WINNING TOO MANY JOBS IS A WARNING SIGN.
A subcontractor winning 50 percent of his bids is either the best estimator in the market or the cheapest, and it's almost always the cheapest. A high win rate feels like validation, because the phone keeps ringing, the backlog stays full, and the crew is busy. But if the overhead rate in the estimate is 10 points below reality, every job won at that rate was priced to underperform. The win rate is confirming the problem rather than proving there isn't one.
Nothing about a high win rate is obviously broken, which is why it survives for years. Revenue holds up, the crews stay working, and the owner has a bidding record he is proud of. The only place the cost of it's visible is the closeout margin, and closeout margins are the report almost nobody pulls. So the company keeps buying volume with margin it never priced for, one award at a time, and calls the result a busy year.
WHAT IT MEANS.
A bid win rate is the share of the bids you submit that turn into awarded work, which makes it a price signal before it's a sales figure.
The point of the win rate isn't to be high. It's to tell you where your price sits against the market. A rate that never moves and never loses is a rate that has stopped giving you that information, because a bidder who wins everything has no idea what the market would have paid.
WHAT A 50 PERCENT WIN RATE IS TELLING YOU.
You're winning half of everything you bid
A subcontractor taking 50 percent of the bids he submits is either the best estimator in the market or the cheapest, and it's almost always the cheapest. The market would have accepted a higher price on most of those jobs. That makes the win rate a confirmation of the problem rather than evidence there isn't one.
The margin you left on the table is permanent
Every point of margin given away at bid time is gone for good, and no amount of field performance earns it back later. At 20 percent markup instead of 28 percent, that's 8 points of missed gross margin. On $5M of revenue, 8 points is $400K left on the field every year.
The overhead rate underneath the bid is low
If the overhead rate in the estimate sits 10 points below reality, every job won at that rate was priced to underperform before the crew mobilized. The bids aren't aggressive by choice. They're low because the cost input feeding them is low, and nobody has rebuilt that number in years.
A full backlog reads like validation
The phone keeps ringing, the backlog stays full, and the crew is busy, so the win rate gets treated as proof the pricing is right. That's the trap. Volume at the wrong price is the best disguise a margin problem has, because everything visible from the outside looks like a company winning.
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE IN DOLLARS.
A $5M subcontractor bidding 60 jobs a year at a 50 percent win rate takes 30 jobs, which is competitive volume by any measure. At 20 percent markup instead of 28 percent, the same company gives up 8 points of gross margin. Eight points on $5M of revenue is $400K left on the field every year.
At 25 percent the company wins one bid in four, which is competitive without being the default low bidder. You find out what the market won't accept, which is the only way to learn where your ceiling sits. Jobs won at that rate close out at or near the estimated margin, because overhead is captured correctly in the estimate and the price was set to profit and not to stay busy.
A $4.9M concrete contractor was winning constantly and had never checked closeout margins. He was netting 3.3 percent, which is $161K on nearly $5M of work. Once the overhead rate turned out to be 15 points understated and the bid structure was rebuilt, he priced higher, won less, and netted $1.1M the following year on similar revenue.
HOW TO TELL IF YOUR WIN RATE IS TOO HIGH.
Pull the last 12 months of won bids. For each job, set the markup applied at bid against the actual net margin at closeout. If you're winning at 20 percent markup and closing at 8 percent net before taxes against SPM's 10 percent floor, the shortfall is structural. The bid is confirming that your price sits below what the job costs to execute.
Don't use the overhead rate you've been carrying. Build it from scratch: every overhead cost category in the numerator, projected revenue as the denominator, and field costs correctly excluded. If the rebuilt rate is 3 or more points higher than what your estimates use, you've found the source of the win rate problem. The bids are low because the overhead input is low.
If correcting the overhead rate moves markup from 20 percent to 28 percent, apply 28 percent to the next 10 bids. If the win rate drops from 50 percent to 25 percent, the market was absorbing the difference the whole time. If it holds at 50 percent you have a different problem, because your competitors are cheaper than you were. Either way you're now capturing the margin the market was already offering.
FLAT MONTHLY FEE. NO SURPRISES.
Three tiers, priced by your trailing twelve month revenue. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No hourly billing, no payroll, and no add-ons.
| Last 12 months revenue | Monthly fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $1M | $1,900 to $2,900 |
| $1M to $3.5M | $2,600 to $3,900 |
| $3.5M to $6.5M | $3,800 to $5,700 |
| $6.5M to $9.5M | $5,100 to $7,100 |
| $9.5M to $12.5M | $6,100 to $8,500 |
| $12.5M to $15.5M | $7,400 to $11,000 |
| $15.5M to $18.5M | $9,400 to $13,500 |
| $18.5M+ | Quoted individually |
Range reflects the three tiers below. Which one you're in depends on how much of the work you want off your desk. No payroll. No hidden line items.
You stop guessing.
You get the CFO work. Job costing built against the way you estimate, a 13 week cash forecast, monthly WIP, and a meeting every month that ends in decisions rather than a report.
Your bookkeeper keeps doing the books.
You stop touching the books.
Everything in Core, and we run the bookkeeping and the controllership as well. Nobody in your office is answering coding questions or chasing a reconciliation at month end.
We do the books. No payroll.
Every job shows its margin while it's still running.
Everything in Executive, plus the job costing and WIP platform set up, loaded with your cost codes, and managed for you every month. You never have to learn it.
We do the job costing.
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