The eighth lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. Once you have a signed Proposal, conclude with a Contract. The Contract completes the Proposal process and covers things beyond construction. Things like funding, additional documents, property boundaries, time within which the project will be started and terms and conditions. 

The seventh lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. If you’ve ever done a jigsaw puzzle, you know how frustrating it is to get to the last piece…and you can’t find it anywhere. This is the same frustration a customer feels when they don’t have the full picture of what is to be included in their construction project. Giving the customer a complete and thorough proposal gives them the full picture. 

The sixth lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. The next step in the “Blueprint for Building a Better Proposal” is to determine the price for the project. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of communication to provide a clear description of the work to be performed. Now we’ll go through the process of determining consistent and accurate prices. 

The fifth lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. What is a Scope of Work?  A Scope of Work "clearly defines the project requirements, milestones, deliverables, end products, documents and reports that are expected to be provided by the vendor. It helps in the smooth functioning of a project/work contract wherein both parties can avoid ambiguities and situations leading to dispute. It is the first step to building a mutually beneficial collaboration between a vendor and his customer."

The fourth lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. Gathering important information as you begin the proposal process.

The third lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. This is the third post in the Blueprint for Building A Better Proposal series. The first focused on the importance of communication between contractor and customer and the problems that can happen without it. The second listed the foundational pieces of the proposal system. In this post we’ll take an overview of the process and how the different pieces fit together. 

The second lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. Small and medium size construction companies struggle with preparing detailed and arcuate proposals. This problem isn’t restricted only to small companies. It begins there, but only gets worse until they either get big enough to absorb the costs of guessing at project costs or give up trying and quit. Preparing accurate proposals that communicate clearly doesn’t have to be a roll of the dice. 

The first lesson in the Building A Better Buisness Propsal series. Every contractor, at some time, has had an unhappy customer. This is almost always due to poor communication and/or a lack of understanding. It may have been some small misunderstanding or might have been major enough to result in being fired or going to court.