sometimes it is difficult to understand what makes one business flourish and another business fail. Consider the two following examples:
Business Idea #1 The owner of a small engine repair shop took over the business from his father. For the most part, days at the shop are spent repairing whatever machines are most in use. In the summer, the business services a lot of riding and push mowers, reworking their engines and sharpening their blades. Weed eaters and edgers also need service throughout the summer. In the winter snowblowers are the most frequent jobs. While some home owners think far enough ahead to get their snowblowers serviced in the summer and their mowers serviced in the winter, the most frequent tasks are in season rush jobs that need to be completed as quickly as possible.
Two years after taking over the business, the younger owner realized that he often had several days and even weeks when he would have little to know business. He decided to search out large customers and offer contract pricing for servicing an entire fleet of mowers for a school district or an full inventory of snowblowers for a medium size contractor who cleared sidewalks for several businesses in town. This idea paid off and now the small business owner has a monthly schedule with several different large customers. He actually travels to their maintenance storage locations and by looking over the small engine inventory decides which ones need to take to his shop for general service or complete engine overhauls. His well researched contract pricing structure works and these larger customers are now a very profitable part of his business.
Business Idea #2 An automobile paint, dent and scratch specialist has had a pretty lucrative business for many years. Through his good work and the recommendation of friends, he is often busy enough that he has to hire a couple of extra people to finish projects on time. He has half of a warehouse and the space is divided into three separate work bays. He has access to additional parking space for cars that arrive before there is room for them in a bay.
This fine craftsman has kept up with the technology of the automobile industry and has a real knack for being able to pull small dents out of the plastic bumpers that most manufacturers have switched to. He is a master at matching paint and has saved many of his customers big charges when they are getting ready to turn in vehicles at the end of a lease. In spite of his craftsmanship, however, he will have weeks, and sometimes months, when he simply cannot find enough jobs. His income drops and he finds himself reconsidering being in business for himself.
Contract Pricing Bids Can Help Businesses of All Sizes
Good business ideas are everywhere. The successful implementation of those ideas, however, is more difficult to find. Contract pricing is a platform that can help both small and large businesses find more revenue options. The secret, of course, is in understanding how to bid for jobs that involve several variables. Proposal writing software can make the pricing task more manageable and accurate.
Even large companies that want to understand government contract pricing will benefit from the standards that a proposal management software package provides. The proposal pricing software, in fact, may be even more important in large government contracts than it is in smaller business settings. Large contracts can mean large profits, but they can also mean large amounts of loss in the event that pricing predictions and speculations are incorrect.
Currently, America has nearly 26.5 million businesses, but only 5.4 million have employees. The rest are owned and operated by a single person. This means that while many of the smallest businesses could still benefit from contract pricing, they do not often have staff to help write the necessary proposals. Did you know, for instance, that the cost to prepare a complex proposal requiring a significant system and a product design for submission to even be considered? A proposal that is valued in the millions requires detailed data that can cost as much as 2% of the contract value. Proposal software can generate this data.