of cable before they ran out of drops. In this scenario, pro tip number one document, document, document and pro tip number two communicate, communicate, communicate would have resolved this issue in the beginning of the project. This was a legitimate cause for a change order. By the way, all my pro tips are listed on my webpage. Go look it up.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Another challenge of being an estimator is deadlines. Customers will never give you enough time to price a job, it seems. One of my favorite responses to customers when they ask me about the deadline is I would tell them the more time you can give me to estimate this project for you, the better, the more accurate your price is going to be. If you don't give me enough time, I'm going to be heavy on my labor hours, I'm going to be heavy on my materials, I'm going to be heavy on my consumables to help compensate for the quick turnaround of that bid. And then, when you throw in this mix a series of a couple requests for interpretations and the customer has to respond to those RFIs, well, guess what? They never give you extra time because you submitted RFIs.

Speaker 1: 9:39

You still have to be able to function under the deadline, under the pressure, and make as few mistakes to zero as you can possibly get. And lastly, you would think that the customer would supply you with the best drawings, the best RFP, with all the required information in the bid so you can bid it accurately. Nope, I can count on one hand the number of times I was actually impressed by the depth, the accuracy and the completeness of an RFP. Most of the time, our drawings are several revisions behind that of what the GC was, and many times the RFP would have copy and paste issues, where they use an old RFP from another project and then they paste them in the new one incorrectly. It's called proofreading. People Just do it. Those mistakes would cause you to generate a request for interpretation and that slows down the entire bidding process, and then you'd have to track the status of all those RFIs along with everything else on your bid that you're working on. So you're going to be tracking a lot of things. You better be good at multitasking. So hopefully I haven't scared you off as being an estimator and it is very rewarding, but it's also terrorizing at the same time.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Now let's shift the conversation to what skills you're going to need to be to be a good estimator. First, you're going to need to be a great listener. Listen to what the customer is telling you. Listen to what the customer is not telling you. Pay close attention to the words that they choose to use. Words have meanings. If they tell you to go ground a rack instead of bonding a rack, those are generally two different things. And if you're not exactly sure what the customer is telling you. You better have them clarify what they want and do it in a way that it is documented. Remember pro tip number one when you are having the conversation with a customer, either face-to-face or on a phone call, take notes, send a confirming email back to the customer with the understanding of that conversation, what your understanding of that conversation is, and have them respond back if they agree that you have the correct understanding or, if not, tell you what's wrong.

Speaker 1: 11:52

You also have to be detail-oriented. That doesn't mean you have to go down to every nut, and bolt and washer that's needed for that particular project, although your price will be better if you did. An estimating tip is to create kits. For example, if I was putting in a two-post rack, I would create a mounting kit for a concrete floor. I would literally price the drop of the anchors, the bolts, the fender washers and the lock washers and I would come up with a research price of all four of those and make it as a kit for a two-post mounting kit. I would use it on all of my estimates. It also uses up only one line on your spreadsheet instead of using up five lines on your spreadsheet. The tip here is to make sure that you check that price every once in about once a quarter, especially more so nowadays with all the shortages we're having with materials. Speaking of detail oriented, that goes with raking off prints as well. You better know what each symbol means on that print and you better account for all of them.

Speaker 1: 12:54

On top of being a good listener, you also have to be a good writer. You have to write in a manner that your customer will clearly understand what it exactly is that you're saying that you're going to be doing. This sounds simpler than it actually is. This is an art form itself that can take a while to perfect. Templates work great to help speed this process up, but don't be that estimator who suffers from copy and paste errors, like we just talked about with that RFP process Proofread.

Speaker 1: 13:25

You also had better be good with math. You will have to calculate labor parts, markup margin, and this is going to require you to be good at math, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. But I can hear you now, chuck. I'm using a spreadsheet, I'm using estimating software. I don't have to be good with math. Yes, you do, because you still have to be able to look at that end price and know if it seems right or if it seems wrong, because errors happen in spreadsheets all the time. It's got to have the feel that it's right.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Speaking of spreadsheets, you better have more than just a working knowledge of spreadsheets. You better know how to create tables, write formulas, to perform calculations, create if statements to make your job easier and, if you don't get me even started on pivot tables. If you don't have a lot of experience with spreadsheets, you had better take some classes at the local community college or maybe some online classes. Even if your company uses estimating software packages, you are the last safety check on that price before that price goes out the door. Don't become complacent that just because that software says it's that price, if it doesn't feel right, investigate it until either you find the problem or the mistake or the justification as to why that price is the price. Make sure you have a clear understanding of it, because you're probably going to be asked to respond to that. I once did a project when I was an estimator in Orlando for a project in Miami and our per cable price was too high because it included the travel. Again, I can justify it because of the travel.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Here are some other skills that you better be good at as well the ability and drive to work unsupervised. You better work well with teams such as engineers, management, your field staff, your project managers and your technicians, distribution, your local sales reps. You should also be current in codes and the local nuances. You should be current in the standards. You better have the ability to understand and follow standard operating policies and procedures. Understand all the components of an ICT cable plant. Know that every cable needs to have a connector or a patch panel, maybe not necessarily manufacturer specific, but generally understand how site conditions will affect your pricing. You should have a good ability to be able to read and interpret blueprints and engineering design drawings. The ability to identify and meet the customer's needs and expectations and requirements, even, as I said earlier, when they don't know what their needs are. You better be good at time management. You better be able to prioritize and manage multiple tasks and change priorities as necessary, sometimes multiple times within the same day. You should also have the ability to work under pressure and adapt to changing requirements, all with a positive attitude.

Speaker 1: 16:28

So how did you do through this assessment? Do you feel confident that you have what it takes to create an estimate? Do you have what it takes to be an estimator or do you feel that you're short, maybe one or two of the things that we just discussed? If you tell me that you're short on one or two of the things, that tells me that you might make a good estimator. If you tell me you're not, that tells me you're complacent. You better go back and figure it out. Stay tuned to episode two, where I cover the mechanics of estimating. Until next time, remember, knowledge is power.

Speaker 2: 17:03

That's it for this episode of today's podcast. We hope you were able to learn something. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future content. Also, leave a rating so we can help even more people learn about telecommunications. Until next time, be safe.