How to bid a job you've never built before

Sooner or later a GC sends you something outside your wheelhouse. Here's how to decide whether to bid it, and how to price it honestly when you do.

You've built tilt walls for ten years. The GC you've worked with on six warehouses just sent you an invitation to bid on a 4-story podium-deck mixed-use. They want a number by Friday.

1. Pass. 2. Bid it like you'd bid a tilt — and pray. 3. Bid it like a job you've never built before — which is what it is.

Option 3 is harder than it sounds, and it's the only one that doesn't either cost you a customer or cost you money.

Is the scope adjacent to what you actually do, or different? Adjacent means the methods, crews, and tools transfer with a learning tax — a structural slab contractor bidding a podium deck is adjacent. Different means you're renting a crew, leasing equipment you've never owned, and learning a code chapter at the same time. Adjacent is worth bidding. Different usually isn't. Do you have somebody to call? A retired superintendent, a buddy at another shop, a manufacturer's rep — somebody who'll spend 30 minutes on the phone telling you what the gotchas are. Without that lifeline, you're guessing. Can you walk away from the price if it comes in ugly? If you need this job to make payroll, you'll convince yourself the number is workable. That's how contractors go under.

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